Luka Modric called Italian official Daniele Orsato "one of the worst" referees after he presided over Croatia's World Cup exit at the hands of Argentina in Tuesday night's semi-final.
The South Americans ran out 3-0 winners to book a spot in a sixth World Cup final, but Croatia were incensed at the award of the penalty for their first goal after goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic was judged to have brought down forward Julian Alvarez following an Argentina break which Croatia insist should have started with them being awarded a corner.
Livakovic clearly caught Alvarez, but Croatia argued that he had stopped his movement toward the Manchester City forward by the time the No.9 ran into him, a view shared by ITV Sport pundits Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Ian Wright.
"Argentina was a fair winner of the game, they were better, they deserved to win, but these things have to be mentioned, I generally don't do them, but today they have to be done," said Modric via Argentinean outlet TyC Sports.
"I don't like to talk about referees... but this is one of the worst. I don't have a good memory of him, he's a disaster. For me it wasn't a penalty.
"Despite this, I don't want to detract from Argentina. The penalty killed us. We have to recover for third place and win that game."
Modric's view on Orsato, who he would have come across several times in the Champions League, was shared by his teammate Mateo Kovacic.
The Chelsea midfielder said: "We lost by a penalty, but it is what it is. Both situations seem incredible to me, first that he did not give a corner and then that.
"I never talk about the referees, they are capital errors and it cost us defeat."
Modric and Kovacic's displeasure was backed up by their manager Zlatko Dalic, who also hit out at the nature of the first goal.
“We played well for half an hour but we were not specific in our actions. We conceded a goal which was very suspicious," he said.
“First the situation for the corner — according to the reaction of my players, the referee didn’t call it. Then the situation with the penalty. It was a little bit too cheap and too easy, to be honest. Then we tried to go back and we conceded a second goal. We had ball possession but we made no specific opportunities.”
“They had control over us and the ball possession was not in our hands. We had a corner that was called by the referee and then a counter-attack where our goalkeeper did what he did and these new rules…”
Despite the loss, Dalic praised the display of Lionel Messi, who scored the opener from the spot and also teed up Alvarez's second.
“Well, not much needs to be said about Messi’s qualities. In the past 15 years he’s probably the best player in the world," he said.
“He was good and dangerous and makes a difference in the Argentina team. He has the explosivity and technique at a very high performance and it’s the true Messi we expected to see.”
He continued: “Argentina has an excellent team and Messi being the player of such quality and motive and to have 50,000 supporters… they play as they best find it fit. They had four midfielders and closed the middle. Messi can take one step further and make the difference, which he did for the third goal.”
