Van Dijk: It is an honour to play against Messi
The Netherlands star Virgil Van Dijk says they must have a good plan to control Lionel Messi in the World Cup quarter-finals match.
and the
Netherlandswill meet in the quarterfinal of the
World Cup 2022in Qatar on Friday. Netherlands made it through to the quarter-finals with a 3-1 win over the USA and Argentina beat Australia 2-1.
Argentina defeated the Netherlands in the 1978 World Cup final but they lost to them in the quarter-finals in 1998. Lionel Messi and co beat Lous Van Gaal’s team in the semi-final in 2014 on penalties.
Ahead of the match, Virgil van Dijk said facing Lionel Messi is an honour for him but warned his teammates that Messi is always dangerous even when he is chilling somewhere.
"The difficult thing about him is when we are attacking, he is chilling somewhere in a corner or something,"
Van Dijk said.
"You have to be so very sharp in terms of defensive organisation. They always looked for him to try to make it difficult for us on the counter.
"It is an honour to play against him. It is not me against him, or the Netherlands against him, but the Netherlands against Argentina.
"No one can do it on his own, we will have to come up with a good plan."
Messi scored his ninth World Cup goal against Australia to surpass Diego Maradona as the second-highest goal scorer for Argentina in the World Cups.
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