Rafael van der Vaart said he has no issue with Klopp.

The Dutch legend said he doesn't mind that the former Liverpool manager criticized him for his comments about Van Dijk. Earlier this month, during a World Cup match between the Netherlands and Japan that ended 2-2, Van der Vaart compared The Reds' captain Van Dijk to a Boeing 747, a comment that drew a strong reaction from Klopp on Germany's Magenta TV channel. At the time, Klopp said: "I would only consider respecting him again if he ever said something positive about a player."

Van der Vaart said he was pleased to have been coached by Klopp and understands that Klopp protects the captain he appointed at Anfield: "Jürgen Klopp is a great manager and a good person, and I have a lot of respect for him. He's a manager I would have loved to play under. All his players will go through difficulties with him, and I also appreciate his passion for football. I will always listen to what he says; he has done a lot for football. As for what he said to me, I don't mind at all. I'm not easily offended. I criticized a specific moment from Van Dijk, and Klopp is of course his manager, so it's completely natural that he defends him, and I respect that."

Van Dijk will lead the Netherlands in the World Cup Round of 16 match against Morocco. Van der Vaart added that he is sometimes misunderstood: "As a person, I largely speak my mind and from my heart. You know, questions are directed at me, and I don't even consider them carefully. I engage with the person asking, and I'm not deaf. I understand the question and say what I see, not what I should say. That's how I was when I played football, and that's how I am now. I don't speak to make headlines; actually, I dislike that even more. But I watch matches, and sometimes you like a player, sometimes you don't. It's not that I dislike their character, but that I don't like their performance as a player."

"I'm positive about many players, but if I see something I don't like, or they play a bad match, I should have the right to say so. I have to say what I see. Sometimes my colleagues in the media feel they don't want to criticize too much because they'll see the players again the next day, but that's how it works. I also meet a player the next day after saying he played badly, but everything is fine when we meet, and he himself knows he played badly. That's how it worked when I played football." He also said: "When legends like Cruyff criticized me when I played badly, I would still have a normal conversation with them when I met them. That's part of the job, and one of my job responsibilities is to express my opinion on matches, and that's it."

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