Netherlands vs Argentina Live: World Cup 2022

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Hello, and welcome to Telegraph Sport’s live coverage of the Netherlands and Argentina, the fifth meeting between these two countries in the World Cup finals.

Their first meeting in the group stage was in 1974 at the height of the “Brilliant Orange” when Rinus Michels’ side won 4-0. Four years later, Argentina got revenge on home soil by defeating the Netherlands 3-1 in the final.

They didn’t meet again for 20 years, when Dennis Bergkamp clinched the quarter-finals with an impressive 90th-minute victory.

Daniel Passarella and Diego Maradona are the two Argentina captains who have lifted the trophy, something Messi hopes to emulate as the pinnacle of a truly glorious career. The Dutch have yet to win the tournament, but they have counted three times as runners-up and twice as semi-finalists since 1974,

Van Gaal’s decision to abandon the traditional Dutch attacking style and use a counter-attacking strategy garnered support from many of his countrymen, but he continued to insist he had the best tactics.

Asked how he planned to stop Lionel Messi, he said: “It would be foolish to reveal your own tactics.”

“But it’s not hard to come up with any answer. You could have come up with an answer yourself. You might want to block and close the traffic lines.”

In the last two World Cup meetings between Argentina and the Netherlands, in the group stage in 2006 and the semi-finals in 2014, where the Argentine national team won on penalties, neither team managed to score a goal in regular or extra time.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said his team was practicing penalty kicks but hoped the game would not be affected by penalties.

“They always take penalties before and after matches but it’s all about luck when it comes to penalties,” he said. “I hope we don’t get to penalties, and hopefully the match can be over before then.”

“We know we’ll give everything on the pitch. We know that sometimes football can be very beautiful and sometimes it can be brutal.”

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