Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Rojo lifts Argentina off group stage trap door
minute, he knocked the ball into space before firing home Argentina’s opener with his unfavoured right foot. Though Messi may have been upstaged by Rojo in the end, coach Jorge Sampaoli was delighted to see his star man come to the fore.
“The most important thing for Leo, I think, is his human side – it’s amazing,” he said. “He’s a person who feels, who cries, who suffers, who’s happy when Argentina wins.
“Many people say Leo does not enjoy playing for Argentina but I don’t agree. He enjoys it and suffers like all the other players.. That makes him even bigger.”
In the end it was the Nigerian players who were left suffering. The Super Eagles felt Rojo should have been punished for handball in the box just prior to his winner, with referee Cuneyt Cakir ignoring their protests after consulting a video replay.
“I don’t understand how that wasn’t a penalty,” said Nigeria skipper John Obi Mikel.
“For me, it was a clear handball. If you look at the game yesterday, Portugal, that wasn’t even close to this. He headed the ball and it hit his hand. Maybe the referee has given the first penalty and he doesn’t want to give the second one but a penalty is a penalty.
“We’ve seen it again i n t he dressing-room, it was a clear penalty. There wasn’t any way the referee could not give that. He looked at the VAR. I asked him, ‘ Did it hit the hand?’ He said ‘Yes’. But why it’s not a penalty . . . he said he doesn’t know.”