However, the last time the two teams met was in the 2014 semifinal, which Argentina triumphed in a 4-2 penalty shootout victory. lost in the Round of 16 against eventual champion France. The South Americans's record in recent World Cups is sketchy, having lost in the quarterfinal in 1998, 2006, and 2010, before making it to the final of the 2014 edition only to lose out to Germany. However, Lionel Messi will stand in the Europeans' way, who recently scored his first knockout goal, against Australia, in his 1,00th career game. Since 1994, the Netherlands has never lost a quarterfinal match and the team's current unbeaten streak is an impressive 19 matches. The Dutch almost clinched glory in 2010 but lost to Spain's golden generation in the final to an Andreas Iniesta goal in extra time. Since the disappointing campaign in the 2006 edition, the Dutch have reached the last eight in every edition since, making two semifinal appearances in the way (20) before failing to qualify for Russia 2018. defeated Australia 2-1 to set up this mouth-watering clash. The Netherlands beat the USA 3-1 in the Round of 16 while Lionel Messi and Co. In this battle between the traditional heavyweights, both the Netherlands and Argentina will be on the front foot promising an exciting, high-octane clash. The match will be played at the Education City Stadium, in Al Rayyan, at 8:30 pm IST. Having said that, the five-time champions have won three and drawn one in the four previous meetings with Croatia and will definitely start as the overwhelming favourites. And since winning the World Cup final in 2002, when it downed Germany 2-0, Brazil has lost all five knockout matches against European opposition. Meanwhile, Brazil has been knocked out in the quarter-finals in three of its last four World Cup campaigns, losing to European opposition France in 2006, Netherlands in 2010, and Belgium in 2018. The only other time Croatia did not play beyond the usual 90 minutes was the 4-2 defeat to France in the 2018 final. In Croatia's last five FIFA knockout games, four of those have gone to a penalty shootout, which the European side has triumphed in. The European side has punched well above its weight consistently and was a worthy runner-up in Russia 2018 when it lost to the Juggernaut that is France.īut it will definitely have to play out of its skin to match the Brazilians, who are on the back of a Samba-inspired 'walk in the park' 4-1 victory against South Korea in the Round of 16. However, Croatia is no pushover despite it having a very short history at the biggest stage in international football. The Europeans will face their sternest test yet as they are tasked with the impossible situation of denying the tournament favourite its record sixth FIFA World Cup title. Let us look at the two matches that start off the final eight stage. The tournament favourite kicks things off as Brazil takes on Croatia in the early kick-off on Thursday while the Netherlands and Argentina will wage war in the battle of traditional heavyweights in the later match. The FIFA World Cup 2022 has entered the business end of the tournament as the best eight teams are standing in the aftermath of a goal-frenzied Round-of-16 stage.
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