World Cup 2014: I Know Exactly How to Stop Messi, says Courtois

Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is looking forward to facing Lionel Messi in the World Cup's quarter-finals to renew his personal rivalry with the Argentina star.

The Chelsea stopper faced the four-time Ballon d'Or winner six times while on loan at Atletico Madrid last season – and did not concede a single goal to the Argentine.

According to Mundo Deportivo, Courtois warned that "I know very well how to play against [Lionel] Messi, I faced him several times with my team and we beat Barcelona - so it will be nice to play against him for our countries.

"Hopefully we can win, but we will see. The good thing is that I don't have to watch videos of him because I know him so well.

"But even if you watch videos of him, he is so unpredictable that it is impossible to study him to know what he is going to do.

"As soon as he finds a way to shoot, he will shoot, so the only thing you can do as a goalkeeper is concentrate at all times. You cannot think of anything else for one second because at that moment he will score.

"Argentina have a very good attack that not only depends on Messi, but also there is [Gonzalo] Higuain, [Angel] Di Maria, [Sergio] Aguero. But in defence they are not that strong and that is where we can hurt them."

Belgium are one of the dark horses of this tournament, but Courtois is not looking beyond Saturday's clash in Brasilia, as he said: "Winning this tournament would be incredible but we have to go step by step - and the next step is Argentina.

"So let's try to get by them first and then see what happens in the future. But it's going to be really hard to beat Argentina."