were knocked out by Morocco<\/a> on penalties in the round of 32.<\/p>\nThe 35-year-old has retained his captaincy under new boss Xavi, and was involved in a frosty confrontation with a journalist during a spiky press conference ahead of Netherlands’ Nations League clash with Germany on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“One of your colleagues also said, of course, that it was my idea to switch to playing with a back five. That is utter nonsense,” Van Dijk told one reporter.<\/p>\n
“The fact is we simply failed at the World Cup. Those are the hard facts. We didn’t play a good World Cup. It’s not about me. You perform together. You’re a team. Your claim that I destroyed Dutch football after the World Cup – that sort of thing is completely baseless”.<\/p>\n
Koeman utilised a back four throughout the group stages of the World Cup, but switched formation for the game against Morocco which the Netherlands led thanks to Cody Gakpo.<\/p>\n
However, a stoppage-time equaliser from Issa Diop sent the game to extra-time and eventually penalties which saw Koeman’s side crash out.<\/p>\n
“The plan is devised by the staff. Nonsense is being spread so that I look even worse. That happens far too often,” Van Dijk said.<\/p>\n
“I was told that it was my fault we played with five, that Ronald Koeman and I have destroyed Dutch football.<\/p>\n
“The plan worked for 89 minutes, even though it was a bad match. We almost broke through. The idea that I destroyed Dutch football makes absolutely no sense. I didn’t decide that.”<\/p>\n
“I’m super open,” Van Dijk continued when asked why he was giving short answers during the press conference.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes things need to be said, right? Otherwise you’re just listening to all the whining. With most of the media, I have zero issues. Never have. When nonsense gets put out into the world, how else am I supposed to deal with that?”<\/p>\n
With Xavi now at the helm, Van Dijk says he is motivated to continue with the Netherlands as they begin their Nations League campaign before next year’s Euro 2028 qualifiers.<\/p>\n
“I needed a holiday with my family and then an important meeting with the national coach. After 10 seconds it was already clear that I would continue,” he added.<\/p>\n
“What did he say? That I am Virgil van Dijk. It is about trust, appreciation, how important you are for the team. Physically there is – and was – no doubt but you also want to feel appreciation and pleasure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk hit back at suggestions that he forced former Netherlands boss Ronaldo Koeman into changing his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-626514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}