Mario Kempes, the Argentine national team legend, denied that his team had received assistance from the referees to overcome the Egypt obstacle in the 2026 World Cup tournament.
The Argentine national team defeated its counterpart, Egypt, by three goals to two, in the match that brought the two teams together last Tuesday evening, at Atlanta Stadium, for the round of 16 competitions of the 2026 World Cup tournament.
The Egypt vs Argentina match witnessed several controversial refereeing decisions, most of which favored the Tango dancers, as the team obtained a penalty kick in the first half, along with the cancellation of a goal for Egypt in the second half, while another similar one was awarded in favor of Lionel Messi's teammates.
Mario Kempes said in statements reported by the Argentine TYC network: "The losers will always continue to cry.. and whoever thinks that the World Cup is gifted to us must be very naive."
He added: "I believe that Argentina possesses enough footballing strength to decide its matches by itself, and with the presence of the video assistant referee technology, and all this number of cameras broadcasting the matches, it is very difficult for penalty kicks to be awarded to you as a gift or for a match to be gifted to you."
He continued: "The whole world is watching what is happening, and for me, the idea of gifting the World Cup to a certain team is something so hard to believe that I will never believe it."
He completed: "I was surprised by the way the opponent played against Argentina.. No one will face Argentina with open rivalry, but these are matches that require a lot of thinking, good mental preparation, and not making mistakes."
Mario Kempes concluded his statements by saying: "The opportunities that the opponents get are few, but they exploit them by scoring, and this makes you think that there are mistakes, but they were recoverable as we saw."
The United States of America is hosting the 2026 World Cup, along with Mexico and Canada, with the participation of 48 teams, for the first time in the tournament's history, during the period from last June 11 to July 19 of the current year.
