‘Caught the eye’ – Robin van Persie hands son Eredivisie debut but no suggestion of nepotism
Robin van Persie gave his son Shaqueel a chance to score against Ronald Koeman Jr on his Eredivisie debut – but not for nepotism.
The ex-Arsenal and Manchester United legend handed the 19-year-old his first outing in the Dutch league days after his senior debut.
Shaqueel was called up by his father to Feyenoord’s first-team squad for the 4-2 defeat to NEC Nijmegen, but was an unused substitute.
Van Persie then found his motives questioned for introducing his son in the second half of Thursday’s 3-1 Europa League loss to Celtic.
Shaqueel, a product of the Man City academy, failed to stop his father’s men succumbing to their fourth defeat in as many games.
However, Van Persie had no qualms about thrusting his lookalike son into the spotlight during Feyenoord‘s must-win trip to Telstra.
Van Persie gave his son an Eredivisie debut
The newly-promoted side sit bottom of the Eredivisie, with anything less than three points ’embarrassing’ for De club aan de Maas.
That is the opinion of European football expert Andy Brassell, who argued that Van Persie Jr’s cameo wasn’t a result of nepotism.
“For Shaqueel to come on and sort of be trusted to close out the game, I think, is quite notable,” he exclusively told talkSPORT.com.
“He’s been at Feyenoord for a while. There’s no real suggestion of nepotism because he was in the academy and doing well before his dad got the job.
“His dad was at Heerenveen first before he took the Feyenoord job, even though the family have obviously got a history with Feyenoord, so he’s been building up to this.”
Shaqueel van Persie caught the eye
Unlike Koeman’s son, who was playing in goal for Telstar, the younger Van Persie shared a similarity to his father’s style on the pitch.
Brassell added: “He’s really caught the eye in this little cameo because of his street smarts, really, because he comes on his sub in the 83rd minute. And then in the 93rd, he gets a yellow card for kicking the ball away as they’re trying to take a quick free kick.
“Now, the person trying to take the quick free kick is Ronald Koeman Jr., who is the goalkeeper for Telstar. So it’s a lovely sort of Koeman-Van Persie younger generation reunion on the pitch.”
Moments later, Shaqueel ran the risk of being shown another yellow card for delaying the restart to evoke memories of his father in 2011.
Van Persie Sr. was infamously sent off for a second booking when he shot at goal a second after being flagged for offside during Arsenal’s last-16 Champions League exit at Barcelona.
Brassell jokingly claimed Van Persie’s son must have seen the footage so much to develop the street smarts around receiving a similar fate.
“Even after Shaqueel van Persie has kicked the ball away, Koeman Jr. gets the ball and puts it down so he can launch one final attack,” he continued. “Telstar 2-1 down, into the Feyenoord penalty area.
“Van Persie does that thing, where he turns his back to the ball, but he’s really close to the ball.
“He knows he’s really close to the ball. So he’s sort of making out that he’s not stopping the free kick being taken quickly, but he is stopping the free kick taken quickly.
“But he’s saying, ‘I’ve got my back to the ball. I can’t see it. I didn’t know what was going on.’
“Which I think for an 18-year-old is quite wily and quite daring when you’ve already been booked seconds earlier in your first Eredivisie game.
“Ronald Koeman Jr. is sort of shoving him out of the way. And you’ve got this minor Koeman versus Van Persie confrontation in this Eredivisie match, which is really cool.
“Basically, he’s obviously watched that video a few times at home, and he thought, well, ‘Dad was dumb enough to face the ball. I’m not going to do that’,” Brassell joked.
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