Argentina’s Lionel Scaloni furious over ‘crazy’ World Cup scheduling

Argentina and Australia punched their tickets to the 2022 World Cup knockout round on Wednesday, but they were not completely thrilled about it.

The two teams will square off on Saturday night in Qatar, just three days after they played their final group stage matches, giving them a quick turnaround for an elimination showdown on two days’ rest.

“We are happy today but I don’t want to be euphoric because I think it’s crazy that we’re playing in just over two days despite being winners of this group,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni told reporters.

“I can’t understand it. It’s already [the early hours of] Thursday and we have two days and then we have to play it.”

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Argentina clinched its spot in the Round of 16 on Wednesday by winning Group C with a 2-0 win over Poland. It avoided a nightmare group stage exit after dropping its opener in a shocking upset loss to Saudi Arabia in what is expected to be the last World Cup for Lionel Messi.

Australia, meanwhile, beat Denmark 1-0 on Wednesday to secure a second-place finish behind France in Group D.

“Believe me, there’s going to be a lot of preparations today and tomorrow before that game, which again is a very short turnaround,” Australian defender Milos Degenek told reporters on Thursday.

“It’s something that FIFA needs to consider, that we’re not robots. We are humans and that we do need to recover and can’t just play day after day, we need a break as well.”

While Argentina and Australia quickly had to shift gears to their knockout-round match, other teams had much more rest. England and Senegal, for example, played their final group-stage match on Tuesday and won’t square off against each other until Sunday.