Argentina captain Lionel Messi and coach Lionel Scaloni both anticipate a tough but ‘beautiful’ encounter with their old rivals Netherlands when the sides meet in Friday’s World Cup quarter-final.
Argentina beat Australia 2-1 in their first round of the last 16 while the Netherlands comfortably defeated the United States 3-1 on Saturday to set up a tantalizing, long-awaited clash between two of the giants of world football who famously last met in the 1978 World Cup final which the South Americans won eventually won.
“It’s going to be a very beautiful game, with two historic teams. Sadly one team has to lose and we hope it’s us who go through,” Scaloni said in a news conference at 1 a.m. in Qatar after his side’s last-16 victory over Australia.
Despite the age gap, Scaloni, 44, said he had long been an admirer of Dutch coach Louis van Gaal, 71, since his early playing days.
“He was an eminence back then. It’s a proud moment to face him. We know how much he has done in football, and how many people have tried to copy him,” he said.
“This is one of the pleasures that football gives you, especially as it is happening at a World Cup.
“We face a difficult opponent, like all of them, and we hope to do well. Maybe they are not shining like past Dutch teams, but they are very clear in what they do.”
Argentina skipper and lynchpin Messi – unscathed and fresh from scoring via a beautifully-controlled low drive besides being named man-of-the-match against Australia on his 1,000th career appearance – was on a parallel path with his manager with regards to the impending task that lay ahead.
“Now we have a really tough clash with Holland, who play very well,” he told reporters.
“They have great players and a great coach, it’s going to be hard-fought. It’s the quarter-finals of a World Cup and if a World Cup has been tough from the start, it gets even tougher at this stage.”
Meanwhile, the other Lionel, Scaloni, said he was delighted with his players, who have emerged victorious in three successive games at the World Cup in Qatar after their shock awakening in their opening defeat by Saudi Arabia.
“We are satisfied. Today’s match was very difficult. They put a suffocating pressure on us,” he said of Australia, though he lamented his team did not extend their 2-0 lead before the Socceroos got an own goal and piled the pressure on for an equalizer.
“We shouldn’t have suffered in the final minutes because we had chances to go further ahead,” he said.
“But my players were born to play in these sorts of games.”
Scaloni also made a reference to the injured Angel Di Maria whom he’s been preserving on the bench, expressing hope he would be fit to face the Dutch.
“Today he wasn’t in condition to play. I didn’t want to risk it. We hope that over the next few days he can improve and play in the next game,” he said.