Review Of Quarterfinals Of The 2022 World Cup, Netherlands Vs Argentina: Aroma Of PAST Revenge

The Dutch national team (Twitter @OnsOranje)

JAKARTA - Virgil van Dijk said the Netherlands would appear cautious against Argentina in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals tomorrow at the Lusail Stadium, Qatar.

"They are a fantastic team with fantastic players, and we have to deal with it well in all parts of this match," Van Dijk was quoted as saying by Antara via Reuters.

After failing three previous World Cup finals, the Netherlands are eager to make a breakthrough by becoming the tenth country to win the World Cup.

"There is hunger, dreams, and desire that we really want to win the World Cup," said Van Dijk.

Coach Louis van Gaal, who is an expert at designing effective tactics in football, has prepared a strategy to stop Argentina, who only won twice in the previous nine meetings between the two teams.

This strategy also includes steps to paralyze Lionel Messi, who is the key to Argentina's game, who was chasing his first World Cup trophy at the end of his dusk career.

In addition to carrying the hopes of his nation, Messi also bears his own burden to match Diego Maradona's achievement in winning all things including the World Cup which until now Messi cannot hold back.

Now he is back against Van Gaal who is seeking revenge for Argentina who beat them in the 1978 World Cup final and the 2014 World Cup semifinals.

However, Van Gaal still put up a more defensive strategy than the culture of football attacking the Netherlands. Even so, by installing three centre-backs, Van Gaal made the Dutch goal safer than Argentina's goal. During the 2022 World Cup, the Netherlands had only conceded twice, while Argentina has conceded three times.

We were able to overthrow them by using our plans. We are also a better team (during the 2014 World Cup semifinals) and (at that time) Messi didn't have much possession of the ball," said Van Gaal.

Ironically this more defensive approach made the Dutch go through 19 games without losing.

Responding to the 2014 World Cup romanticism when he was tamed by the Netherlands, Messi said, "One more team is difficult to deal with."

However, from the Middle East including Qatar, Messi will get tremendous support considering that this region on average worships Messi and Argentina until they are willing to dress orange to support the Dutch from the stands.

We thank everyone here. All of Argentina will be happy to be here, "said Messi.

No one is too optimistic in responding to this match, but if you look at the statistics of both teams during the 2022 World Cup, Argentina should be a more optimistic team.

This is because if the Netherlands completed 1,885 passes out of a total of 2,153 passes in the previous four matches, then Argentia was able to complete 2,442 passes out of a total of 2,716 passes.

In terms of creating goal opportunities, Argentina is even better. The Netherlands only made 35 goals, 14 of which were right on target, on the other hand Argentina made 58 goals efforts, 26 of which remained targeted.

Predictions of the first eleven players

Netherlands (3-4-1-2):Andries Noppert; Jurrien Timber, Virgil van Dijk, Nathan Ake; Denzel Dumfries, Frenkie de Jong, Marten de Roon, Daley Blind; Davy Klaassen;

Argentina (4-3-3): Emiliano Martinez; Nahuel Molina, Cristian Romero, Nicolas Otamendi, Marcos Acuna; Enzo Fernandez, Rodrigo de Paul, Alexis Mac Allister; Angel di Maria, Lionel Messi, Julian Alvarez.

Statistics and head to head

The Netherlands have only lost once in nine meetings with Argentina, namely in the 1978 World Cup final in Buenos Aires.

Both teams drew goalless in the last two meetings in Sao Paulo in Argentina's 2014 World Cup semi-final on penalties.

This is the sixth meeting of the two teams in the World Cup. In the first meeting in 1974, the Netherlands won 4-0, while in the last two matches at the 2006 and 2014 World Cup, the draw ended.

The Netherlands have been 19 unbeaten matches since being knocked out of Euro 2020 last year, while Argentina has risen after their record 36 unbeaten matches were stopped by Saudi Arabia in the first match of the 2022 World Cup group stage.

Argentina's first major success when they won the 1978 World Cup had brought victims to the Netherlands. At that time in the final, Mario Kempes scored two goals which gave Argentina a 3-1 win after extra time. Argentina also won the 1986 World Cup, while the Netherlands were runners-up three times in 1974, 1978, and 2010.

Lionel Messi has scored nine goals in 23 World Cup matches that he has participated in in five editions, namely 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022. He is now one goal away from Gabriel Batistuta's record goalscoring World Cup goalscorers of all time for the Argentine national team.

The Netherlands lost two of their previous three World Cup penalty shootouts, from Brazil in 1998 and from Argentina in 2014, respectively. They only won one penalty shootout against Costa Rica in 2014.