Ryan Babel has hit out at the ‘annoying’ manner in which he feels that one Liverpool player was made a scapegoat by national media during Euro 2024.
Virgil van Dijk captained Netherlands to the semi-finals in Germany, their best major tournament finish in a decade and the furthest they’ve gone at the European Championship in 20 years, but still found himself on the wrong end of several pundits’ vitriol from his homeland.
Speaking to Redmen TV 2, his compatriot Ryan Babel criticised the treatment of the Reds centre-back from some of his nation’s media.
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The ex-Liverpool winger said: “I feel like the Dutch media always try to find someone to blame. You would almost believe that they did not support the Dutch team [from] the way they write about them.
“It’s unfortunately the way the Dutch media has been programmed. Even if they [players] did an amazing job, they [media] would still find reasons why it could have been much better or why it was not good enough. They had ambitions to reach the final; it didn’t happen. Someone needs to take the blame for it.
“Virgil was one of the major players that they criticised alongside Memphis [Depay] and a few other players. I’m sure it didn’t bother him, he’s used to it, but it’s very annoying to see that, once things don’t go well, it’s easy to point fingers.”
We continue to find it baffling how Van Dijk seems to constantly be the go-to subject of criticism from numerous Dutch pundits, especially after the part he played in getting them to the semi-finals of Euro 2024.
He made a whopping 36 clearances throughout the tournament, with only Slovenia’s Jaka Bijol (38) exceeding that tally (WhoScored), and led by example from the back for a nation who are only now back competing for major honours after a dismally lean decade.
If he can carry such performances into the new season at Liverpool, there should be plenty of appreciation coming his way from the Anfield fan base.
You can view Babel’s assessment in full below, via Redmen TV 2 on YouTube:
The post (Video) ‘Someone to blame…’ – Ryan Babel fumes at ‘annoying’ treatment of Liverpool stalwart appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
