Uruguay eliminated Ghana from the 2022 World Cupwith a 2-0 victory, bringing back painful memories of their dramatic quarterfinal battle against the Black Stars in South Africa 12 years before. Andre Ayew, like Asamoah Gyan in that classic World Cup matchup, squandered a penalty kick that would have given Ghana a 1-0 lead.
Giorgian de Arrascaeta scored twice in the first half to lead La Celeste to victory, but a surprising 2-1 victory by South Korea against Portugal meant that the latter advanced to the round of 16 instead. Five minutes before the game was set to conclude, word spread through the crowd that South Korea had scored the game-winning goal, and Uruguay crashed out ofQatar 2022.
The fact that Luis Suarez, the antagonist from the 2010 matchup, was brought to tears at the final whistle when Diego Alonso’s players lost their cool and surrounded and manhandled the referees as they went off the field may have been a tiny consolation for the African nation. Edinson Cavani was even seen knocking over a VAR monitor as the rest of the team challenged Siebert over his decision to not award a penalty kick in the dying minutes.
Qatar 2022: Edinson Cavani’s latest World Cup rant calls for the referee’s immediate jail time
In light of this, FIFA have launched disciplinary procedures against many Uruguayan players, including the striker.For ‘offensive behavior and infringement of the rules of fair play‘,FIFA haveopened disciplinary investigations against Edinson Cavani, Jose Maria Gimenez, Diego Godin, and Fernando Muslera.
Cavani had his own penalty appeal denied, and when his team was eliminated he was seen striking a video assistant referee (VAR) screen. The Valencia striker and his teammate, Jose Maria Gimenez, received yellow cards from the referee for their protestations after the game, with Gimenez seeming to elbow a FIFA official during the commotion.
Meanwhile, the former Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United star has not let the issue go, with his most recent remarks to El Largueroon Cadena Ser detailing his ongoing dissatisfaction: “If they sanction me for hitting the VAR, they have to put the referee in prison for taking us out of the World Cup, because they are errors that, with the VAR, all the cameras and all the referees who are behind, can not happen.
“I’m worried (about a possible sanction). Yes, of course, it worries me, because it would be out of the competitions with my teammates, my club, and my national team.But these are things that happen. But they have to get a little on the footballer’s side, not only the referee and others, on the footballer’s side to see what has happened, why it has happened, and why things have happened the way they have.
“It’s okay that we have to maintain behavior and so on, but we are human beings, and when sometimes the things that happen [on the pitch] are lived with passion and you work so hard to get there and compete, and this and the other… It may also be that the reaction of a footballer inside can be, not justified, but a little more forgiven.”
