Italy and South Korea (2002 World Cup co-host) were facing each other in the Round of 16, and the referee for that game, Byron Moreno from Ecuador made all the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Checkout how it all went down
➜ 3': penalty for Korea after a non-existent foul, Buffon saves it
➜ 49': Kim Tae-Young (who already had a yellow card) elbows Del Piero. Should have been a red...
➜ 90': Lee Chun-Soo kicks Maldini in the head on a 50-50 ball on the ground
➜ First half of extra time: clear penalty against Totti. Moreno books him for the second time and sends him off after two yellows...
➜ 110': Tommasi scores a valid goal, Moreno overturns it...
With three minutes to go on extra time, Ahn Jung-Hwan scores the winner, knocking the Azzurri out.
Jung-Hwan actually played in Italy at the time, and his club, Perugia, terminated his contract after the World Cup.
And the referee? Moreno would stop refereeing a year later after many suspensions and suspicions of match fixing in Ecuador.
In 2010, he got arrested in New York trying to smuggle six kilos of heroin into the United States.
