KEY POINTS

  • Lionel Messi has netted three goals in 2022 World Cup
  • Argentina will take on Netherlands in the quarter-final
  • Virgil van Dijk is the captain of the Dutch senior side

Netherlands head coach Louis Van Gaal has laughed off a question regarding Argentina captain Lionel Messi ahead of their upcoming quarter-final meeting in the World Cup.

Argentina and Netherlands will face off against each other in the last-eight game on Friday and all the attention right now is on Messi, who is chasing his dream of winning the coveted trophy with his country.

While Van Gaal did not hide that he has an exclusive plan to deal with the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner, the Dutch boss said that it would be "pretty stupid" to reveal it beforehand.

"We're not going to reveal any plans to you - it would be pretty stupid of us to do so. But it's not that difficult to come up with an answer as to how to stop him. You might want to block and close the passing lines. I can't see this creating too much of a hoo-ha," he told reporters ahead of the match," Van Gaal told reporters.

Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni said if the Netherlands decide to man-mark Messi, his side is prepared to deal with that.

"We'll see what happens with Lionel tomorrow. We're used to our opponents coming up with something different. We don't want to jump to foregone conclusions. We might come up with a few tactical differences of our own. We have certain nuances. We can do something different to hurt them. And if they decide to man-mark Lionel, we'll keep it in mind, too," Scaloni said.

Argentina will look to Lionel Messi for inspiration when they face Mexico
AFP

Many eyes would be also on Netherlands center-back Virgil van Dijk as he goes against Messi. However, the Dutch skipper earlier said the quarter-final game was not about him going against Messi. He even made it clear that his side would have to be cautious of the Argentina skipper.

"It's not about me, or the Netherlands, against Messi, it's about the Netherlands against Argentina. We are not worried, but cautious of what Argentina can bring to the game. They are a fantastic team with fantastic players, and we are going to have to do well in all departments of the match," added Van Dijk.

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