Did referee Slavko Vinčić favor Argentina in their World Cup loss against Saudi Arabia?

In one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history, Saudi Arabia beat Argentina in their opening game. Argentina is one of the favorites to win the tournament while Saudi Arabia had never even won an opening game in the tournament before (this was their sixth World Cup).

No one expected this, but Saudi Arabia were actually one of the best teams in the Asian qualifiers, where they won Group B. They were clearly underrated underdogs and they came through with a 2-1 upset. Although Argentina lost, many people are concerned that the referee favored Argentina in the opening game.

Who was the referee for Argentina vs Saudi Arabia?

The referee for the Argentina vs Saudi Arabia opening game was Slovenian Slavko Vinčić. His assistants, both Slovenian as well, were Tomaz Klancnik and Andrew Kovacic. The fourth official was Senegalese Maguette Ndiaye. Vinčić has been listed by FIFA since 2010 and this was his first World Cup game to officiate. He refereed four group stage matches in the UEFA Champions League, giving 19 yellow cards in total. He was also the referee in a Saudi Pro League match between Al-Adalah FC and Al-Itthiad Club in August, when he gave three yellow cards.

Here is a quick recap of how the stunner game went. Lionel Messi led Argentina to the first goal early on after a foul on Saudi Arabia, given by Vinčić, putting them in the lead, 1-0. That was criticized already as an almost identical incident occurred in the England-Iran game on Monday and was not called. The ball was cleared, but Vinčić was called to the VAR monitor and after a short look at the penalty appeal, he changed his call and awarded the penalty to Argentina.

Argentina kept the lead even after five minutes were added to the first half. After the half, though, Saudi Arabia came back in ready to attack. They tied the game in the 48th minute with a goal by Sales Al-Shehri. Five minutes later, Salem Aldawsari hit another in the top left corner to give Saudi Arabia the 2-1 lead, which they maintained until the end.

Argentina had several chances. Messi was denied a goal as Saudia Arabia’s goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais made the save, although he was later given a yellow card in the 90th minute for remonstrating with the referee.

Still though, there were three goals, one by Messi and two by Lauturo Martinez, which did not count due to offsides calls.

The game went in to quite a bit of extra time due to several stoppages throughout. Eight minutes of extra time in the second half took the game to a total of 104 minutes that left many wondering where exactly all that time came from. The time stopped for an injury, but seemingly only between around four minutes, while six were added for it. Not only that, but the game went on for quite a while before said injury was even noticed by the referee.

The nearly 14 minutes of extra time added to the end of the game made the fifth of the five longest periods of stoppage time for a single half of soccer at the World Cup, with the previous four happening since Monday when the 2022 World Cup began in Qatar.

There are always going to be questionable calls, but the extra time gave Argentina plenty of time to make a comeback, so the chance was there. The question is whether or not it was a chance that was given fairly or unfairly by the referee? Indeed, FIFA wanted the games to go into extra time.

“The purpose is to offer more show to those watching the World Cup,” FIFA referees committee chairman Pierluigi Collina said before the tournament began. “Celebrations may last one, one and a half minutes. It’s easy to lose three, four, five minutes only for goal celebrations and this has to be considered and compensated at the end.”

In the end, the extra time did nothing to help Argentina, who could not get back to the net. The game ended with Saudi Arabia, who had only had one victory in the last 28 years, stealing the win from a highly-favored Argentina team.