LEEDS: Qatar's football coach Felix Sanchez on Sunday said that the team has gone to Brazil to compete in the ongoing Copa America tournament, and not to take selfies with Argentina's striker Lionel Messi.
His remarks come on the eve of Qatar's match with Argentina in the Copa America, and if Qatar is able to upset Argentina, then the latter would be eliminated from the tournament in the group stage.
"It's true we are not very well known in South America, but we have super-professional players and we've come to compete, not to take photos with Messi," Goal.com quoted Sanchez as saying.
"They're the favourites and are obliged to win. We'll try to compete against a great team who have the best player in the world. We have a chance to qualify and that's what's exciting, not the fact we could knock out a monster like Argentina," he added.
Qatar has one point from their two matches in the tournament so far and they are ahead of Argentina in the standings on goal difference.
Argentina has had a lacklustre performance in the Copa America so far as they lost their first match 2-0 against Colombia. Their second match ended in a 1-1 draw against Paraguay.
The Qatar coach heaped praises on Messi and said his team would try to stop him from getting involved in the match.
"Messi can be decisive in any game due to his quality, hundreds of coaches have spent ages trying to stop him but there's no magic formula, it all depends on Leo's feet," Sanchez said.
"However, much you focus on it, it's very difficult to stop him, but we'll try to prevent him from getting involved in the play in the final third of the pitch," he added.
Qatar is one of the two teams from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) which were invited to play in Copa America. The other team from AFC is Japan.
Qatar and Argentina take on each other in Porto Alegre today and the winner of the match will most likely enter the quarter-final stage of the tournament.