Virgil van Dijk put Noa Vahle in her place during Wednesday morning's press moment in Zeist. The Netherlands defender insisted it was absolutely not his idea to play with five defenders against Morocco at the World Cup.
The Netherlands went out to Morocco in the last 16 of the World Cup last summer. The North Africans proved too strong for the Dutch national team on penalties.
Having played 4-3-3 throughout the group stage, then national coach Ronald Koeman suddenly switched to a system with five defenders for the match against Morocco.
It backfired badly. Morocco overran the Netherlands for most of the match, and the Dutch did well to escape with a 1-1 draw. Van Dijk defended Koeman's decision afterwards, after which Mike Verweij of De Telegraaf suggested the idea had partly come from Van Dijk.
Van Dijk flatly denied that on Wednesday morning during the press chat. On behalf of Talpa, Noa Vahle asked whether he had had much time last summer to reflect on the World Cup and everything that had gone wrong, and the defender responded sharply.
"We didn’t do it well. It is up to us to change that quickly. Afterwards, it is easy to say that we should have done this or that differently," began the Liverpool captain.
"One of your colleagues said it was my idea to play with five defenders. That is complete nonsense, but we failed at the World Cup. Those are the facts," Van Dijk responded.