Late last night, Fabrizio Romano reported that Ian Maatsen is now favourite to be called up to the Dutch squad for Euro 2024 after Frenkie de Jong was forced to pull out shortly before the start of the tournament with an injury.
The insider put the news out in the dead of night and it is expected to be confirmed by the Dutch FA later today. It’s not a positional match, of course, so some reshuffling will be needed to compensate for the pretty damaging loss of your key central midfielder and playmaker.
🚨🇳🇱 Understand Ian Maatsen has good chances to be called up by Koeman after Frenkie de Jong’s injury. pic.twitter.com/0LQUGviO2m
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 11, 2024
So it’s bad news for Ronald Koeman and his team. But it makes things more fun for Chelsea fans, who now have another team and another face to follow in the tournament. Who doesn’t like the chance to watch Maatsen rampaging down the left for Holland?
Bigger bucks for Chelsea
It should also raise his potential sale value further after a great 6 months on loan with Borussia Dortmund. It felt odd that he wasn’t going to get the nod to play for his country anyway after such a good season playing at the very top level, so in a way it now feels like justice has been done.
The Netherlands have a really tough and interesting group they play Poland, France and Austria, meaning plenty of chances for Maatsen to come up against past and present teammates.
They will be favoured to go through in second in their group, but that means besting Austria and Poland, either of which can put up a decent fight on their day.
Maatsen isn’t going to be first choice on the wing or at left back, but should now become an important option off the bench for the Oraanje in the group stages, giving him the chance to earn a start in the knockouts.
