Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink believes that Celtic’s Ditch duo of Derk Boerrigter and Virgil van Dijk can steer the hoops to victory over Ajax tonight.
The former PSV Eindhoven striker spent three seasons in Glasgow and likes nothing better than a trip to his spiritual home to rekindle the memories.
Venegoor of Hesselink scored against Manchester United and Barcelona in the Champions League and is hoping that the Dutch successors can give the 10,000 strong Celtic support plenty to cheer about in Amsterdam.
“He has great length, especially in Scotland is definitely an advantage, the former Celt stated about van Dijk. “At Celtic he will gain a lot of experience in the coming years.
“He will be a few times champion and also play in the Champions League. If it all works out he will perhaps go on to play at a bigger club because he is still quite young.”
Boerrigter remains something of an enigma to the Celtic support with bursts of quality matched by infuriating injuries alongside whispers about his fitness at Ajax.
Vennegoor of Hesselink knows the winger better than most, revealing the long time influence he has had on the Celtic new bhoy.
“The Celtic fans love players like Derk,” Jan added. “They like fast attackers with the skill to take on defenders, when he gets playing regularly the Celtic fans can expect him to get within the goals.
“His positional play is also good, I would have liked him to have played alongside Gary Hooper, they’s both have helped each other and scored goals.
“Although I was born in Hengelo like Derk I spent my childhood years in Oldenzaal. During my first years as a professional footballer, his parents asked me for advice for Derk, who was youth player. I gave them some videotapes including some exercises from Wiel Coerver and since then we’ve always kept in touch.
“It’s great to see Derk now at Celtic, we’ve both played for Twente and Quick 20 so it would be great to see Derk doing well at Celtic.
“Moving to Celtic is good for Dutch players, they are a fantastic club. Scottish football is physical and very different to the way we play in Holland but it is enjoyable.
“Going back to watch Celtic is a great experience, I was over last season for the win over Barcelona and celebrated that win alongside 60,000 other fans.”
