France midfielder Adrien Rabiot has claimed that "justice" was done by Harry Kane missing his late penalty for England.
The Three Lions captain stunningly blazed his effort over the bar which allowed the French to edge through to the World Cup semi-final on the back of a narrow 2-1 win. Having already netted one spot-kick earlier in the second half, Kane stepped up for his second attempt at equalising after teammate Mason Mount was clumsily shoved over by Les Blues left-back Theo Hernandez, only to miss.
But unlike referee Wilton Sampaio, who was instructed by VAR to check his original call of no penalty, Rabiot rather unsurprisingly reckons that Hernandez's rash challenge wasn't enough for a penalty. "First of all, I'm not sure that it's really a foul. We've seen hundreds of actions like that that aren't given," the French midfielder declared post-match.
"I thought the refereeing was a bit borderline at times tonight, but we won't linger on that. Of course, when he missed, we were happy, it was justice because there was no penalty. But sometimes you also need that bit of luck, of success. We had it tonight, everything came together. We are really proud to reach the semi-final in this way."
France will now face the tournament's dark horses, Morocco, in their semi-final on Wednesday, with the winner taking on either Argentina or Croatia at the Lusail Stadium in next Sunday's final. Rabiot is relishing the tie, as France bid to become the first men's side to retain the World Cup since Brazil did so in 1962.
"It will be a historic match," the 27-year-old Juventus playmaker affirmed. "We are aware that if they are here, it's because they have deserved it. We've watched the games, they have very good players. They also know how to suffer, how to take it on themselves.
"We won't underestimate anyone, just as we have done up to now. And the important thing is also to recover well because we have played a lot of games and we're starting to feel the fatigue."
His message was echoed by teammate Aurelien Tchouameni, who opened the scoring for Didier Deschamps ' side in the 17th minute before Olivier Giroud grabbed the winner. "It is going to be wonderful," the Real Madrid star told beIN Sports, via GFNF. "We know the histories of these two nations, so it will be a great match."
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Tchouameni added: "We need to continue like this, and keep measuring up to the competition. We feel little by little that there is a real group forming here. We suffered, but this is the World Cup.
"We played a very, very good English side, that caused us problems. Aside from that, we were able to hang tough, score towards the end and progress.
"Every time we come back from a match we are received in our hotel, there is a little celebration from the staff, it is cool, we hope for two more after this. Will we be champions? We need to win the next game first, prepare well for this nice Morocco team, and then we can think about that."
