The Swansea City goalkeeper will renew some old acquaintances on Saturday when he comes to face with some names from his youth against Southampton.
And De Vries also revealed that he is hoping to sort out his new contract with Swansea shortly, telling the Evening Post “Hopefully it’s going to be sorted soon.
“I am waiting for the club to respond but things are coming closer and closer.
“You have to think about choices in your career and going home to Holland was a possibility.
“There has been some interest which would have meant the possibility of playing in Europe, so there were lots of things to think about.
“But my eyes are focused on Swansea.
“I think we are the most progressive club in our league and that something special is happening here.
“We have a young, hungry squad and a manager who has the ability to lift us to a higher level, so I want to be part of that.”
And on the meeting of old friends on Saturday, De Vries added “Mark Wotte gave me my first cap so I like him
“I have great memories of that time because we had a great squad.
“There were some top players involved, people like Dirk Kuyt, Rafael van der Vaart and Arjen Robben, and it was a great experience for me to play alongside them.
“It looks like a tough job because there’s not a lot of money,” de Vries concedes.
“Wotte has worked at a lot of clubs — he had a spell as technical director at Feyenoord, although that didn’t work out for too long.
“I know he will try to get Southampton out of trouble by playing football.
“Long balls are not in the Dutch genes, especially his generation, and he will look to play it around the park and have a lot of possession.
“I always check the Dutch football websites on my iPhone and there is a lot of talk about the situation at Southampton at the moment,” de Vries continues.
“They say Poortvliet could soon be a coach at Reading while Wotte will stay at Southampton until the end of the season.
“They will carry on playing the same way — we saw when they came down here that they can pass the ball well and we have to be aware of that.
“But we managed to get a good 3-0 win that day and hopefully we can do something similar this weekend.”
