{"id":66730,"date":"2018-03-22T13:26:33","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T17:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=66730"},"modified":"2018-03-22T15:45:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T19:45:50","slug":"captain-van-dijk-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2018\/03\/22\/captain-van-dijk-netherlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain Virgil van Dijk: Liverpool Defender Appointed Netherland&#8217;s Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/liverpool\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Liverpool<\/a> defender Virgil van Dijk, it has been announced this afternoon, has been appointed the new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11669\/11300252\/virgil-van-dijk-named-netherlands-captain\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">captain of the Netherlands National squad<\/a>. This announcement caps off quite a year for the man who became the most expensive defender in World Football in the latest transfer window.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Virgil van Dijk has been confirmed as the new captain of the Netherlands&#8217; national team. ?<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VirgilvDijk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@VirgilvDijk<\/a>. ?<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VCB7UDtpGA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/VCB7UDtpGA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PQPKjw9ChA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PQPKjw9ChA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Liverpool FC (@LFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LFC\/status\/976854769770942468?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 22, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h1>From a Saint to Captain Virgil van Dijk<\/h1>\n<p>The Netherland&#8217;s Football Association has announced that Virgil van Dijk is now to be their captain van Dijk. Ronald Koeman takes charge of his first match as Oranje boss on Friday in a friendly against England. The Netherlands failed to qualify for this summer&#8217;s World Cup and are looking to rebuild their\u00a0squad.<\/p>\n<p>Koeman knows van Dijk from his time as <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/southampton\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Southampton<\/a> manager and van Dijk is delighted to be given this opportunity. He stated,\u00a0\u201dTo be named international captain of Holland is very special and does a lot for me. It&#8217;s going to be very special. Against England is a little bit more special.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Van Dijk made his International debut in 2015 against Kazakhstan and has 16 caps to his name so far.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image Credit:<br \/>\n<a id=\"xb__g9JRSExQOIv_3EjANg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/934976830\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'xb__g9JRSExQOIv_3EjANg',sig:'RLqjUDSGxonS5OQAxx2z4AHinbCSIHcCFv0X5vVjq_U=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'934976830',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>ZEIST, NETHERLANDS &#8211; MARCH 20: Virgil van Dijk of Netherlands looks on during the Netherlands Training session held at KNVB Sportcentrum on March 20, 2018 in Zeist, Netherlands. The Netherlands will play England in a International Friendly match on March 23 in the Amsterdam ArenA. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk, it has been announced this afternoon, has been appointed the new captain of the Netherlands National squad. This announcement caps off quite a year for the man who became the most expensive defender in World Football in the latest transfer window. Virgil van Dijk has been confirmed as the new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2488,"featured_media":66777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,2],"tags":[211,95,423,40,235,756],"class_list":["post-66730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-featured","tag-international-football","tag-liverpool","tag-netherlands","tag-premier-league","tag-southampton","tag-virgil-van-dijk"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}