Argentina’s debut at the Olympic Games in Paris: Defeat 2×1
Argentina’s debut at the Olympic Games in Paris, had to settle for a defeat against Morocco.
Argentina’s debut at the Olympic Games in Paris was a defeat, in a surreal resolution.
Two hours after Cristian Medina’s goal in the 116th minute seemed to make it 2-2, after it seemed to be over, it was disallowed for offside and two hours later the remaining time was completed to make it 1-2.
Argentina’s debut at the Olympic Games in Paris could not have been worse, and full of much contradiction due to the performance of the VAR.
The African team was leading 2-0 with goals by Soufiane Rahimi and before Giuliano Simeone scored for the South American team at 23 minutes of the second half.
READ MORE: MEANING OF THE MASCOT OF THE PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES
Argentina’s debut at the Paris Olympics: Opaque
When the clock reached the 90th minute, referee Frida Klarlund indicated 15 minutes of stoppage time.
The number was reminiscent of what happened in other FIFA tournaments (especially the Qatar 2022 World Cup), something that did not happen in the European Championship and the Copa America.
According to Opta, the total duration of the match was 110 minutes and 29 seconds, but the ball was in play for only 54 minutes and 27 seconds.
For comparison, the average at Euro 2024 was almost 60 minutes.
In the second half the net playing time was even less: 26 minutes and 5 seconds, even though the stopwatch reached 65 minutes.
The Boca Juniors midfielder seemed to save a point at the buzzer, at the end of an eternal prolongation.
The goal prompted a group of Moroccan fans, who were in the majority at the Saint Etienne stadium, to invade the pitch and Swedish referee Glenn Nyberg sent both teams to the dressing rooms.
Just when it looked like the game was over in Argentina’s debut at the Paris Olympics, confusion arose.
The VAR attested that there had been offside in the crazy play that ended with Medina’s goal.
Finally it was decided that the surrealism had its culmination with the resumption of the match with 1-2 on the scoreboard, behind closed doors, without public in the stands of the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium.
Argentina tried, attacked as much as they could, but were not rewarded and ended up losing. It was an unbelievable culmination to a black day for the world of sport.
Such is the nature of the Olympic soccer tournament (eight games are played in eight cities in the host country in just eight hours) that it is difficult to get detailed information, even more so when a stadium has been cleared to avoid further crowds.
While the perception indicates that it took VAR 90 minutes to disallow the goal, it would have been ruled out almost instantly in the course of a routine check through FIFA’s semi-automatic offside technology.
