Mat Ryan appears to have been brutally trolled by his club teammate after his World Cup howler in Australia’s defeat to Argentina on Saturday.
Argentina captain Lionel Messi, who was making his 1,000th career appearance, broke the deadlock in the 35th minute with a sublime low finish past Ryan.
Australia, who reached the World Cup knockout rounds for the first time since 2006, were dealt a further setback early in the second half after a costly mistake from Ryan.
Copenhagen ‘keeper Ryan came under pressure from the Argentina players and his heavy touch from a back-pass left him in a precarious situation.
The 30-year-old Australian shot-stopper was then punished as Manchester City’s Julian Alvarez pounced on the opportunity and did a spin before poking the ball into an open net.
Australia were handed a fighting chance after Craig Goodwin’s strike took a massive deflection off Enzo Fernandez in the 77th minute, but Argentina sealed a 2-1 win on the night.
However, the salt was rubbed in Ryan’s wounds even further after his Copenhagen teammate Kamil Grabara appeared to fire a dig at him over his blunder at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.
According to reports, Ryan previously suggested that his lack of playing time at Copenhagen came down to ‘politics.’
Grabara took to social media after Ryan’s mistake and appeared to aim a swipe at the Socceroos No 1 over his politics remark.
“Must have been politics, for sure,” he tweeted, adding a smirking face emoji in his message.
However, fans staunchly defended Ryan on Twitter and pulled no punches towards Grabara over his “pathetic” tweet.
One fan posted in response: “Mate, you’ve achieved pretty much nothing in your career so far and you talk like this? Show some humility for once.”
Someone else commented: “How many minutes do you have so far at the World Cup?”
While another tweeted: “You absolute loser. He’s captaining a side that pushed Argentina all the way, won two matches at the World Cup, played 360 minutes and kept two clean sheets -- including against Denmark. You? You’re making sarcastic remarks on Twitter and will play zero minutes. Pathetic.”
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A fourth fan wrote: “I really love you, Kamil, but this is just terrible. Maty’s [sic] a teammate, he’s one of us. Of course he thinks he should be playing. All players do. You shouldn’t be doing this.”
SPORTbible has reached out to Grabara for comment and will update this story should we hear back from the Copenhagen player.
Adnan Riaz