Patrick Vieira has told moaning France teammates to blame themselves - and not the ref - for letting slip three points against South Korea on Sunday night.
Mexican official Benito Archundia ruled out a Vieira header which was at least a yard over the line before being scooped away by South Korean keeper Lee Woon-jae.
Thierry Henry, who bagged France's goal in the 1-1 draw, launched a furious attack on the referee.
But his former Arsenal colleague Vieira reckons the squad should look closer to home if they want someone to criticise.
He said: "I am not sure if the referee's position was good enough but there is nothing we can do about it now.
"We have had things go for us on a number of occasions and now we have experienced the other side.
"The bottom line is we should have killed them off. We know that. That is why we cannot complain too much about the referee.
"If we were making chances and scoring, we wouldn't have to complain about the referee.
"We should complain about ourselves instead. When you don't score goals, you make things difficult. It is quite difficult to take and quite frustrating. But we have to pick ourselves up."
Meanwhile, Henry has hit out at critics of teammate Zinedine Zidane: "Players like him touched the World Cup. What they did in 1998 will always remain.
"You don't forget about people like Zidane or what they did eight years ago. There certainly shouldn't be a cloud over how people remember them."
