Willem van Hanegem has spoken out about Matthijs de Ligt and Cody Gakpo. De Kromme does not fully understand that De Ligt cheered after he took a ball off the line in the Champions League cracker against Paris Saint-Germain. Van Hanegem also thinks that the mood around Gakpo is changing very quickly.
De Ligt was one of Bayern Munich’s stars on Wednesday, in the squatter with PSG. The Orange international prevented a goal against by taking a ball off the line. De Ligt then celebrated that, but Van Hanegem would not have done the same. “No, then you look bad,” he laughs the football podcast of the Algemeen Dagblad. “De Ligt said how that feels, then I think: okay, do your best. But it’s crazy, yes. Especially if you think of yourself as one of the better defenders in the world. Then you don’t go if you stop a ball…”
Then Gakpo is mentioned. Van Hanegem is asked whether the former PSV player can become one of Liverpool’s big stars. “I hope so, he seems like a very sympathetic boy. But the same people who say that now all cursed Gakpo at the beginning of the season. He played so pitifully badly in all matches in the preliminary round of the Champions League. It was nothing at all, that was really bad for him.”
Van Hanegem sees that people in England have also quickly changed their opinion about Gakpo. “You can imagine, last week or two weeks ago there were a lot of pieces in the newspaper: how can Liverpool buy someone like that? Now he scores two goals against the arch-rival and there is no better player. There are people who are crazy, I feel.”
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