Virgil van Dijk is now a regular for the Dutch national team, and fully deserves to be so. However, it took perhaps too long for that to become the case.
The 25 year old Southampton player only has 9 caps for his country, which, considering the Netherlands aren’t exactly blessed with a world class group of central defenders, is more than a little puzzling.
At Celtic, Van Dijk may have been playing at a lower level domestically, however, it shouldn’t have ruled him out, and Celtic’s European adventures allowed Van Dijk to play against some of the best.
He showed enough for Ronald Koeman to buy him from Celtic, but not enough often for the national selectors it seems, now everything has changed.
Quoted by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the Southampton player explains; “It’s great that I have the full confidence (of the manager) and the only thing I can do is repay it on the pitch.”
Van Dijk’s Netherlands team are set to play Belgium in a friendly, and the Southampton player will come up against some familar faces in a tough fixture, but doesn’t feel the match will distract too much from World Cup Qualifying: “No, I think Netherlands-Belgium isn’t a troublesome obstacle to the qualifier against Luxembourg because it’s a wonderful game to play, against a very good opponent with players that I know from the Premier League. I’m excited. But the big focus is obviously on Sunday. That game is the most important thing.”
