Netherlands boss Danny Blind thinks the ranking points that can be accrued from a victory over Belgium on Wednesday is more important than beating a rival.
- By James Rowe
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Blind said at his press conference on Tuesday, ”They say that there are no friendly games anymore. The Netherlands v Belgium is a special game. There is prestige involved in this game but more important than that are the ranking points accrued for an advantage in the eventuality of any play-off game that we might play in the future.”
The Oranje coach also confirmed that Wesley Sneijder will not play a part against Belgium but the midfielder is highly likely to feature in the world cup qualification match against Luxembourg.
He said, ”Wesley always wants to play and I understand his eagerness to break Edwin van der Sar’s record of international caps (130) but I will play Wesley in a game that means something to us and that is qualification for the world cup.
“We must win against Luxembourg I can understand Wesley wanting to achieve his milestone of 125 international caps but I will only call him up for international duty when he is fit and therefore he can produce the quality we all know he can . I am certainly not looking at how many caps a player involved in the squad already has.”
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This match is special but not the same fierce special like with the germans or spain and england. I agree with Blind that rankings is more important but if I may add up that losing to the closest neighbour is really a nation morale down plus oranje lost to them on the last meeting as I remember. We need to win to get the winning mentality and confidence back facing minor luxembuorg which we should not at all underestimate knowing our current form.