Matthijs de Ligt joined Juventus FC for a fee of 85.5 million euros and is therefore the most expensive Dutch player ever in terms of transfer fees. Virgil van Dijk, who joined Liverpool in season 2017/18, had a transfer of roughly 85 million euros, whereas Barcelona had to pay Ajax 75 million euros to buy Frenkie de Jong. The all-time highest fee ever paid for a football player is the transfer of Neymar from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). In August 2017, the French club from Paris paid a staggering 222 million euros to get the Brazilian winger.

Donny van de Beek: the most valuable Dutch Eredivisie player

Donny van de Beek had the highest market (transfer) value of the Dutch Eredivisie as of September 2019. The 22-year-old midfielder saw its market value amount to 50 million euros. David Neres and Hakim Ziyech, both players of Ajax as well, had values of 45 and 40 million euros, completing the top three leading players with the highest values in the Dutch football league. New in the top 25 best ranked players are Calvin Stengs and Oussama Idrissi, attacking players from AZ Alkmaar who had a combined market value of 22 million euros.

The Dutch are climbing up the FIFA World Ranking again

Since its fifth place on the World FIFA Ranking in 2014, the Dutch national football team dropped to the 22nd place in 2016 after failing to qualify for the European Championships. However, from 2016 onwards the Dutch fought their way up again, even though they did not qualify for the World Championship 2018 in Russia. As of 2019, the national team finds itself back on the 12th place, partially due to a successful campaign in the Nations League.