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Topics: Football, Argentina, Lionel Messi, Australia, Football World Cup
Chris Byfield
Topics: Football, Argentina, Lionel Messi, Australia, Football World Cup
Australia will hope to pull off an almighty upset when they take on Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the World Cup round of 16 at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium.
Argentina overcame a shock opening game loss to Saudi Arabia to qualify as group winners, courtesy of victories against Mexico and Poland.
Standing in the way of the two-time World Cup winners is Australia - who will be competing in the last 16 of the competition for only the second time in their history.
The Socceroos have never reached the World Cup quarter-final - if they are to make it to the last eight they will have to do it the hard way, by overcoming an Argentina side that includes seven-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi.
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But who will referee the last-16 World Cup clash?
Poland’s Szymon Marciniak has been appointed as the referee for the World Cup encounter. It will be the official’s second game of the tournament after he took charge of France’s group-stage win against Denmark.
Marciniak is one of the most experienced referees in world football and will be familiar to some English fans, having taken charge of Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur games in the Champions League.
The Pole started out as a player but was once so incensed at being sent off in a match that he told the referee that he was the worst he'd ever seen.
According to the Sun, the official replied: "If you think you can do better - you try it!" So he did.
He become a FIFA-listed referee in 2011 and made his major tournament debut in EURO 2016 in France, taking charge of Spain vs Czech Republic and Iceland vs Austria in the group stage, as well as Germany vs Slovakia in the knockout phase.
Here are the other confirmed match officials (as per Law 5 - The Referee) for Argentina vs Australia:
Assistant Referees: Pawel Sokolnicki and Tomasz Listkiewicz
Fourth Official: Mario Escobar
VAR: Tomasz Kwiatkowski