THE Netherlands football team might not make it to World Cups any more but at least their darts stars still know how to hit the Bullseye.

Not least of these, of course, is the larger-than-life figure of Michael van Gerwen, who will stride onto the stage at the Ladbrokes World Series of Darts Finals at Intu Braehead this weekend. This 28-year-old wasn’t just part – along with Raymond van Barneveld - of the Dutch team which captured the PDC World Cup of darts this June. He is also the reigning world champion, the reigning Masters champion, the reigning Premier League of Darts Champion, and the reigning European Champion. Where Johan Cruyff once expressed himself through Total Football, what Van Gerwen brings to the darts world might be called total domination.

And he certainly isn’t shy when it comes to racking up big wins in Glasgow. While Gary Anderson, against whom he grappled in the world championships final at Ally Pally last January, is his more customary Scottish rival, this time last year, this instantly-recognisable bald-headed phenomenon from the town of Boxtel, was breaking the heart of local hero Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright and a boisterous and well-oiled Scottish crowd for a second successive year.

Little wonder then that he has designs on extending his supremacy in Scotland for a further year, as a nice little warm-up for keeping hold of that world championship crown over the festive period.

“I love competing in Glasgow and I hope I can perform just as good this time as well,” Van Gerwen told Herald Sport. “I feel good, my confidence is high after last week’s win in Belgium, so I am looking forward to it.

“Myself and Gary get on quite well to be fair,” he added. “Of course we are rivals and we like to beat each other, because we are two of the greatest players of the moment. But we are both professional, we know what we have to do if you want to win a tournament. We have gone at it before and we will be there again someday soon probably. For us it is something normal, just another day at the office basically.

“When I play in Holland I have all the crowd behind me, but if I play in Scotland those guys have all the support, and you just have to be mentally strong enough to deal with it,” said Van Gerwen. “If you play very good and let the darts speak in the game, then you will be alright.”

It isn’t just darts which they two men have in common now., though. While Anderson recently celebrated the birth of a new daughter Cheylea, Van Gerwen now has a three-month old daughter called Zoe to look after. “You are correct, she already has more hair than me,” he jokes. “There are a lot of us who have become daddies really, it is just the next step of life.”

But on to the other matter in hand, and Scotland’s international football friendly meeting with Netherlands at Pittodrie on Thursday night. Both of these sides might have failed to reach the World Cup in Russia, but Van Gerwen – a defender as a teenager and still a PSV Eindhoven fan to this day – still expects the Dutch to come away with the win.

He speaks admiringly of the recent managerial efforts of Dick Advocaat, just despairs that it was too little too late. A serious rebuild is now required, with former Everton coach Ronald Koeman the man to turn to.

“I used to play football when I was younger, but what shall I say, I was quite crap!” said Van Gerwen. “Unfortunately, I never made it to PSV - I made it to the stadium a few times, but I just wasn’t quite good enough to make it to the first team!

“Who is going to win on Thursday? Holland, of course,” he added. “You always have to believe in your team. And to be fair Dick didn’t do too bad lately, he did quite well with the team, but the damage was done beforehand [under Danny Blind]. By the time he took over it was a really hard job to turn around.

“We were a bit unlucky, Sweden beating France and things like that, things you probably think won’t happen happened this time. So Holland is like Scotland, we are not at the top of the world. We need to build up from scratch again and it might take a few years. I would like Ronald Koeman now, but it is a tough job at the moment if you want to be coach of Holland.

“Darts is getting bigger globally, internationally, you get recognised more, play in front of bigger crowds. Sometimes you wonder ‘where will it all end?’. There are also a lot of negatives that come with being a celebrity. But what else can you do if you are a good darts player? I would rather be a No 1 and famous than the World No 48 and not famous.”

**The Ladbrokes World Series of Darts Finals will be held this weekend at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, live on ITV4. For tickets, visit http://www.braehead-arena.co.uk or call 08444991700