BERLIN, 1 Dec. (STATS Perform/dpa/EP) –
The Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny acknowledged that he joked with a bet with Leo Messi about the penalty that there was in the Argentina-Poland game this Wednesday of the World Cup in Qatar and that he finally lost because he thought that the referee would not order it.
The Dutch referee Danny Makkelie did not whistle the maximum penalty initially, but was warned by the VAR to review the play. Szczesny was convinced that he would not point it out and he made it known to the Argentine ’10’.
“We spoke before the penalty and I told him that he could bet 100 euros that the referee was not going to give it, so I lost a bet against Messi,” said the Juventus goalkeeper, who stopped that maximum penalty from Rosario, After the match.
Szczesny admitted that he did not know if what he did “is allowed in the World Cup.” “And probably he can be sanctioned, but I don’t care at the moment. And I’m not going to pay him either, he doesn’t care about 100 euros,” he said.
The Polish goalkeeper became the third in the history of the World Cup to stop two penalties in one edition since in the second match against Saudi Arabia he also denied Salem Al Dawsari the goal from eleven meters.
“Yes, it was nice and I didn’t know at the time that it would help us out of the group, so I tried not to celebrate. But I’ve had some bad luck in the big tournaments so far, the World Cup four years ago was terrible for me. I owe a lot to the team and in the last two games I managed to help him a little”, he warned.
