The Netherlands squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers was announced on Friday with one notable absentee. Wolfsburg striker Wout Weghorst was, for the third squad in a row, left out by Frank de Boer.

  • By Michael Bell
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Wolfsburg are currently sitting third in the Bundesliga and going for a Champions League spot, in part down to the goals of Wout Weghorst. The striker is having an excellent campaign so far, scoring 16 league goals and adding six assists in 25 league games. That is two short of his best ever league campaign, which saw him net 18 times in the Eredivisie for AZ during the 2017/18 campaign.

This calendar year, Weghorst has been involved in eleven goals (seven goals and four assists), which puts him in good company. In Europe’s top five leagues, only Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski, Romelu Lukaku, Luis Muriel, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Jadon Sancho have been involved in more goals this year.

However, this still isn’t enough for Frank de Boer, who has once again decided to leave Weghorst out of his Netherlands squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers with Turkey, Latvia, and Gibraltar.

Weghorst made his Netherlands debut under Ronald Koeman and has four caps to his name, but since De Boer took charge of Oranje, the 27-year-old is yet to return to the squad.

The decision this time is even more baffling, considering that Weghorst has more league goals than anyone else in the squad. Luuk de Jong is in, despite being benched in recent weeks and only scoring four league goals. Ryan Babel is also there despite being a back-up for Galatasaray and only netting three league goals this season.

This form isn’t new for Weghorst, with the forward netting at least 15 goals a season since his second campaign with Heracles Almelo back in the 2015/16 campaign. He got 45 goals in 86 games for AZ, and so far has 59 in 111 for Wolfburg.

De Boer stressed when he took over that you had to be playing well and regularly to get called up, but that doesn’t seem to be applied at the moment, especially in the case of Weghorst. Next week, De Boer will have to explain his decision to the press, but it won’t change the fact that Weghorst is sitting at home despite being the most in-form Dutch attacker at the moment.

What more can Weghorst possibly do to get his Oranje chance?




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