‘The Game is Rigged!’ – Egypt’s Ziko blasts match referee after dramatic Argentina comeback

Egyptian players were disappointed and felt let down by a few refereeing decisions that eventually turned the game in Argentina’s favour, which pulled off perhaps their best win of the tournament in Atlanta on Tuesday (Jul 7). Trailing 0-2 with close to 20 minutes remaining, Argentina, inspired by Lionel Messi's leadership and a crucial goal, made a stunning comeback and smashed three goals inside 14 minutes to knock Egypt out of the World Cup. Mostafa Ziko, Egypt’s striker, who scored the second goal in the 67th minute, blasted the match referee for his alleged bias towards the defending champions, saying, ‘This game is rigged.’

Egypt opened the scoring in the first half through a header by Yasser Ibrahim, with Argentina failing to find the back of the net. Early in the second half, Mohamed Salah’s crisp pass saw Ziko convert it into a goal, with Egypt leading 2-0. While the players and the fans erupted in joy, potentially sniffing the biggest upset of the tournament thus far, a VAR review disallowed the goal for a foul that occurred nearly 100 yards from the scoring position.

The match referee rushed to check the replays and later cancelled Egypt’s second goal and perhaps their biggest chance of reaching the World Cup quarterfinal for the first time. Even though the African nation scored soon after through Ziko’s precision, they failed to stop Argentina from making the mother of all comebacks.

Highly upset with the referee’s call, doubled up with another decision to overlook a foul on an Egyptian player late in the stoppage time, just before Argentina made it 3-2, Ziko said, “Congratulations to Argentina on the World Cup; the tournament was rigged; they didn’t need anything else.”

“The referee was unfair, unfair, unfair, unfair.”

FIFA World Cup 2026 Live on Zee5 Photograph: (WION)

Egypt’s head coach Hossam Hassan, who also received a yellow card, ripped the referee for his decisions.

“I will say what’s on my mind regardless of the consequence; this was clearly a rigged match, and the whole world saw it”

“And I want to say one more thing, if they want them [Argentina] to win so bad, why call everyone to come and participate?” he said after the match that knocked Egypt out of the World Cup.

Meanwhile, Messi’s Argentina has qualified for the Last 8 of this edition in North America and will face the winner of the Switzerland-Colombia fixture in the quarterfinal.