Remember how the Spanish and Italians got fucked by the referees vs Korea? The referee got arrested later for drug trafficking..
South Korea was a host.
That example is not helping you.
Host teams are always helped by the refs, unless you are as bad as SAF of Qatar.
When the home team is alive, there is more buzz, more fans, more sponsors, more money back to FIFA.
Home teams are often seeded, for no reason, to get easy groups and to stay alive as long as possible.
In that sense, Italy was a big team back then.
Spain was an average team in 2002'.
Japan and Korea were hosts.
It was the first WC in Asia, so it made sense to push the hosts.
Also, back then European clubs started to gain popularity in Asia during early internet era (especially Man Utd) and it was a huge and lucrative region.
So, to some extent, FIFA wouldn't mind home teams going as far as possible, isn't it?
Regarding Argentina, when a ref helps one team (a pen for Arg at 0:0), you will often see some sort of compensation to cover it up, but the damage is done since it is 1:0 out of nowhere.
Regarding pushing Messi and Cr7, their teams and awards by Fifa:
= BOTH Argentina and Portugal got soft pens at 0:0 in their opening WC match, to get a push and to guide them into the easier direction.
Just a coincidence?
No money involved and not creating scenarios which fans or rich countries want to see (which in the end brings even more money?)
Yeah, a pure coincidence.
Everything in showbusiness, politics or wherever money is involved = is a coincidence
4D chess to earn even more money...