\n<\/p>\n
Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman underlined the importance of captain Virgil van Dijk<\/a> ahead of the team’s World Cup opener against Japan near Dallas later on Sunday.<\/p>\n The 63-year-old said that a coach always wants a skipper who is a key figure on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The 34-year-old van Dijk is set to start as the Oranje’s defensive leader even though he did not have a good season at Liverpool<\/a>.<\/p>\n “When he is on the pitch, he is a great defender,” the coach said. “Off the field he has a strong personality. He maintains the great atmosphere in the group. We are very happy to have him.”<\/p>\n Given the advanced age of his captain, Koeman said it was “very likely” his last World Cup, “so we hope it will be an unforgettable experience for him.”<\/p>\n Koeman also revealed that first-choice goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen<\/a>, who had recently been carrying an injury, is fit and will start in goal. Mark Flekken<\/a> of Bayer Leverkusen<\/a> will be his back-up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman underlined the importance of captain Virgil van Dijk ahead of the team’s World Cup opener against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_animmysite_disable_animation":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/en\/dpa_international_526\/0a6b0d61ae4910d960c3ab5a856721ad","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"