Barcelona boss Koeman admits interest in Depay and Wijnaldum but denies claims of turning Barca into Netherland B team

Koeman confirms that he wanted both Depay and Wijnaldum at Barca.

He doesn't think that he will end up like Van Gaal back in the day, when the coach had eight Dutch players in the squad.

"Hopefully, we will have a second Dutchman on the squad," Ronald Koeman told NOS when asked about Barcelona's interest in Memphis Depay. 

Then the coach added that there was another Dutch player he was interested in: "Giorginio Wijnaldum was on my list [too]."

However, Koeman said that he doesn't plan to bring only Dutch players to Barca, as Louis van Gaal did back in his time.

"That was extreme. I don't think you can compare that with the current situation. Now we have Frenkie de Jong. With Alfred Schreuder and myself on staff, we are two Dutchmen. But then there were eight or nine."

Technically, we could also count Sergino Dest as a Dutch player, as he was born and raised in the Netherlands. 

He has a Dutch mother and a Surinamese-American father. The right-back, however, chose to represent the USA on the international level.

In the 1998-99 season, during Van Gaal's first stint at Camp Nou, Blaugrana had eight Dutch players in their squad: Michael Reiziger, Ruud Hesp, Phillip Cocu, Winston Bogarde, Ronald de Boer, Patrick Kluivert, Boudewijn Zenden and Frank de Boer.