On October 4, 2026, at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven, Virgil van Dijk reached 100 appearances for the Netherlands as his side beat Serbia 2–1 in the UEFA Nations League. He became the eleventh player in the Dutch men’s team to reach that milestone. The most unusual detail sits inside the total: 99 of those appearances were starts, with just one coming from the substitutes’ bench.
A century built almost entirely from starts
The Dutch federation’s official milestone account records 99 starts in Van Dijk’s first 100 internationals. Omroep Brabant’s independent report confirms the same breakdown. His only substitute appearance was against Canada on June 6, 2024, in a friendly before that summer’s European Championship.
That makes the century more informative than a simple attendance total. A cap can come from starting a match or entering it later. For Van Dijk, those two routes were distributed almost completely toward the first: only one percent of his first hundred appearances began on the bench. The statistic describes selection at kickoff; it does not claim that he completed every match.
A late debut, and another player’s hundredth cap
Van Dijk was already 24 when he made his senior Netherlands debut against Kazakhstan on October 10, 2015. Both the federation and Omroep Brabant trace his international career to that date. His own century arrived six days before the eleventh anniversary of that first appearance.
There is a neat historical connection. The federation notes that Van Dijk’s debut was also Robin van Persie’s hundredth international. A contemporary beIN SPORTS match report confirms that Van Persie entered late to collect his century cap in the Dutch 2–1 victory. In that match, one player was just beginning his international tally while another reached the milestone Van Dijk would eventually claim for himself.
Serbia made the milestone night a contest
Sunday’s match supplied a winning result alongside the personal achievement. Teun Koopmeiners put the Netherlands ahead, Mihajlo Cvetković equalized for Serbia, and substitute Joshua Zirkzee scored the second-half winner. The official match record and NL Times’ match account confirm the scorers and the 2–1 result. Van Dijk captained the home side on the occasion.
The hundredth cap placed him in a small group, rather than at the top of the all-time list. The federation and Omroep Brabant list Wesley Sneijder as the Dutch men’s appearance leader on 134, with Van Dijk on 100. His milestone’s distinctive feature is the route: a debut at 24, almost eleven years of internationals, and just one appearance that began with him among the substitutes.
Sources and further reading
- KNVB / OnsOranje — official century statistics
- Omroep Brabant — independent milestone report
- KNVB / OnsOranje — official Netherlands–Serbia match record
- NL Times — independent Netherlands–Serbia report
- beIN SPORTS / Omnisport — contemporary report of the 2015 Kazakhstan match
