This high profile friendly between the Netherlands and Spain on Wednesday night at the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam may be a much-needed distraction from their UEFA Nations League campaigns.
Embed from Getty ImagesSpain come into this friendly off the back of a shock loss in their Nations League campaign to Ukraine, who scored a late goal to steal a 1-0 victory against them. Spain will be hoping to use this friendly as a source of momentum to regain their confidence as a squad.
However, Spain are top of their Nations League group and will look to regain their form in this game heading into their last two group games against Switzerland and Germany which they need to win to top their group and qualify for the Nations League Finals.
But, it is the Netherlands who need this break the most out of the two as they are winless in their last four matches; losing to Italy and Mexico and more recently drawing to Bosnia Herzegovina and Italy.
Last time out Netherlands scored their first goal under new manager Frank De Boer, drawing 1-1 to Italy after Donny Van De Beek equalised. They will be looking to use this friendly as a way to find the form they had under previous manager Ronald Koeman and make a late attempt to win their Nations League group with games against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland coming in quick succession after this friendly.
These two teams are meeting for the first time in five years, where we saw the Netherlands come out with a 2-0 victory in an international friendly in 2015. Spain have the most historic win between the two sides though as they famously beat Holland 1-0 in the 2010 World Cup Final, capturing their first and only World Cup Trophy.
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Spain have struggled with their attacking threat as of late and have called Marcos Llorente up for the first time as a way to change this and he may earn his first cap here. They have also recalled Alvaro Morata who has been in good form since returning to Juventus and he will hope to get back amongst the goals for his country.
However, they are without Rodrigo, who tested positive for coronavirus and Thiago Alcantara who is injured.
As for The Netherlands, they have recalled Davy Klaassen and he could earn his first cap since October 2017.
Tonny Vilhena and Patrick Van Aanholt have also received recalls but the big blow for the Netherlands is that they seem set to be without star player Virgil Van Dijk as he picked up a long term knee injury whilst playing for Liverpool.
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