Strange new world: Japan vs Netherlands had two players from Dutch league, both Japanese

Globalisation has redefined international sports, yet some of the results of these changes still surprise us.

For example, consider the latest World Cup clash between the Netherlands and Japan, which ended in a 2-2 draw.

In this Group F match played in Arlington, USA, an unusual situation occurred: both Dutch top-division players in the starting XI were actually Japanese.

Ayase Ueda and Tsuyoshi Watanabe of Feyenoord started the match, while the Oranje's squad had no players from their domestic league. Moreover, Ronald Koeman's 26-man squad has just two Eredivisie men - Wout Weghorst of Ajax Amsterdam and Guus Til of PSV Eindhoven.

On the other hand, the Samurai Blue boss Hajime Moriyasu had three Dutch league substitutions on his list: ex-Arsenal player Takehiro Tomiyasu (Ajax), Ko Itakura (Ajax) and Koki Ogawa (NEC Nijmegen).

A "never say die" attitude saves Japan from defeat

Curacao has called up the most Eredivisie players (8), followed by Japan (5), while Algeria, Australia, Croatia, Morocco, the Netherlands, and the United States all called up two Dutch-based players.