Netherlands boss Ronald Koeman backs Matthijs de Ligt to help contain Cristiano Ronaldo threat in Nations League

Danger man: Cristiano Ronaldo will look to build on his hat-trick against Switzerland when Portugal meet the Netherlands
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Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman says his side have what it takes to stop Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo, but admits that he may still be too good for them.

Ronaldo, 34, scored a hat-trick to fire the hosts into Sunday's Uefa Nations League Final against the Dutch, a contest which has been billed as a battle between the Portuguese No7 and Champions League-winning defender Virgil van Dijk.

No-one has successfully dribbled past Van Dijk in his last 64 appearances for Liverpool, but Portugal defender and former Southampton team-mate Jose Fonte this week tipped Ronaldo to be that man.

Koeman, however, insisted it is not only Van Dijk who can slow the Juventus star, whose treble on Wednesday was his 53rd career hat-trick, citing Matthijs de Ligt's performance in a 3-0 friendly win over Portugal in March 2018 as an example.

"We played a friendly in Switzerland, not a long time ago, and De Ligt was stopping Ronaldo as well," Koeman said.

In Pictures | Netherlands vs England | 06/06/2019

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"It's not only Van Dijk who can stop Ronaldo.

"We can stop him, but it just depends on how the games goes, how it starts.

"But Ronaldo is good enough to create against really good defenders. That's the nicest part of football - you can't do anything because his quality is on such a high level."

Koeman added: "We know he is one of the best and the nicest thing in football is you cannot stop 100% because sometimes he is too good.

"If you can stop everybody that is not nice for the public but we know the qualities of that player, we need to defend well and have the ball. It is not 1v1 because that is not what we like."

Before beating England in Thursday's semi-final, the Netherlands had to get through a group containing Germany and World Cup winners France.

Given no-one expected them to achieve that feat, there is no pressure on Sunday's match, according to Koeman.

"If we go back when we saw the draw in a group with France and Germany nobody expected Holland to win the group and now we are in the final," he said.

In Pictures | Portugal vs Switzerland, Nations League | 05/06/2019

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"It is a pleasure to play the final and it is not pressure, we know what we need to do. We need to play good football, good defending and we showed that against England.

"We beat France, Germany, England and it will be unbelievable if we beat Portugal at home in the final."

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