Nabil Bentaleb and Algeria's win v Netherlands before Argentina | OneFootball

Algeria sealed a big 1-0 victory over the Netherlands at Rotterdam’s Het Kasteel stadium just days before their World Cup debut against the Argentina national team, which will be on Tuesday, June 16, starting at 10 p.m. at Kansas City Stadium.

After the match, Nabil Bentaleb, a midfielder for Lille in France, looked ahead to the clash with the Albiceleste: “We know we’re going to face a very strong Argentina national team, and we needed an opponent of this caliber to assess our level.” The 31-year-old also reflected that “it was an important match for us in preparing for the World Cup. We drew quite a few positive conclusions.”

“No special words are needed to get motivated for a World Cup. Obviously, very few of us have already played in one, because we have a lot of young players. We’ll have to bring our experience to these kinds of matches, and we have a duty to share it with the younger ones,” he added.

Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic was self-critical after the win and said that although they made mistakes, they were able to keep “their heads up and morale high.” He also stressed: «It’s very important to stay focused, act, and above all react as a team. In the second half, we managed the pressure a bit better.”

Finally, he was asked about the team he will field against Argentina in their World Cup opener, to which he replied: ”We still have almost two weeks before the first match; we’ll see. I still haven’t found my starting eleven, and I’m giving everyone the chance to convince me. There are some very positive signs from certain players who are making things a bit difficult for me. It’s still too early to talk about the starting eleven.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.