Argentina's Messi takes on Croatia's bravery in the first two semifinals of the Qatar 2022 World Coup.
On Tuesday evening, all eyes will be on Lusail Stadium, which will host the first of two semi-finals of the Qatar 2022 World Cup between Argentina, led by legend Lionel Messi, and Croatia, who are counting on veteran Luka Modric and company.
Argentina dream of reaching the final and winning the title absent from its coffers since 1986, in the last attempt of Messi, who was unable to obtain this glory despite his busy career and dozens of championships, titles and awards over nearly two decades.
Argentina vs Croatia
Argentina's start to the World Cup in Qatar was not perfect, as they suffered a major shock by losing the first group stage to Saudi Arabia 1-2, but they quickly woke up and beat Mexico and Poland to reach the final eight at the top of their group.
In the quarter-finals, the "Tango" did not find much difficulty in resolving their match with Australia and won 2-1, before going through a violent position against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals in which they needed a penalty shootout that saw goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez shine.
Croatia started their campaign in the tournament quietly, with Dalic's men qualifying in second place in Group F behind Morocco with draws with the Atlas Lions and Belgium and a victory over Canada.
In the eighth, young goalkeeper Dominik Liva Kovic emerged as champions when he starred in the penalty shootout against Japan and led his country to the semi-finals.
The same scenario of penalties was repeated in the quarter-finals, this time at the expense of Brazil in an unexpected surprise, but Liva Kovic was present again, and contributed to reaching the semi-finals.
The two teams go back to the World Cup "Russia 2018" when they faced off in the group stage, and then Croatia achieved a broad victory, as it swept the South American giant with a clean triple scored by Ante Rebic, Modric and Ivan Rakitic, and then Croatia topped the group with 9 full points, and Messi and his companions had to wait until the final round to resolve their qualification by beating Nigeria 2-1.
When Croatia reached the semi-finals in 1998 in their first World Cup participation after independence from Yugoslavia, they also passed through Argentina, but the result was then in favor of the "Albiceleste" with a goal scored by Hector Pineda in the group stage.
Messi expects a strong match and Dalic warns
"We are among the top 4 teams in the tournament, because we showed game after game that we know how to play every game with the same intensity, desire to fight and focus, we all run despite suffering and fatigue, and we do it for all those people who accompany us here," Messi said before the Croatia match.
"We expect the Croatia game to be strong, Croatia proved to be a good team by beating Brazil, and we saw that if you let it play you have very good players who keep the ball, especially in the middle of the field, it's a team that has been working for a long time with coach Dalic."
Dalic said his side hoped Argentina's misconduct in the quarter-final against the Netherlands - with 16 yellow cards and one red card - would not spoil the atmosphere in the semi-final clash.
Croatia suffered Argentina's mood swings during their 2018 World Cup group stage match, with then-Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli refusing to shake Dalic's hand.
But Dalic said he had no grudges, adding: "I understand the factors as expectations were high at the time (2018), it happened, and we will not hold any grudges in ourselves."
"I'm not angry with anyone going through an emotional state of mind, Argentina's match against the Netherlands was very difficult with so many non-football-related behaviors, I really hope that wasn't the case on Tuesday."