Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal wants the focus to be back on the FIFA World Cup 2022 after the last One Love debate. Dumfries also said that the focus be on football and enough attention has been paid to other issues.
In Short
Van Gaal wants the focus to be firmly back on the World Cup after the recent One Love debate
Dumfries echoed his manager's sentiments and said that enough time has been given to other issues
Van Gaal hailed Ecuador as a strong and clever team
By India Today Web Desk: Netherlands boss Louis van Gaal wants to put the One Love armband debate and other issues behind and focus on the World Cup ahead of their clash against Ecuador.
The One Love armband has been in the spotlight over the last few days with the teams deciding not to wear the armband during matches. Germany staged a silent protest ahead of their match against Japan.
Speaking to the reporters, as quoted by Reuters, Van Gaal said that he wanted to put a full stop to all the issues and focus on the World Cup and not get their main aim tarnished by FIFA or anyone else.
"No", said Van Gaal when asked if his team were planning any protest. "We put a full stop after all the political issues past Thursday.
"We have this purpose and we're not going to have that tarnished by the actions of FIFA or whichever other organisation.
"But I've already responded ... I think that's enough."
Dutch defender Denzel Dumfries also commented on the matter that the focus needs to be on football after paying a lot of attention to the One Love situation.
"We paid a lot of attention to this (OneLove)," said Dumfries. "Over the past few weeks, we've really talked about it a lot. But we came to Qatar to play to play football. That's what we're focusing on.
"We've said what we need to say, and from now on we need to concentrate on playing football."
Van Gaal spoke about Netherlands' next opponents, Ecuador, and called them a stable team. He said that the squad is full of strong and clever players and he feels they're better than Senegal.
It (Ecuador) is a stable team," said Van Gaal. "They're physically strong with very clever players, shrewd players, which is why I believe that they are tougher than Senegal."
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