See, this is what you get if both bloginators are on a holiday together (but separate). Oranje plays two dreadful matches because Koeman knows Johan and myself are not totally focused. Damn!
But kidding aside, it was simply not good enough.
We seem to be line dancing at Oranje, 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.
Sure, we’re still heading to the World Cup. And we did get the away points against Lithuania. Great.
But boy what a mess we made for 65 minutes. And what a relief when Memphis headed in the winner.
I am usually not overly critical on the team. I really rate the players and I also think most if not all are serious athletes with a true desire to do well. I think lads like Frenkie, Gakpo, Dumfries, Memphis and Virgil take their sports very seriously and aim to do well.
But something is off.
Disastrous press conference
It became very clear to me when Koeman showed his true dedication at the press conference pre-Lithuania.
The press asked about goal difference and if Koeman took that into account in his prep for the Lithuania game.
Koeman said goal difference wasn’t key. The result between to tied nations would be key.
The press had to correct him. They said: no coach, it’s goal difference, this time around. This is not the Nations League.
Koeman: “Really? Oh. I didn’t know. I haven’t checked.”
What???
And then he said the infamous (hopefully last) words:
“Out of respect for the upcoming opponent, I will not be sitting here talking about the many goals we aim to score, but yes, we will want to score as many goals as possible of course.”
And with that, the Lithuania coach had his pep talk ready, thank you very much.
We all know what happened: we could have easily lost that game 3-2 and if we had, maybe maybe we could have welcomed a new head coach (Wim Jonk? Alex Pastoor? Erik ten Hag? Jose Mourinho?)
What a disaster!
Koeman does not need to be on call 24/7, he does not work day in, day out with his squad like Peter Bosz or Arne Slot.
He can spend a whole day EVERY WEEK reading the rules of qualification, which in my book is STEP 1 when you are in this job.
This shows us a couple of things: 1) he doesn’t really seem to care, 2) he is not on the ball, 3) he is lazy and complacent and 4) he doesn’t allow his staff to correct him or help him.
And if you then look at all the successful coaching of the past 5 years (Tuchel, Nagelsmann, Pep, Arne Slot, Sarri, Conte, Klopp, Maresca, Alonso) what do you see? You see Obsession, Focus, Micro Management, Intensity.
When you see Koeman, you see arrogance, complacency, laziness and ignorance.
I usually don’t call out for people being fired, but I think it is quite clear that Koeman has not been progressing Oranje at all, while he has top notch players at his disposal.
I do not see this improve. At all.
I can’t see Koeman resign. I also don’t see the KNVB sack him (they never did) so it has to come from the players. This is where the big guns ( Virgil, Frenkie, Denzel, Cody, Memphis) need to step up. And you know what… They won’t.
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The players can force the KNVB to sack Koeman but also the Dutch people need to finally show that they care about winning trophies. They need Organize. Sign petitions demanding the firing of Koeman. They need to hit the street, marching on to the KNVB office ect. The media also can play a role by pressuring the KNVB to fire Koeman.
We are only going to this WC because we are in the weakest group. Even with that we are still struggling. We are going to embarrass ourselves at the WC.
Total BS
No player is going to risk his WC2026 to call for Koeman to be send away, it is just not going to happen. I don´t feel that the player group is unhappy with Koeman, especially the core players that work for a long time with Koeman like Virgil, Gakpo, Frenkie, Dumfries and Memphis. These are the main players and are almost garantuede of the starting eleven.
Maybe a player like Weghorst is not happy, but he understands his position.
That the team did a very poor job the last 2 games is not deadly as we really have to screw up not to finsh first…. Nigel de Jong, the director of KNVB also will not send Koeman away, they will keep helping eachother….
The only option that I see that Koeman steps down to focus on his sick wife. Maybe he had enough of all the bullshit, lets hope so. And then I hope LvG steps up and tries a last time to see if he can turn things around and bring us Gold. never give up hope.
Yes Jan, a deserved holiday in Europe, now back in Brazil. Could see some of both games and things are not getting any better. On the positive side Memphis made 2 good goals against Lithuania (i know they are number 143).
Seems like its not easy nowadays for any team to make big wins, Brazil and Argentina lost yesterday, Germany their first game. Lets hope this is a wake-up call as well for the team, they have to give 100%. If a player doesn´t deliver put him on the bench, better a less good technical player, but somebody that will give all for the team.
Maybe we Dutch think we are to good individualy so we can do on 70-80%, no need to do your part. I have seen some bad performance of our defence and also Sem Steyn in the last game didn´t want to pay back the coach by giving it all. Not sure what Weghorst was doing when he came in the last minutes.
I do agree Johan, I know you are right. The only time in history when the players revolted to get Libregts out, and wanted JC in, they got Beenhakker. It’s like telling the waiter you don’t want a meatball, you want a steak and then he returns with a veggie burger.
The players can force the KNVB to sack Koeman but also the Dutch people need to finally show that they care about winning trophies. They need Organize. Sign petitions demanding the firing of Koeman. They need to hit the street, marching on to the KNVB office ect. The media also can play a role by pressuring the KNVB to fire Koeman.
We are only going to this WC because we are in the weakest group. Even with that we are still struggling. We are going to embarrass ourselves at the WC.
Total BS
No player is going to risk his WC2026 to call for Koeman to be send away, it is just not going to happen. I don´t feel that the player group is unhappy with Koeman, especially the core players that work for a long time with Koeman like Virgil, Gakpo, Frenkie, Dumfries and Memphis. These are the main players and are almost garantuede of the starting eleven.
Maybe a player like Weghorst is not happy, but he understands his position.
That the team did a very poor job the last 2 games is not deadly as we really have to screw up not to finsh first…. Nigel de Jong, the director of KNVB also will not send Koeman away, they will keep helping eachother….
The only option that I see that Koeman steps down to focus on his sick wife. Maybe he had enough of all the bullshit, lets hope so. And then I hope LvG steps up and tries a last time to see if he can turn things around and bring us Gold. never give up hope.
Yes Jan, a deserved holiday in Europe, now back in Brazil. Could see some of both games and things are not getting any better. On the positive side Memphis made 2 good goals against Lithuania (i know they are number 143).
Seems like its not easy nowadays for any team to make big wins, Brazil and Argentina lost yesterday, Germany their first game. Lets hope this is a wake-up call as well for the team, they have to give 100%. If a player doesn´t deliver put him on the bench, better a less good technical player, but somebody that will give all for the team.
Maybe we Dutch think we are to good individualy so we can do on 70-80%, no need to do your part. I have seen some bad performance of our defence and also Sem Steyn in the last game didn´t want to pay back the coach by giving it all. Not sure what Weghorst was doing when he came in the last minutes.
I do agree Johan, I know you are right. The only time in history when the players revolted to get Libregts out, and wanted JC in, they got Beenhakker. It’s like telling the waiter you don’t want a meatball, you want a steak and then he returns with a veggie burger.