Western Sydney Wanderers coach Tony Popovic believes his side would be getting ready to duel with Real Madrid this week had they not been dealt a referee on "training wheels" in their Club World Cup quarter-final extra-time defeat to Cruz Azul.

In one of the worst officiating displays in recent memory, Ivory Coast referee Noumandiez Doue appeared to lose track of which players he'd booked, disallowed a seemingly acceptable goal for Western Sydney and seemed unconcerned by the horrendous conditions at Rabat's Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium.

Unhappy Wanderers: Matthew Spiranovic and Brendan Hammill try to stop Hugo Pavone. Photo: AP

Doue also denied the Wanderers a penalty  in the first half and awarded a dubious spot-kick for the Mexicans that squared the match two minutes before full-time.

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But it was the decision to send off Nikolai Topor-Stanley for two yellow cards that rankled deepest, with the Wanderers captain having been cautioned for an incident he was standing 20 metres away from in the first half. At that point in extra-time, the Wanderers were already down to 10 men because the referee had dismissed Matthew Spiranovic.

Popovic was left stunned and bemused by the referee's decision-making as his side bravely battled the North American champions.

"We certainly showed we can compete with Cruz Azul. There was no doubt about that. We more than held our own. But with the officiating, it disappoints me because you expected the best at a tournament like this," he said. "I felt we had referees on training wheels out there - and learning. I didn't know you could do that in a tournament like this. That was tough to take."

The coach was especially upset for his players, who he believed deserved the chance to test the North American champions on merit, without the referee intervening in such a direct manner, especially with regards to Topor-Stanley's second yellow card.

"We didn't try to get an explanation - we tried to get the referee to reverse the wrong decision, which they can do. He chose not to do it. We can't do anything about that," he said. "When you're playing in those conditions, physically it's exhausting. We're already down to ten. Then you go down to nine. I really hoped, for the players, that we could get it to the shootout, that at least then we're given a chance to go through on our terms. I'm really disappointed for them that we didn't get that chance."

Drenched in a torrent of rain, the stadium pitch turned into a mud heap and turned the match into a lottery, with both sides reverting to the most rudimentary of tactics. Popovic said the conditions on offer for an elite FIFA tournament were unacceptable

"It was poor yesterday in dry conditions [for training] and it was appalling today with the rain. I'm not sure that even in our competition back home that if the ball doesn't roll, the game [wouldn't] get called off. We had an experience last year when we had to delay our match against Adelaide by an hour because the ball wasn't rolling," Popovic said. "You'd expect, at the highest level possible, these things would be accounted for. They weren't, so it leaves a real sour taste in the mouth."

The Wanderers must now regroup and get themselves ready for a fifth-placed play-off with ES Setif, the Algerian side defeated by Auckland City 1-0 at the same venue earlier in the evening. It's a far cry from facing Real Madrid - the pay day that would have seen them earn $2.4 million in prizemoney, rather than just the $1.2 million.

"The team performed very well. I'm very proud of the group and we were two minutes away from winning the match. Until the send-off, we were the better team. Is that because of the conditions? Or because we were the better team? We'll never know now," Popovic said. "We certainly held our own. Had we gone through, for me, it wouldn't have been a surprise. I think the first send-off changed the way the game was going and the second made it almost impossible.

"I'm very proud of the group, they trained very well, they performed very well. We need to take that into the next game and go back home and build on these performances."