Bosnia's Edin Dzeko blames referee for loss against Nigeria

A shell-shocked Dzeko after his goal was wrongly disallowed

Bosnia & Herzegovina striker Edin Dzeko has hit out at the referee after his side controversially crashed out of the World Cup owing to a 1-0 loss against Nigeria on Saturday.

The Manchester City forward broke the Nigerian defence line perfectly to slot the ball past the goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama. But, the goal was disallowed as he was wrongly adjudged to have been offside when the ball was played in by Miralem Pjanic.

Minutes later, Bosnian skipper Emir Spahic was appeared to be fouled by Emmanuel Emenike in the build-up to Peter Odemwingie’s goal for Nigeria, but the referee from New Zealand, Peter O’Leary, did not stop the game. These decisions proved costly for the Europeans as Nigeria managed to hold onto their lead thereby eliminating Bosnia from the World Cup.

A fuming Dzeko slammed the referee after the match saying, “The referee happened. We are going home, we are sad because of that but the referee should go home too, because he changed the result, he changed the game, and that's why we lost.”

“It was obviously a foul on our captain and before when I scored the goal, it was never offside. We fought till the end, but we didn’t have luck today.” he added.