The line-up of the Dutch national team for the World Cup qualifier in and against Latvia is known. Guus Til makes his entrance into the starting lineup as a replacement for the suspended Georginio Wijnaldum. In addition to Wijnaldum, Joël Drommel and Nathan Aké are also in the stands: they are not part of the match selection. The match starts Friday evening at 8.45 pm in Riga.
In fact, Van Gaal only had to replace the suspended Wijnaldum. The reserve captain of the Dutch national team was replaced after just over an hour of play during the 6-1 win over Turkey by Til, who then also determined the final score. The tastemaker of Feyenoord is important because of his qualities as a ‘runner’ in order to best express the qualities of Memphis Depay and will make his basic debut on Friday. There is also one change in the front compared to the last international match against Turkey (6-1): Cody Gakpo plays for the absent Steven Bergwijn.
Van Gaal does not want to deviate much from his choices last month in the qualifiers against Norway, Montenegro and Turkey in terms of line-up and playing style. For example, the national coach hinted on Thursday that he would not start with a tall striker and that means no Luuk de Jong or Wout Weghorst in the base. He will therefore want to build on the growing confidence in the 4-3-3 system so popular by the players.
For Matthijs de Ligt, there is once again no more than a place on the bench. Stefan de Vrij and Virgil van Dijk are preferred. The Netherlands is the leader in Group G with thirteen points. After the game with Latvia, there are still three games to play in the World Cup qualifying series. Only the group winner qualifies directly for the World Cup. Norway has the same number of points, thirteen, while Turkey is on eleven points. Those two countries will face each other on Turkish soil on Friday evening. The Netherlands will play against Gibraltar next week.
the Dutch lineup: Bijlow; Dumfries, De Vrij, Van Dijk, Blind; Klaassen, F. De Jong, Til; Berghuis, Depay and Gakpo.