Argentina coach Diego Maradona was left baffled by the reaction of the referee to Brazil striker Luis Fabiano.
Maradona confused by reaction to handball
Argentina coach Diego Maradona was left baffled by the reaction of the referee to Brazil striker Luis Fabiano's second goal against Ivory Coast.
The five-times World Cup winners booked their place in the last 16 of the competition with Sunday night's 3-1 success over the African outfit, with Sevilla forward Fabiano bagging a brace.
However, replays showed that there were two handballs from the frontman in the run-up to his second strike which put Dunga's side 2-0 up, with French referee Stephane Lannoy even seen discussing the incident with the player as they jogged back to the halfway line.
And Maradona, whose infamous 'Hand of God' goal helped Argentina dump England out of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico at the quarter-final stage on their way to winning the tournament, did not understand why the official allowed the goal to stand.
"The tragicomic thing is the smile of the referee afterwards, I didn't see the referee laugh after I scored the goal against England," said Maradona.
"The referee (in 1986) didn't smile, he had more doubts than anybody, he looked at the linesman, because at that time there was no fourth official, he looked at the crowd to see if they could give him a hand...
"Yesterday the referee was laughing. If you saw the handball, why didn't you penalise it? And it was in a very crucial point of the match, with Brazil taking a 2-0 lead."
Kung-fu
Fabiano, who had protested his innocence at the time, admitted after the match that he had handled, and even borrowed the phrase coined by Maradona 24 years ago.
But the Argentina coach replied, laughing; "No, this one hit his arm. It's pretty obvious, the ball even hit his arm twice."
And Maradona believes greater emphasis should be placed on fair play at this summer's tournament in South Africa in a bid to protect the flair players who have come in for some rough treatment.
The 49-year-old's side won both their opening two matches, beating Nigeria 1-0 and South Korea 4-1, but he still feels the officials need to be doing more.
"We all want fair play, I understand that the referee may make a mistake but when (Argentina captain Javier) Mascherano, for instance, gets a card and the Korean player kicks out and gets nothing, no card, then sometimes as a coach you have doubts," he said.
"This is football and not kung-fu fighting. So I don't think yet we've seen the fair play we want to see."
