After Argentina and the Netherlands won their 2022 FIFA World Cup Round of 16 matchup against Australia and the United States, respectively, the two nations punched their ticket to face one another in the quarterfinals.
Dutch goalkeeper Andries Noppert will have a tall task in stopping any shots coming from the South American nation and, more specifically, Lionel Messi, who scored against Australia in the 2-1 win.
Nonetheless, Noppert is up for the challenge to keep any of Messi’s and Argentina’s shots out of the Netherlands net on Friday.
“The bigger the team, the more I like playing against it. A quarterfinal against Argentina is therefore fantastic,” Noppert told (h/t NU.nl). “I will just have to take those shots from Messi. In the end I want to win.
“We are really a team with the Orange, that is our strength. I can see that in the guys who come in and in the guys who don’t play at all. The team feeling makes me proud. We did it as a team against the US.”
Argentina will be the strongest opponent the Netherlands has faced in this tournament and vice versa. Both countries have been the favorite heading into all their matchups, but the two sides are even.
It likely means that the minor details will be critical as neither side can solely rely on having more talent to obtain the result they’re looking for since it’s a do-or-die fixture as the winner gets within one game of reaching the World Cup final.
