Netherlands star Frenkie de Jong bucking the trend among Dream Team World Cup’s top midfielders
IT'S hard to know what to make of Netherlands at the World Cup so far.
The Oranje topped Group A after beating Senegal and Qatar, with a draw against Ecuador in between.
However, much like England, some of their fans have been unconvinced by the performances.
Truth be told, Louis van Gaal's side were pretty flat for 80 minutes against the African Cup of Nations champions and they were comprehensively outplayed by Enner Valencia and company in their second outing.
And yet they're undefeated and have earned themselves a round of 16 match-up against USA.
Cody Gakpo (£4m) is obviously the star of the show from a Dream Team World Cup perspective.
The PSV forward has scored in every game to date, an effort that has resulted in 29 points, making him the joint-best performer alongside Bruno Fernandes (£4.5m) at the time of writing.
Goalkeeper Andries Noppert (£2m) has offered superb value for money so far, twice combining clean sheets with 7+ ratings for a total of 16 points.
And Frenkie de Jong (£3.5m) has banked 26 points from the group stage, a tally only bettered by the aforementioned Fernandes among midfielders.
The Barcelona player is the focus of this article because his success is unexpected.
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Don't get us wrong, in terms of pure talent he ranks among the Netherlands' very best assets and he was always going to be a prominent contributor if his nation were to go deep in Qatar.
However, the 25-year-old isn't generally the type of midfielder who usually thrives in Dream Team, a statement reinforced by the current rankings.
The one thing that links all the other top-performing midfield assets in the game is that their primary task for their respective teams is to provide a threat in the final: Fernandes, Bukayo Saka (£5m), Dani Olmo (£3.5m), Davy Klaassen (£3m), Christian Pulisic (£3m), and so on.
De Jong bucks this trend as he operates in deeper areas and excels in progressing the ball through the middle third of the pitch.
The ex-Ajax midfielder scored against Qatar in Netherlands' final group game but that was a relatively rare occurrence - he's scored just two goals in 46 international caps.
He's faring better in the creative stakes having registered six assists but still his attacking stats don't paint the picture of a Dream Team World Cup midfielder who is able to sustain healthy returns.
But his points tally doesn't lie and the 19.3% of gaffers backing him have been handsomely rewarded in the last fortnight.
The main reason for this is that De Jong is one of just two players have bagged two Star Man awards in Qatar, the other being that man again, Fernandes.
And this is where deeper midfielders can mix it with the more attack-minded assets as WhoScored's match ratings recognise the importance of impressive performances no matter what position they occupy.
Saying that, Star Man awards are hard to come by and you don't want to select a player if achieving the top match rating is their only route to healthy returns.
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Generally speaking, your midfielders should be highly likely to score goals and provide assists - De Jong has fitted the bill so far but he's not been that type of player for the majority of his career to date.
Just something to think about as the stakes increase this week...