Dramatic: Argentina loses to Morocco 1-2 in men’s Olympic football
France, Argentina opened the 2024 Olympic men's football tournament with a 1-2 loss to Morocco in a dramatic 15-minute stoppage time game with a 2-hour break. Men's football, Olympic Games 2024, interesting pair, Group B, first match at Stade Geoffroy-Guichar, Argentina, two-time champion, meets Morocco. It appears that in this game, Morocco in red uniforms turned to lead first in the 45+2 minute when Oussama El Azzouzi crossed the ball to Sufyan Rahimi who shot in, giving the team a 1-0 lead. In the second half, the Albiceleste team fell behind again when they conceded a penalty in the 52nd minute when left-back Julio Soler fouled Elias Acomas, before Sufyan Rahimi converted to give Morocco a 2-0 lead. However, in the 68th minute, Argentina scored a goal to make it 1-2 from substitute Giuliano Simeone, the son of Diego Simeone. In this game, injury time was extended to the 90+16th minute. Argentina attacked and in the last moment, Cristian Medina headed the ball into a goal, making the team tie 2-2, causi ng the Moroccan fans to be dissatisfied and throw bottles onto the field. In addition, some fans ran onto the field because they were dissatisfied with the injury time being too long, causing the referee to temporarily suspend the match. However, some people thought that the match had ended with this score. Some websites reported a draw. The game was stopped for about 2 hours. After the situation calmed down, Swedish referee Glenn Nybeer called for both teams to continue playing for another 3 minutes. During that time, VAR disallowed Argentina's equalizer because it was offside, making the score 2-1 Morocco. In the end, Morocco defeated Argentina in a dramatic 2-1 victory, successfully collecting 3 points. After the game, Javier Mascherano, coach of the Albiceleste under-23 team, gave an interview saying that he had never encountered anything like this in his football career. The football competition organizers worked without standards, while many parties widely criticized the match. Lionel Messi, captain o f the senior Argentina national team, posted on his Instagram story saying, "Strange." In Group A, the host, the French national team, the one-time champion, played against the United States. The first half was still tied 0-0. In the second half, in the 61st minute, Alexandre Lacazette, the striker and captain of Les Bleus, shot from a distance to give the home team a 1-0 lead. Then in the 69th minute, Michael Olise, the French star, curved the ball into the far post to give the team a 2-0 lead before Loik Bade headed in the third goal in the 85th minute. France had a beautiful start to the field, defeating the United States 3-0. Another interesting pair, the first match of Group C, Spain, the one-time champion, took the field to meet Uzbekistan. In this game, Spain took the lead 1-0 from Marc Pubil in the 29th minute. Uzbekistan tied the game at 1-1 in stoppage time of the first half from a penalty kick by Eldor Shomurodov in the 45+3rd minute. In the second half, Spain unfortunately missed the opportunity to take the lead when they were awarded a penalty kick in the 59th minute, but Sergio Gomez missed the shot. However, in the 62nd minute, Gomez made up for it by scoring the winning goal, giving Spain a 2-1 win and 3 points. Other men's football results, first match, Group A, Guinea lost to New Zealand 1-2, Group B, Iraq won over Ukraine 2-1, Group C, Egypt drew with Dominican Republic 0-0, Group D, Japan won over Paraguay 5-0 and Mali drew with Israel 1-1. Source: Thai News Agency