Colombia *really* aren’t taking their World Cup exit at the hands of England very well, are they?
Eventually beaten on penalties on Tuesday night, it’s become quite clear in the time since that the South American nation – and Diego Maradona – believe they were on the wrong end of some awful decisions during the game.
Conveniently ignoring a couple of big decisions that did go their way during the game, and the shameless shithousery showed by some of their players, manager Jose Pekerman made it known he felt his side had been wronged by American referee Mark Geiger.
Clearly, this a view shared by many Colombians, as is shown by the sheer number of people responding to a petition calling for the game to be replayed.
At the time of writing, nearly a quarter of a million people have signed the petition, set up by Juan Diego GarcÃa, a law student. He claims there were two controversial moments in the game where VAR reviews should have been used.
Firstly, he points to the ‘nonexistent foul’ on Harry Kane which saw the Tottenham striker awarded a penalty from which he opened the scoring. He also points to ‘Carlos Bacca’s legitimate goal’, where the referee stopped play in the belief that there were two balls on the pitch.
He doesn’t mention the referee’s failure to send off Wilmar Barrios for his headbutt on Jordan Henderson, or the potential second penalty England might have had for what appeared to be a foul on Jesse Lingard.
As of yet, it doesn’t seem Gianni Infantino and the rest of the folk at FIFA have any plans to replay the game. Obviously.
Instead, Gareth Southgate’s side will press on with their preparations for Saturday’s quarter-final against Sweden. Should they win that, they’ll take on the winners of Croatia and Russia for a place in the World Cup final. Petitions pending, of course…
