Netherlands captain “It is an honor to play against Messi”!

Netherlands captain Virgil van Dyck did not change his mind about Lionel Messi’s dodge before the Dutch will face up to Argentina in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, although he emerged victorious in their last encounter. Van Dyck described his rival, Messi, as the best player he played against after Liverpool, scoring three goals to beat Barcelona on the way to winning the UEFA Champions League in 2019. Van Dyck repeated the praise for his opponent in Qatar after the Netherlands reached the quarter-finals. “It is an honor to play against him,” Van Dijk said before deflecting any one-on-one comparisons ahead of the meeting at the Lusail Stadium. “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.” "It's not me against him or the Netherlands against him, but the Netherlands will play against Argentina. No one can do anything alone, we will have to look at a smart plan," the Netherlands captain added. This was certainly the case in the 2014 World Cup when Dutch coach Louis van Gaal had to be prepared to limit Messi's moves in the semi-finals in Brazil and although the Netherlands lost, what I learned is that defending against Messi is a collective task.
Van Dyck gained experience from 2019 when Messi scored two goals against Liverpool to win Barcelona 3-0 in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals, although the first goal was from a rebound and the second from an amazing free kick.
It was Van Dyck who finally so happy with his colleagues, as Liverpool won 4-0 at Anfield Stadium, and then beat Tottenham Hotspur in the final. But Messi still made a strong impression at the heart of the Netherlands' defense.
"The difficult thing about Messi is when we attack; he goes into the corner or something like that. You have to play very aggressively in the defensive tactics. The opponent's players are always looking for him until things become difficult for us on the counter-attack", said Van Dyck.