John McGinn says he’s more convinced than ever that he was wrongly denied a spot-kick when he was taken out by Neil El Aynaoui.
With Scotland a goal down on Friday but showing much more urgency at the start of the second half, the Aston Villa man knocked the ball past the Moroccan and looked to be clearly impeded before hitting the turf.
Despite a raft of dark blue jerseys surrounding Ilgiz Tantashev, the Uzbek referee was unmoved with VAR Armando Villarreal refusing to step in.
With Steve Clarke’s side going down one-nil, the decision felt even more important in the aftermath with Scotland falling just short in their quest to claim the point which would have all but sealed qualification.
‘It’s a penalty, 100 per cent,’ said McGinn. ‘When a defender is running at full speed to try and win the ball, misses it and takes you out – it’s a foul anywhere else on the pitch.
‘Nine times out of 10 you get a penalty for that, but we don’t make the decisions.
John McGinn goes down in the box but Scotland did not get a penalty in Boston
The Aston Villa man appeals to the referee in vain as Scotland lost 1-0 to Morocco
‘It’s one that hurts us. I felt at the time it was a penalty and I’ve watched it back.
‘If you beat him, knock the ball past him and he takes you out, it’s a penalty.
‘I haven’t seen any footage yet where he touches the ball. It’s something we’ve just got to accept.
‘I think (Scott) McTominay had another shout, but I’ve not seen that back yet.
‘At this level, when you’re competing against a team in the top 10 in the world, you need the breaks to go your way and in your favour. On Friday night, they didn’t.’
Scotland were chasing the game in Boston from 70 seconds in when slack defending allowed Ismael Saibari to score the fastest goal of the tournament.
Despite failing to build on the three points they took from Haiti in the opening match, McGinn believes the team can take some solace from the way they bounced back after such a dreadful start.
‘Everyone would have thought it would be easy for us to collapse against Morocco after conceding the early goal,’ he added.
‘But we’re a resolute group. What we lack sometimes in quality against the top teams, we have in fight and character.
‘You need to get the balance right. If you go gung-ho against teams, they can pick you off at the top level.
‘I felt we got the balance right against Morocco. People will have the opinion that we should have gone gung-ho earlier.
‘But if you’re sat with a 3-0 defeat, you’re probably thinking otherwise.
Scotland players appealed to the Uzbekistan official but cries for a spot-kick were waved away
‘We handled the game well. Can we improve in many areas? Aye, we can always improve.
‘But the growth of this group is evident and we have to keep going.
‘My feelings are a bit mixed, really. I’m disappointed to lose and it was a really poor start from us.
‘But the second half was much more of what you want to see from a Scotland team.
‘And on another night, because the margins are so fine, we could have nicked a 1-1.’
Scotland now have three points and a level goal difference going into the final Group C game against Brazil in Miami on Wednesday.
With the eight best third-placed teams from the 12 groups progressing along with the winners and runners-up, a narrow defeat to the five-times winners might be enough.
Scott McTominay appealed for a penalty of his own later in the Group C clash
Dismissing any suggestion that Clarke’s men will approach the game simply looking to keep the score down, McGinn said: ‘It’s important not to get ourselves into that mindset. We’re not going into games trying to lose by one game and sneak our way through.
‘We feel we’ve got enough quality to go through the proper way and against Morocco we showed we can compete with the teams in the top 10.
‘Brazil will be a different game. They play with less structure, but they’ve got quality that can hurt you.
‘We’ll need to be at our best. We know what we have to do to reach the next round and we’ll try to do that.
‘We have to attack Brazil. The second half showed that when we get after teams, no-one likes being under that pressure.
‘Even players at the top level make mistakes. They (Morocco) were making mistakes towards the end, so we have to go about it the same way.”
