Netherlands striker Arjen Robben on Sunday apologized for diving in a bid to get a penalty against Mexico in their FIFA World Cup last-16 clash, but insisted he did not fake the foul that led to his side’s winning penalty-kick.
Mexico coach Miguel Herrera launched a furious attack on Portuguese referee Pedro Proenca for giving the injury-time penalty that Jan-Klaas Huntelaar hit home to seal the Oranje’s 2-1 comeback victory.
Robben was at the center of both incidents at the Estadio Castelao in Fortaleza, Brazil.
Photo: AFP
“I really have to say and at the same time apologize in the first half I took a dive and I really shouldn’t do that,” Robben told Dutch broadcaster NOS as he celebrated the victory. “That was a stupid, stupid thing to do, but sometimes you’re expecting to be struck and then they pull their leg away at the last minute.”
However, the Bayern Munich striker insisted that Proenca was right to point to the penalty spot after he was challenged by veteran Mexico captain Rafael Marquez.
Herrera said Proenca should take no more part in the World Cup.
“The determining factor was the man with the whistle. He put us out of the World Cup,” Herrera said. “Although the first goal was down to our mistake ... when the referee invents a penalty you go out of the World Cup. At the very least they can look at this and this gentleman ought to be going home like us.”
Herrera claimed his side were the victims of poor refereeing in Brazil.
“Out of four matches, we had three where the referee was disastrous. I don’t understand why they had someone from the same confederation. Why not an African, Asian or South American referee? All the doubtful decisions went against Mexico,” he added.
After the game, Marquez said Robben admitted to him in the players’ changing area that he should not have been awarded the penalty, “that it wasn’t a penalty, though one of the previous [tackles] was.”
“I believe it was not a penalty,” Marquez told journalists in comments translated from Spanish. “I felt I touched the ground, but I didn’t touch him, maybe he touched me.”
The Mexico captain said Robben, 30, often accused of diving, had abused the spirit of the game.
“For 10 fouls that he receives, he lets himself fall over for five and that’s not fair play,” Marquez said. “That has to change. Unfortunately in this World Cup, it wasn’t just once or twice that these things affected us, but I don’t want to make excuses.”
Herrera did concede that his side lacked experience in how to see the game out.
“Maybe we were missing what teams like Argentina, Uruguay and those with experience of winning do,” he said.
In other controversy surrounding the dramatic last-16 clash, what was meant to be a joke turned into a public relations blunder for Dutch airline KLM after it angered Mexico fans by posting on Twitter a picture of an airport departures sign under the heading “Adios Amigos!” with an image of a man with a mustache wearing a sombrero next to the word “departures.”
The post immediately went viral, prompting A-list Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal to use not one but two expletives in a 140-character Tweet to tell his 2 million-plus followers that he will never fly the carrier again.
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