Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk disagrees with manager over 'premeditated' Lionel Messi theory
Virgil van Dijk has publicly disagreed with former Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal's recent comments suggesting last year's World Cup was fixed to see Lionel Messi win the title.
One of the most thrilling encounters of last winter's tournament saw the Liverpool captain's country pitted against Messi's eventual world champions Argentina at the quarter-final stage.
The South Americans took a first-half lead which was eventually doubled from the penalty spot by Messi with 17 minutes remaining. Then one of the unlikeliest fightbacks - completed by a stunning free-kick routine in the 11th minute of injury time - had the European nation back on level terms and headed to extra-time.
Half an hour more was still not enough to separate them, and so a penalty shoot-out settled the eventful tie 4-3 in Argentina's favour.
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Van Gaal, 72, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier in the year, subsequently brought down the curtain on his third stint as the head of his country's national team despite technically remaining unbeaten from 20 matches.
However fast-forward to this week and the former Manchester United manager has shared some surprising views on Argentina's progression in Qatar, alleging that match fixing was involved.
At an Eredivisie gala in Utrecht on Monday he was quoted by Dutch outlet NOS as saying: "I don't really want to say much about it. When you see how Argentina gets the goals and how we get the goals and how some Argentina players went over the line and were not penalized then I think it's all
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