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Football

16th Nov 2018

Memphis Depay seals Dutch win with beautiful panenka penalty

Jack O'Toole

Lyon winger Memphis Depay sealed a 2-0 win for Holland over World Cup winners France on Friday with a beautiful panenka penalty.

Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum opened the scoring for Holland just before half-time while Depay secured the win with a chipped penalty in the 95th minute.

The win for Holland cuts France’s lead at the top of the UEFA Nations League Group 1 table to just one point with Ronald Koeman’s side now set to play Germany at the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen on Monday.

Depay has flourished since joining Lyon from Manchester United in January, 2017 with the 24-year-old netting 19 goals in 36 league games for the Ligue 1 side last season.

The former PSV Eindhoven winger scored just seven goals in 53 games across all competitions for Manchester United but already has five goals in 13 league games this season for Lyon.

Depay’s former coach Cor Pot believes that he moved to United too early and that he’s a bit calmer now than he was when he first moved to Old Trafford.

“I found Memphis especially a very positive boy”, Pot told voetbalprimeur.

“You already saw that it was a very great talent, maybe he went to Manchester United a bit too early, and that was all too fast.

“He was just a basic player in Eindhoven, Lyon was a good step for Memphis. it’s fantastic now.

“He keeps on developing himself – not only as a player, but also as a person – Memphis gets a bit calmer, does not do any crazy things anymore, but at the time he was a bit shy.

“Of course you had that fuss with that hat extravagant behaviour. That seems a bit over now, I think he’s doing fine.”