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.
