Playing for the Dutch national team has always been Noa Lang’s big dream. The 22-year-old attacker of Club Brugge hopes, if he gets playing time from national coach Louis van Gaal in the coming international matches against Latvia and Gibraltar, to leave an indelible impression. According to father Jeffrey Lang, it was all written in the stars. “A fortune teller predicted it all when Noa was five years old. Also this about the Dutch. If it all comes true, what is in that letter from the soothsayer, then beautiful things will happen.”
Nourdin Boukhari is convinced that Lang is in the right place with the Dutch. The former football player had a relationship with Lang’s mother in the past. “The Dutch national team can use such a type of player with creativity and the ability to play a man out,” Boukhari assures on Wednesday in conversation with The Telegraph. “I think he’s very suitable against defensive opponents like Latvia and Gibraltar, so I’m counting on him to get some playing time.”
“Playing in the Dutch has always been his big dream. I took him to international matches a lot and he always loved that,” said Boukhari. As a youth coach at Ajax, Gery Vink had a strong bond with Lang. “You have talents and you have natural talents and Noa is of the second category. He plays very intuitively and is therefore very unpredictable for the opponent. Noa is a winger who can really outplay a man, scores easily and also has the walking ability needed in modern football.”
The move to Belgium has been good for Lang, thinks Vink. „He certainly had the qualities to also succeed at Ajax, but he was behind Tadic. That is an impossible battle to win. At Club Brugge he has a free role on the left and that is perfect for him.” Boukhari and Lang played a lot of football together. “I also took Noa to squares and to futsal matches. That also helped him in developing his technique. There he did learn the pannas and the akkas”, he says with a laugh.
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