Argentina vs Australia Preview

Argentina will continue their march towards a World Cup title when they take on Australia at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium this Saturday.

Lionel Messi and co will be looking to go one step better than they did in their last World Cup appearance when they were beaten 4-3 by eventual winners France in Russia 2018.

They qualified for this stage of the tournament by finishing top of their group. This was despite losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia in their first game.

Back-to-back 2-0 wins over Mexico and most recently Poland secured a top of the table finish for them and ensured that they avoided France in this round of games.

Having secured progress from the group stages of the World Cup for the 13th time in their last 14 World Cup finals appearances, they will now look to secure a win against an Australian side they have beaten in each of their last three head-to-head meetings.

Lionel Messi has declared that his teammates should not underestimate the opposition saying “anyone can beat anyone, everything is very even” as he hunts for a World Cup winners medal in what could be his last shot at doing so.

Australia, meanwhile, will look to continue their impressive run in the World Cup when they face Argentina in Al Rayyan on Saturday.

The Socceroos have been the surprise package of the World Cup this year with two huge wins against Denmark and Tunisia –two teams currently above them in the FIFA rankings.

Graham Arnold’s men have only ever reached the Round of 16 once before in their history, which came in 2006. However they went down 1-0 to eventual champions Italy in 2006 in that game.

But having now won two consecutive matches in a single World Cup finals tournament for the first time, they will come into this tie confident of getting a good result.