DALLAS, June 13 : If Netherlands defender Jan Paul van Hecke is to keep up family tradition, he will need to go all the way to next month\u2019s World Cup final. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His uncle Jan Poortvliet played in defence for the Dutch in the 1978 final, where they lost the deciding game against hosts Argentina in extra time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Hecke is expected to be in the line-up on Sunday in Dallas when they get their Group F campaign underway against Japan, partnering captain Virgil van Dijk in central defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAn enormous feeling of pride,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Hecke gets his chance after Jurrien Timber was ruled out of the tournament by injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my dream, but it was also his dream,\u201d Van Hecke said. \u201cIt\u2019s a real shame that his dream has fallen apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ironically, Van Hecke\u2019s uncle also broke into the Dutch team in 1978 in similar circumstances, having debuted for the Netherlands a fortnight before the World Cup kicked off and being picked for the squad as something of an outsider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when first-choice left-back Hugo Hovenkamp got injured, Poortvliet got to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHugo was in the form of his life, but that\u2019s how things sometimes go,\u201d Poortvliet told Dutch NOS television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He went on to play six matches in Argentina, showing his versatility at left-back, right-back and as a defensive midfielder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UNCLE COACHED NEPHEW<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poortvliet, now 70, has managed several Dutch clubs, was at Southampton for six months in 2008 and briefly coached Van Hecke at under-17 level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven then he had that strong determination to seize every opportunity,\u201d he said of his nephew, now at Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJan Paul is so stable, impossible to knock off course, both in football and in life. What he has achieved is very impressive. He may occasionally have a poor game, but he stays focused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Hecke told reporters last week he expected a tough start for the Dutch against Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re facing a strong opponent right away. Winning 1\u20130 at Wembley against England says a lot. In my opinion, my teammate (Kaoru) Mitoma was their best player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m very sorry for him that he had to withdraw from the World Cup because of injury and will miss the tournament. But even without Mitoma, Japan have a strong team,\u201d Van Hecke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DALLAS, June 13 : If Netherlands defender Jan Paul van Hecke is to keep up family tradition, he will need to go all the way to next month\u2019s World Cup final. His uncle Jan Poortvliet played in defence for the Dutch in the 1978 final, where they lost the deciding game against hosts Argentina in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416169,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416168\/revisions\/416169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}