John McGinn has insisted he is even more certain after reviewing the incident that Scotland should have been awarded a penalty when he was brought down by Neil El Aynaoui.
Scotland were trailing by a goal on Friday but had started the second half with greater tempo and intent when the Aston Villa midfielder pushed the ball beyond the Morocco player and appeared to be impeded before falling to the ground.
Several Scotland players quickly surrounded referee Ilgiz Tantashev, but the Uzbek official was not persuaded, while VAR Armando Villarreal also chose not to intervene.
“It’s a penalty, 100 per cent,” McGinn said. “When a defender is sprinting to try to win the ball, doesn’t get there and takes you out, it’s a foul anywhere else on the pitch.
“Nine times out of 10, that is given as a penalty. But ultimately, we’re not the ones making those calls.”
John McGinn goes down in the penalty area, but Scotland were not awarded a spot-kick in Boston
The Aston Villa midfielder appealed unsuccessfully to the referee as Scotland were beaten 1-0 by Morocco
“It’s a decision that really hurts us,” McGinn added. “I thought it was a penalty at the time, and I’ve seen it back since.”
‘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.”
