The Italian referee Daniele Orsato "guilty" for the defeat suffered by Croatia against Argentina in the semifinal of the soccer World Cup.
The accusation, which comes from Luka Modric, was immediately relaunched by the Croatian media.
"We were controlling the game well - the red and white captain said after - when the key episode arrived.
There was a corner for us, which the referee didn't give, and the following play was the penalty, which was absolutely not there, because it was Alvarez who sought contact with
our goalkeeper Livakovic and not vice versa.
I wonder how such a penalty can be whistled.
But now it's happened and we can't do anything about it anymore". "I usually don't talk about referees," he added, "but it's impossible not to.
Orsato is one of the worst I know and I haven't said it since today, he's a disaster.
Despite that, congratulations Argentina."
"Orsato is one of the worst, a catastrophe! The rigor has destroyed us!"
Zagreb's Vecernji list newspaper echoed Modric, adding: "The Croatian team lost against Argentina 3-0, but who knows what would have happened if the Italian referee Daniele Orsato hadn't made a serious mistake in deciding the rigor for the gauchos".
The newspaper Jutarnji list, also from Zagreb, takes it out on Fifa "which favors Messi, named man of the match, even if Álvarez scored two goals" and writes: "We will ask ourselves a thousand times if it should have ended like this, if the worst concentration he had to be there right in the semifinal, if Orsato was our executioner by chance like his compatriot Massimiliano Irrati in Moscow in the 2018 World Cup.
"Nothing was on our side. Neither the circumstances, nor, unfortunately, the game which was the worst of this tournament, because whatever it was, we conceded goals that we shouldn't have conceded and we have to admit it" concludes Jutarnji.
