Along with the entire Argentine nation, its football legend Lionel Messi was also left stunned after a bizarre series of events denied the country’s national Under-23 team a last-minute equaliser in their opening fixture against Morocco at the Olympic Games.
Although the Argentina Under-23 team entered the tournament as one of the favourites, they were beaten 2-1 by Morocco in their first match in France on Wednesday.
Reacting to the devastating loss, Messi, 37, posted the word “Insólito”, which translates to “unbelievable” in English, on his Instagram story, AS reported.
The former Barcelona star was stunned by the chaos in the game and with good reason.
After falling behind to two Moroccan goals, a second half strike from Giuliano Simeone put Javier Mascherano’s side back in contention and they looked to have clinched a draw later on.
Match officials signalled that there would be 15 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the second half.
Deep into stoppage time Cristian Medina headed home to level for Argentina.
A section of the considerable Moroccan contingent in Saint-Etienne stormed onto the field in protest, forcing both sets of players back to the locker rooms.
The game was put on hold amid chaos while the VAR decided whether to award Medina’s goal.
After a lengthy check, Medina was adjudged to have been in an offside position and the goal was ruled out.
Incredibly, 92 minutes after the players retreated to their locker rooms, the game was restarted in front of empty stands.
A further three minutes was played without major incident before the referee finally ended this marathon match.
