Orange starts with Cillessen, Timber, Berghuis and Klaassen against Belgium | NOW

The Dutch national team will start on Friday with Jasper Cillessen, Jurriën Timber, Davy Klaassen, Steven Berghuis and Steven Bergwijn in the Nations League match in Brussels against Belgium. With the Belgians, Romelu Lukaku has been found fit enough for a basic place.

The Orange squad will start, as national coach Louis van Gaal announced, in a 3-4-3 formation. Cillessen is preferred to Mark Fleks and plays his first international match since November. There is no place in the back for Matthijs de Ligt and Stefan de Vrij, while Timber can start his seventh international match. Virgil van Dijk, who is allowed to take a holiday after this international match against Belgium, and Nathan Aké complete the defence.

In midfield it seems that Berghuis plays alongside Frenkie de Jong and Klaassen has an attacking role behind strikers Bergwijn and Memphis Depay. Denzel Dumfries and Daley Blind are the wingbacks. Incidentally, Van Gaal has already said that he will make frequent changes to his basic formations during this international period and so not too many conclusions should be drawn from a reserve role or a basic place.

Jerdy Schouten will not make his debut against Belgium. Just like Bruno Martins Indi, the midfielder is not part of the 23-man match selection of Orange and is sitting in the stands in Brussels.

For the Belgians, Lukaku has recovered sufficiently from a hard collision in training last week. Eden Hazard is also allowed to start. The Real Madrid player is playing his first international match since November. On goal, Simon Mignolet replaces the injured Thibaut Courtois.

Orange can beat Belgium again after 25 years

The 128th edition of the ‘Derby der Lage Landen’ starts on Friday evening at 8.45 pm in the King Baudouin Stadium and is led by the Spanish referee José María Sánchez.

The Orange hopes in Brussels to end a dramatic run of eight games without a win against the Belgians. The last Dutch victory was almost 25 years ago: on September 6, 1997 it was 3-1 in De Kuip.

The meeting with Belgium is the first game of Orange in group 4 of Division A of the Nations League. The other countries in the group already played against each other on Wednesday and then Poland won 2-1 against Wales.