Van Persie won´t celebrate 100th Netherlands cap

Robin van Persie admits celebrating his 100th cap will be far from his mind if the Netherlands fail to reach the Euro 2016 finals.

Danny Blind’s side head into their clash with Kazakhstan knowing that anything less than a win will see them miss out on a play-off spot, while they must also rely on Turkey to drop points against either the Czech Republic or Iceland.

Van Persie is in line to reach a century of senior international appearances but the Fenerbahce striker says it is hard to think positively about his experiences given their current predicament.

“This week, I’ve not remembered one of the beautiful things I’ve experienced with Oranje,” he told Algemeen Dagblad. 

“In a normal situation I’d have liked to, but now it feels inappropriate, I think.”

Head coach Blind, meanwhile, claimed his side are not feeling any nerves despite the importance of securing a victory and insisted playing on an artificial surface in Astana will be no excuse for a poor performance.

“We just have to win. That doesn’t change the pressure,” he said.

“The pitch is no issue. Most of our players have experience on artificial turf. We’re not nervous. We’ll play our own game.

“They’ll have a lot of people behind the ball. We have to do the things we have to do.

“It’s always bad if you fall behind. We need intense concentration, especially at set-pieces. It’s important that we take the lead.

“We started as group favourites. We know the results have been disappointing.”