Manchester United<\/a> \u2013 who are the unlucky undecet?<\/p>\nGK: Jasper Cillessen<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
With 65 caps for the Netherlands to his name, Jasper Cillessen is the 39th longest-serving player in the Oranje\u2019s history. He was part of the team that made it to the semi-finals of the 2014 World Cup, where they lost to Argentina on penalties. <\/p>\n
Sadly, he was also part of The Netherlands\u2019 downfall, when they failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2018. Aged 36, there are much better \u2013 not to mention younger \u2013 options available to the Dutch in 2026. <\/p>\n
RB: Daley Blind<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
Daley Blind isn\u2019t as old as one may initially think. At 36 years of age, he is a veteran of the game \u2013 but having played in 27 La Liga matches for Girona this season, it seems he still has something left to give. <\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Blind retired from international duty in 2024 and hasn\u2019t made any public plans to return to the fold \u2013 as such, it can be safely assumed that he won\u2019t be playing at the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n
CB: Sepp van den Berg<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
Sepp van den Berg has led a solid campaign at Brentford this season, but with no prior international caps to his name, his chances of participation at the World Cup look remote as things stand.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, he wasn\u2019t included in Koeman\u2019s latest international squad. Unfortunately, it looks like Van den Berg will be overlooked this year, despite his best efforts. <\/p>\n
CB: Pascal Struijk<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
Pascal Struijk is another casualty of The Netherlands\u2019 stellar selection of options at the heart of defence. He has been a cornerstone of Leeds United\u2019s season in the Premier League, but has never won a cap for his country. <\/p>\n
After an up-and-down season with the Whites, it seems unlikely that Struijk will be awarded his debut at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Netherlands are perhaps the most successful footballing nation to have never won the World Cup. That could all change this year \u2013 but these 11 men probably won\u2019t be along for the ride. In this piece, we\u2019ll be looking at an XI of Netherlands\u2019 players who likely will not be included in Ronald Koeman\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}