Pepe was furious at full time following Portugal’s shock defeat to Morocco and gave a crazy interview where he claimed that “FIFA can give the title to Argentina.”
Portugal were the heavy favourites but still lost 1-0 and no matter how hard they tried to breach the oppositions defence they never managed to get over the line.
There was an additional eight minutes added time, and a Morocco substitute was sent off after successive yellow cards in what could have been deemed as very harsh, but Pepe insists that the referee was biased towards opposition.
Last night Argentina beat Netherlands on penalties but the referee gave a record amount of yellow cards and was very inconsistent in his decisions, something which Pepe eludes to here.
He insisted that FIFA “can now give the title to Argentina” as he hit out at Tello.
“It is unacceptable that an Argentine referee administered the game today after what happened yesterday,” Pepe said.
“With Messi complaining and Argentina talking. I’m not saying it’s conditional, but what did we play in the second half? Anything.
“Their goalkeeper was always stopped, only added eight minutes of injury time After what I saw today, they can now give the title to Argentina.”
That’s a pretty serious claim to make, although this is undoubtedly the 39-year-olds last tournament and he might be thinking the he doesn’t have much to lose.
Another factor might be that he feels guilty after missing a golden opportunity to win the game for his country right at the death when he glanced his header wide.
However, Morocco held on and they became the first African nation to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament.
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