With the World Cup's group stage ending yesterday, football fans are now looking forward to the knockout stages beginning Saturday. France is set to take on Lionel Messi and Argentina as the high-stakes single-elimination round of the tournament begins soon. Argentina will face a tough challenge from France's young, balanced squad, who dominated their group to advance with little trouble. The upcoming France vs Argentina match will take place on June 30 at 1700 p.m. The match will be held at the Kazan Arena in Kazan, Russia.
For Argentina, the man to watch is once again Lionel Messi. The Barcelona star is heating up, scoring his first goal of the 2018 World Cup against Nigeria in his squad's last match. If he can carry his hot streak into the upcoming match against France, he'll pose a serious threat against France's defense.
On the French side, Kylian Mbappe is thought to be a key player to watch. The 19-year-old Paris Saint-Germain forward already has one goal to his name in the group stages and will look to utilize his speed and agility to cut through Argentina's defense and lead the attack alongside other stars like Antoine Griezmann. Both teams took dramatically different paths to reach the upcoming knockout stage of the tournament. France breezed through the Group Stage, defeating Australia and Peru while drawing against Denmark and surrendering just one goal along the way. Argentina, meanwhile, after a shocking draw against Iceland and a crushing defeat from Croatia, finally came together in their final match to beat Nigeria in a thriller and advanced to the next round in dramatic fashion.
The French squad is packed with talented young players like N'golo Kante, Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe, while established stars like Antoine Griezmann remain a scoring threat.
Elsewhere in the other knockout stage match on Saturday, Portugal will take on Uruguay.
Saturday's clash with Uruguay, it seems, is their final. Ronaldo, typically, will lead their charge at the weekend and looked attentive as ever during the session at their Moscow base. Coach Fernando Santos will know his side will need to be well drilled this week, if they are to beat a Uruguay side who has so far won every game of their World Cup campaign.
Portugal stars Ricardo Quaresma and Pepe are both likely to start on Saturday. Santos will be demanding more from his players after they struggled to beat Morocco and only managed to draw with Iran in their last two games. Uruguay won all three of its group matches. Spain and Portugal tied with five points each and had the same plus-one goal differential, but Spain won the group because it scored one more goal over the three matches.
