Celtic defender Virgil van Dijk believes one of the reasons he is yet to make his Netherlands debut is that the KNVB don’t take the SPL seriously.
- By Michael Bell
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The 23-year-old has impressed for the Scottish champions since joining from Groningen in 2013, but he is yet to make his debut for the Dutch national team, and was left out of Guus Hiddink’s squad to face Turkey and Spain recently.
Speaking to Scottish media on the snub from Netherlands, Van Dijk said, “It’s very difficult for me to say why I’m not playing for Holland. Nobody asks the manager (Hiddink) or his staff either why I’m not getting a call-up.
“I think that maybe one of the big reasons is they don’t take the league in Scotland too seriously. For me, the only thing I can do is play well for Celtic, work hard and prove myself day in and day out.
“I also have to keep enjoying what I’m doing. I’m at a good place and we hope for the treble. That’s the main thing. I must see the positives and not the negatives – but in my mind there are no negatives.
“If I’m in the national team, it would be a big bonus because it’s only like last season that I’ve been playing okay and I’ve tried to continue that this season. If I get a call-up, then great.”
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celtic are a catholic team traditionally. the oranje are not.
plenty of dutch players played for the holland national team in the past. the de boars, ricksen, numan etc but they played for the protestant half of scotland so they were “taken seriously”.
I’m not that much into the discussion catholic or protestant,but i think van dijk is right,he should be given a chance.martins indi is not a regular starter with porto and i think he did some mistakes against turkey and spain too.