Netherlands call up Bologna striker Zirkzee following Brobbey injury

Zirkzee was on holiday in Miami after a successful season with Bologna. The former Bayern Munich player did not play the last two games of the Serie A season due to injury. However, he had an important role in a team that finished fifth in the league and thus gets to play in the Champions League next year.

Zirkzee has a Nigerian mother and a Dutch father and was born in Schiedam, north of Rotterdam. He never played professional football in the Netherlands and left the youth academy at Feyenoord for Bayern. There he never broke through. As a loan player, he shone for Anderlecht, after which Bologna brought him to Italy.

Brobbey continues to suffer from stiff muscles in an upper leg. The Ajax striker left Dutch national team training earlier on Wednesday after a collision with Matthijs de Ligt. According to De Telegraaf, the KNVB ordered an MRI scan as a precaution and it showed nothing serious.

A KNVB spokesman would not confirm whether Brobbey was reassured after an MRI scan. The 22-year-old striker first grabbed his left foot after a duel with De Ligt. But that was apparently to stretch his stiffened hamstring.

Brobbey has had hamstring problems all season. As a result, he also missed a number of duels with Ajax. National coach Ronald Koeman judged early in the Netherlands' pre-EU training camp that the striker also needed to get fitter.