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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d-blind-oBlind 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.”




James Rowe (696 Posts)