Frenkie de Jong criticized | Special statement by Valentijn Driessen about Joey Veerman

Former PSV player Joey Veerman returned to the Oranje squad last Thursday after two years away. Veerman came on after halftime for Quinten Timber.

Ultimately, the Netherlands played to a 1-1 draw against Germany thanks to a goal by also former PSV player Cody Gakpo. Ruben van Bommel played a big part in this with a fantastic assist, and so Van Bommel enjoyed an excellent debut with the Netherlands national team.

Afterwards, NOS analysts Rafael van der Vaart and Ronald de Boer were especially complimentary about Veerman’s performance. De Boer was particularly lyrical about the intentions of the former PSV player as soon as the midfielder got the ball.

''Here I love it. The first thing you do is look ahead. Can I just put someone up against the goalkeeper?'', said the former footballer after the match to the camera of NOS.

Then Van der Vaart got involved. ''You just know when he gets the ball that you have to start running. He gives you no choice, because he’s just going to pass it to you. If you don’t run, then you’re kind of making a fool of yourself. He is very commanding when he plays forward; then you have to start running,'' the analyst said.

Moreover, the former international drew a striking comparison. ''He fit in extremely well. It's a bit like Xavi, you know. That little touch, that's what Xavi always did. That's why they brought him in too, I think,'' Van der Vaart said.

The head coach himself was also pleased with the midfielder's performance against Die Mannschaft. ''He understood perfectly what the team needed. He brought superiority and dominated the game. I'm very happy with him'', Voetbal International quotes Xavi.

At De Telegraaf, it also appears that they have enjoyed Joey Veerman. We can certainly draw that conclusion from the statements of Valentijn Driessen, who, in the meantime, also threw Frenkie de Jong onto the bus in the podcast Kick Off of De Telegraaf. “And I was very happy that Joey Veermann came in", Driessen begins in the relevant podcast about the Dortmund midfielder, who is also sometimes treated differently by Driessen.

"Then there were many more attacking lines in the game of the Netherlands national team", Driessen wrote down after his last international appearance in Germany in the summer of 2024. "At that Euros, yes, but after that, of course, I also saw him at PSV in his development in the Champions League", Driessen continues.

"And afterwards I saw him, as one of the great advocates for Joey Veermann, for the Netherlands national team. And if I compare him, for example, with Frankie De Jong, then I think he plays much more directly, much more attacking. When Joey Veerman came on, then I at least saw a bit of the Netherlands national team, which is what you would like to see", said an enthusiastic Valentijn Driessen.