Louis van Gaal's trio of Netherlands central defenders united to insist they are undaunted by the prospect of tackling Argentina genius Lionel Messi in Friday's FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 quarter-final tie.
Nathan Ake and captain Virgil van Dijk have been on the field for every minute of their team's campaign. Jurrien Timber, the 21-year-old from Ajax, replaced Matthijs de Ligt for the second game, against Ecuador, and retained his place.
Only two players have breached the Netherlands' backline in Qatar. Enner Valencia struck to earn Ecuador a group-stage draw and Haji Wright profited from a slice of good fortune to score for the USA in a 3-1 Round of 16 victory for the Dutch.
Argentina, meanwhile, handsomely recovered from the hammer blow of a shock defeat by Saudi Arabia to open the tournament. Victories over Mexico and Poland secured progress from Group C and the South Americans beat Australia for their quarter-final place.
Messi has inevitably been at the forefront of all this. He crowned influential displays against Mexico and Australia with trademark, ruthlessly dispatched, left-foot goals, either side of orchestrating the convincing win over Poland.
The more romantic pundits and supporters believe this is destined to unfold into Messi's tournament, the World Cup when one of the sport's greatest individual performers completes the clean sweep of major international and domestic honours. Timber, however, isn't subscribing to that school of thought.
"Am I getting the shakes [at the prospect of facing him]?” said Timber, who made his Netherlands debut only in June last year. “Fortunately not. It's a great challenge to play against him.
"Messi is a fantastic footballer, but we aren't just playing against Messi and we don't have to solve it with the two of us [Timber and Ake]. We're going to do that with the team."
Ake certainly has no reason to feel intimated by the Messi challenge. The 27-year-old is a two-times Premier League champion with Manchester City and has fended off serious competition in the form of De Ligt, Stefan de Vrij and Sven Botman to establish a regular position under coach Van Gaal.
"It's very difficult to stop him [Messi],” said Ake. “He's probably the best player in the world but we have to be wary of several players."
Van Dijk echoed that view, pointing to the breadth of talent in Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni's squad. The idea of teams being consumed by thoughts of how to stop one standout individual is a theme of these quarter-finals.
Kyle Walker of England fielded a succession of questions about the task of thwarting Kylian Mbappe in his side's forthcoming meeting with France. Brazil's contingent of Real Madrid players have similarly been asked about the imperative of stifling clubmate Luka Modric in the five-times champions' encounter with Croatia on Friday.
The common response features talk of the quality spread through squads that have demonstrated the ability and knowhow to reach the last eight of an exceptionally competitive World Cup. And 31-year-old Van Dijk, playing in his first World Cup, isn't underestimating Messi's teammates.
"They have a good team with many players who can decide the match,” said Van Dijk. "But it's not the Netherlands against Messi, it's the Netherlands against Argentina.
"I have a lot of respect for Messi, who, like Cristiano Ronaldo, has been among the best in football for so long. He deserves special attention but they also have Julian Alvarez [the 22-year-old striker with two goals in the tournament], he has a bright future ahead of him at Manchester City and Argentina. But, hopefully, not here in Qatar."
