Eight months after his team lost to eventual champion Argentina in the 2022 World Cup quarterfinals, Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal has claimed the tournament was rigged in Lionel Messi’s favor.
Speaking to Dutch outlet NOS at the Eredivisie Awards, the legendary Dutch coach took the soccer world by storm by crying foul after Argentina outlasted the Oranje in an epic penalty shootout last December in Qatar in what was expected to be Messi’s final World Cup.
“When you see how Argentina gets the goals and how we get the goals, and how some Argentina players overstepped the mark and were not punished, then I think it all premeditated game,” van Gaal said, per The Independent.
“I mean everything I say. That Messi should become world champion? I think so, yes.”
The quarterfinal featured 16 yellow cards and a testy postmatch altercation between Messi and van Gaal, along with clashes among several Netherlands and Argentina players. En route to winning the Golden Ball for the tournament’s best player, Messi scored a penalty for Argentina against the Dutch before also converting from the spot in the shootout. Messi went on to score seven goals in the tournament, one short of Golden Boot winner Kylian Mbappé.
However, not all Netherlands leaders sympathized with van Gaal, who resigned after the quarterfinal loss. At the same Dutch soccer ward ceremony, Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk disagreed with his former manager.
“I heard it this morning, indeed,” van Dijk told NOS. “And that’s actually it. It is of course his opinion. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion. I do not share the same opinion.”
