Tag: Bergwijn

by Jan

Oranje looking forward: change!

Ronald Koeman comes across as a man who realises this is his last chance for eternal legend status. He was great as a player, he was ok as a coach, and this last (?) stint will make him either a hero or just another coach in the long list of well meaning coaches…

The semi finals at the Euros must have convinced Koeman that Oranje can go for gold and a look at the list of young talents establishing themselves ( Frimpong, Zirkzee, Hartman, Timber, Gravenberch) will have pleased him a lot.

So it’s out with the old ( Daley Blind, Wijnaldum, De Roon) and in with the new ( Hato, Timber, Gravenberch). Blind decided for himself enough was enough. Wijnaldum and De Roon were informed personally by the coach. Koeman also flew to Liverpool to discuss future with Virgil van Dijk. “I felt he wasn’t there fully, at the Euros. I had the idea he was not at his best, defensively. So I flew to see him, spend time and discuss. As I did notice how great he played under Slot, at the start of the new season. But Virgil is committed. He can see his role in Oranje moving forward.”

The “new” squad – logical as it is – does need some more tweaking as Veerman and Van der Ven pulled out due to injuries, and JP van Hecke of Brighton is called in, alongside Justin Kluivert of Bournemouth.

This weekend, the nations league games commence and Oranje is playing Bosnia Herzegowina tomorrow and arch rivals Germany on Tuesday. Asked about the short time in between the Euros semis and these matches, Koeman responded: “The loss versus England didn’t bother me very long. A couple of days, I guess. The end of such a campaign is always abrupt for the loser. You go home, players leave for their break and then you are simply left to evaluate. I think overall, it was a good Euros. We were close and we could have gone all the way. I experienced it all as very positive.”

De Roon and Wijnaldum might have accepted their fate, what about Memphis? “He doesn’t have a club, which is a bit odd. If you don’t play, I won’t select you, of course, but I do find it odd that a player of his standing, with his stats, is still without a club. But a fit Memphis will always be an option for me. He’s only 30 years old. I am in contact with Memphis and I know about his situation and what he is working on.”

Steven Bergwijn, only 26 years old, does not have to count on a new invite. “It’s different for Steven. He has options to show his ambition in Europe and decided to go for the money. That is all good, but I don’t think I will need him moving forward. And yes, Wijnaldum went there and I did select him, but Gini went there as he had no other options. PSG didn’t play him and he needed a place to play, to prepare for the Euros. Wijnaldum had not much choice, but Bergwijn clearly put money over sport ambition so I close the book on him. He could also go to the EPL which is also not bad, financially, but he selected this option.”

As for the striker role, Koeman is interested to see who steps up. “We have three candidates now, with Brobbey, Zirkzee and Weghorst. Weghorst hasn’t played much, if at all. Brobbey is not 100%. But if I had stuck to my rules of “only fit players”, I would only have 13 players. And with Wout and his energy, workrate and passion, I felt I had to select him. I can’t play him for 90 minutes, but it’s good to have him.”

Stefan de Vrij, also an older player, was not selected. “But not because of his age. He played everything at the Euros and was one of our best players. He’s simply not fit, struggled with a hamstring, but he’ll be part of the campaign once he starts playing again.”

Kluivert’s selection was a surprise. “He’s fit, he plays and he plays well too. And he can play in the 10 role, this is how he plays for Bournemouth these days. And I selected Jurrien Timber ahead of Maatsen because I was impressed with Timber’s first games for Arsenal and I felt he deserved a little positive push after his ordeal last season.”

Frenkie de Jong was mentioned as well of course: “He is slowly getting there. It’s been a long time, he had the same ankle issue now three times. There is damage and it needs time to heal. I do hope he will return at full fitness at one stage.”

Joey Veerman expressed his disappointment recently how there was no real interest in him, this summer. “Joey needs to be challenged. I think the Eredivisie is too easy for him, to be honest He wanted to make a step and I actually also felt he had to. It’s necessary for him as he simply has too much time on the ball in Holland. He needs to play under way more resistance.”

What will be different for Oranje in this campaign, compared to the Euros? “It’s a different situation. With a tournament, most players arrive rested and focused on the tournament. And you get 2 weeks usually to prep. This is different. Some players won’t be 100% fit, others might carry a knock, and again some will come in after a loss, others after a win, so it’s a mixed bag and you need days to get everyone at the same level, so to speak. We need to improve our forward press, the build up in possession and we need to bring more energy, more intensity. And once we get to that stage, that is when you can really look at the ideal starting eleven.”

The press conference ended with Koeman’s view on Gravenberch. “He has done ever so well at this season’s start. We all knew he was an exceptional ball player but it seems he also turned a corner in terms of focus and tactical understanding. We all felt he had some focus issues and seemed to be a tad lacklustre at ties. It seems he now realises what it takes to play at world top level. This experience at Liverpool might be exactly what he needed. He is definitely an option for the 6 position.

 

by Jan

What Oranje can expect from England

We’re playing against a top team, with absolute word class players but also against a coach who is said to wear a seat belt on the toilet, always going for security.

And for a reason. When Southgate was up for the job he asked advise from top data statisticians in football and their response: don’t concede! This nihilistic approach became his mantra.

The most criticised manager of this Euros is going to play a semi finals for the third time in a row. Before him, they only reached a top 4 position once since the 1966 World Cup debacle win. Southgate has done away with naive playing and the criticism doesn’t really affect him. The tactical plan basically results in a boring, chess match and Southgate doesn’t give a flying f***.

Due to their defensive strength, England will be a tough opponent for us. They like to look back at the 4-1 thrashing at the Euros 1996, which is the last time in a big tournament they beat us. And Southgate was on the pitch that day.

Southgate never complains about the lack of goals or attempts on goal. He can’t be bothered. But he will moan and whine about players losing possession. The term “clean sheet” can now be heard in most post-match interviews.

Jude Bellingham: “We had a tough match, but we didn’t concede. We only needed 1 goal to win and we eventually got it.”

Declan Rice: “We built this team on not conceding.”

Jordan Pickford: “Clean sheets are the foundation. If you want to win a tournament, don’t concede goals.”

The fear of conceding is easy to see in the way they attack.

Just like Oranje, Southgate uses the box concept, with two 10s (Foden and Bellingham) and two holding mids (Mainoo and Rice). Due to the fear of conceding a counter, they don’t really look for Foden or Bellingham often, with vertical passes but we will need to be alert of course.

Slovenia plays the most like Oranje, when out of possession. They fold back to a 4-4-2 and one of the strikers is constantly shielding Declan Rice. In that match, England had 72% possession but didn’t get the ball into the Slovenian box in the first 25 minutes of the game. Slovenia kept on playing towards their right side, the English left. Kieran Trippier and Guehi are not the best build up players, as Trippier is playing out of his usual position, a right footer on the left. He’s regularly clueless on the ball, to be fair. Both players had about 115 touches in that game, passing the ball to one another.

Slovakia does the same and Southgate eventually responds by putting right winger (!) Saka on the left back position. Southgate hopes Luke Shaw can take the LB role versus Oranje, but the Man United defender hasn’t played a full match since February. Put thim against Frimpong, Malen or Xavi and he’ll be punch drunk within 10 minutes.

England created the least opportunities of the semi finalists and with players like Kane, Saka, Bellingham and Foden, that does say something. Although… Southgate won’t give a crap.

A counter against England will be tough. Players like Kyle Walker, John Stones, Declan Rice and Kobbie Mainoo know what is needed to stop a counter. But it’s behind Trippier where Oranje can have fun.

England won’t play the high press. Should they score first, you can expect them to fold back. Southgate: “We don’t have the players for the high press.”

Against Switzerland, Mainoo is man marking playmaker Xhaka. In the second half, the former Arsenal midfielder decides to wander about and play more deep which results in Mainoo letting him go, allowing the Swiss player the run of the game.

It is very likely that England will play 5 at the back against Holland, as we play in the same way as Denmark, with two 10s attacking the space of the holding mids. The defenders were struggling against Denmark, with the penetrating runs by the Danes and he will also have seen that Oranje struggled versus the 5-4-1 of the Turks.

No matter what, England will allow Holland the ball and England will play compact a bit deeper than for instance Austria or Spain. England will not allow much room in the centre of the pitch.

It seems logical to play Wout as deep #9 with Memphis in the 10 role. The English central defenders – surprise! – are not as strong aerially as they used to be (Ferdinand, Terry, Adams).

England has placed one counter attack in their five matches (two incl 30 mins extra time). England doesn’t like open games. Too much chaos for Southgate and Kane is not a striker with speed. The danger men are Bellingham, Foden and Saka. These two can definitely hurt you.

Conclusion:

England won’t have it easy against Holland. But… this is the same the other way around. The match will be tight, probably another chess match with the key area, the midfield (as per usual). Should Oranje score first, there are great attacking options from the bench for Southgate, with speed ( Toney, Palmer, Eze, Gordon) and guile (Alexander Arnold, Watkins).

I expect a narrow win for Holland: 2-0, with Memphis on the score sheet and Malen as the second goal scorer.

I would start with Brobbey, myself. He’s a tank, he’ll make war with the two CBs of England. Memphis and him do seem to have a good rapport. I’d also start with Xavi, I think he deserves to start as he too has speed and guile (like Malen).

Should we need more in the second half, use Weghorst to play against the war-weary English and Malen’s speed in case we are in front and need to counter attack.

I think Reijnders and Schouten should not be separated, and Gakpo will obviously also remain in the team.

Wout won’t be happy, but hey.. we’re not here to make him happy. We’re here to win games.

 

by Jan

Oranje fights itself into semi finals

At some point, you stop worrying about the how and just want to celebrate the result. The first semi finals since 2004, when Portugal defeated us in the semi finals. A great comeback – the first since the 3-2 win over France in 2000 – and it’s always good to win a game when you don’t play great.

Oranje’s start was pretty good. Turkey played with 5 at the back and in the first 10 to 15 minutes, our “box” in midfield performed really well. Xavi found space in between the lines, Memphis was threatening and Schouten penetrated well on the right hand side.

Memphis had the first chance in the first or second minute and with a bit more balance and luck, he could well have scored the first for us.

But Holland can’t repeat the positioning game we played versus Romania. The main issue is the lack of patience. We try to make every touch count and the somewhat erratic play went against us. Sloppy touches, wrong decisions and on top a tactical change by the Turkey coach and as a result, our dominant midfield…well… disappeared.

This image from the 8th minute shows the triangles we should be using more often.

Turkey does what it has to do to avoid the Dutch press, by playing long opportunistic balls towards their speedy forwards. As a result, De Vrij stays hanging deep a bit and this means Schouten is forced to move to the right to create space and as such abandons the box concept. De Vrij is too static and we can see Virgil gesticulating to him at times to move forward more.

This is an image from late in the first half (Turkey is leading) and Turkey forces us to one side and tries to suffocate us there, stopping our flowing build up. It is during the stage in the game when Oranje loses grip on midfield that Turkey scores and we make a series of errors leading up to the goal.

For some reason, Dumfries allows the ball to go out of play, resulting in a corner kick. When Guler has the chance to bring a cross in, several things go wrong: Dumfries is not aligned with the defence and he puts the goal scorer on side. It’s Simons and Ake’s job to block the cross but they lack the aggression and allow the cross in. And to add to this, the rest of the defenders are all ball watching and “forget” the three Turks at the far post. I also think Verbruggen could have done better there.

Koeman knows he has to respons and takes a page from the Austrian text book, when Rangnick decided to bring a typical #9, a target man.  In our case: Weghorst. The not 100% fit Bergwijn makes way and Simons moves to the right, while Memphis becomes the new #10 behind Weghorst.

Still, we keep on doing things wrong. The combination Schouten / De Vrij falters and stutters, we try to find the complicated solution instead of the simple pass and our defence was too scared to press up, due to their speedy attackers. Still, we manage to get back into the game as a result of a good opportunistic attack. First it’s Memphis offering Weghorst a chance. The goalie could have let that one go in to the side netting, but he touched the ball, so it become a corner. Schouten and Memphis take it short and the club-less talisman puts the ball with feeling onto the head of De Vrij: 1-1. A symbolic assist for Weghorst for blocking the defender.

Montella’s Men do lose their head a bit after the equaliser. Their defenders start to trickle back, and their wingers leave their position, making the spaces wider for us. Koeman immediately responds by bringing speed in Van der Ven and guile by bringing Veerman.

Some good play between Veerman and Weghorst brings the ball to the right flank, which is abandoned by Kadioglu, who had a top game again, by the way. Dumfries hits the ball low and it’s Gakpo ghosting in from the left to surprise the Turkish defender: 2-1 (goal attributed to Muldur).

The 2-1 is the sign for Turkey to throw everything at Oranje. Several top blocks by defenders (Van der Ven, Schouten and even Weghorst) save the day and Bart Verbruggen had a top save right at the death to secure the win for us.

The Turkish left flank offers us problems so Koeman brought Frimpong to fix that side of the pitch and Zirkzee – in his debut – to keep the ball a bit longer – in stead of Memphis.

We can conclude that Oranje got a bit lucky and needed fixing by Koeman to get the win. It’s the Austrian Opportunistic Target Man approach that got us the win, and not the famed positioning game. As a result, we don’t really have a foundation to build on for the England game. And luckily for us, neither have England.

Despite the less that great execution of the plan, I do think the core of this Dutch team will need to start versus England.

I don’t believe making wholesale changes will help much. Expect the same back four and the same goalie.

I also think Schouten and Reijnders will start, but i wouldn’t be surprised to see Weghorst from the start.

He will make war, he will keep 2 or 3 defenders busy and he will be a nice target man for Memphis to play off of.

For me, Xavi and Memphis are not compatible as #10 and #9. Memphis needs a runner behind him to find the space he abandons. Xavi is a “ball to feet” player. Weghorst deep and Memphis circling him will be more effective.

The question was and will be: who will be our right winger? Malen will be less useful as I don’t see England playing high up the pitch. I think it will be Xavi, Bergwijn or Frimpong.

Now we have two classic semis to watch, with the four strongers European teams at the kick off. Any team can beat the other team. Who knows?

I think Verbruggen and De Vrij were the top performers for us (despite de Vrij’s limited build up play against the Turks). I found Virgil wanting in some situations, a bit too easy, to lacksydaisical (?). Schouten was fine, Reijnders a bit more anonymous. Memphis in the #9 role was again disappointing with lots of loss of possession but showing class as the #10. I thought Xavi was wasteful, at times looking too much for the complicated pass. Gakpo had his moments during the game and did get “his” goal. And Weghorst did exactly what he needed to do. We can’t ask more from him.

 

by Jan

Thanksgiving for Oranje

Let us have some Turkey! A positive Ronald Koeman mentioned that the whole squad is fit again. Bergwijn, who had to be subbed off versus Romania, and De Ligt, who had some muscle issues, are both fit and it feels like we’ll see an unchanged Oranje versus Turkey on Saturday.

Confidence is high and it feels like the players are now in the right mood to go and win this tournament. Thank you Austria!

But, Turkey won’t be a walk in the park. They always had gifted football players but up until now, no coach managed to give them a structure that works, a framework within which the players could excel. Until now, with manager Vincenzo Montella. One can expect a spectacle with his Turkey.

In the first four Turkey games, we saw 13 goals and no nation had a higher number of attempts. They also score third place in the list of successful dribbles. Turkey in possession is very good.

Montella, a former striker, is an adventurous coach but his defence lets him down regularly. The recently lost to Oranje, 6-1 and again 6-1 versus Austria! So Montella has found a trick, which worked versus Austria and which he’ll most certainly repeat versus Oranje.

He used to play 4-2-3-1 and got defeated significantly in several matches, as mentioned. The central defenders are sluggish and slow while the full backs tend to be on their bike bombing forward. Their defensive coordination and communication is lacking as defenders tend to jump towards the ball without a thought for the rest defence.

Montella decided to go with three at the back, creating a “sweeper” role available to give backing when an opponent finds space behind the Turkish full backs.

For Oranje, the mission is clear and simple (maybe simple to determine, but still hard to do):

  1. Create a man-more situation in midfield and
  2. push their defence back by running in behind their central defenders and
  3. lure their full backs up the pitch and use the space behind them (Ake and Gakpo did this against Poland)

When Oranje can do this, we’ll create chances.

Their threat is mostly the speedy Yilmaz on the right flank. It will be key for us to manage that side of the pitch and talk of playing Van der Ven instead of Ake is only logical.

Turkish midfielder Ayhan will be their third centre back, giving them options with his passing range. He has a tremendous diagonal which can hurt on the counter attack. Ayhan’s target is often left full back Ferdi Kardioglu, a former NEC player – Dutch born – who also played his youth rep matches for Oranje before deciding to go for Turkey. The former winger plays like a wingback on the left and created the most chances on this Euros tournament, along with our Cody Gakpo.

It makes sense to use Van der Ven versus Yilmaz and to use Bergwijn to stop Kardioglu. Frimpong can do it, but his partnership with Dumfries needs more time. Malen is not a star in tracking back and the fit and tactically astute Bergwijn should be able to. The last question will be: where will Guler play? The young Madrid star can play anywhere: false right winger? Or a false striker? Or as left midfielder? The left footed playmaker will offer Oranje heaps of problems and communication will be key.

We will need to find space on the flanks to make the Turkish centre backs nervous. A typical #9 like Weghorst won’t bother them too much. But speedy players like Gakpo or Simons driving the ball towards them will force mistakes.

On the other hand, Turkey can create something out of nothing. They have a number of creative ball players in the team and they can conjure up magic when close to our goal. The key is to keep them away from our box.

Holland needs to be good on the ball. Precise and quick positioning play will create spaces for us. Turkey has trouble keeping clean sheets and if Oranje is on song, we have more than fair chances to win this.

I can see another win for us: 3-1. Goals by Gakpo, Memphis and Reijnders this time around.

 

by Jan

Oranje bounces back strongly

The mood in the Oranje camp was not that bad, apparently. The mood amongst the Dutch media, analists, pundits and fans was. The abysmal performance against Austria stung, and it stung hard! Of course, Joey Veerman was the pantomime villain and some journalists even went as far to say Veerman would never wear the orange jersey again!

Koeman kept it cool, protected his players and vowed to work hard to regain the sympathy of the fans. Gakpo said it well in a presser: “We let the nation down”.

Romania was – on paper – a welcome opponent to play away the hungover. But a lot of people were skeptical and feared the worst. What would have happened if Romania would have ousted Oranje? The end of Koeman of course and two more years of chagrin and negativity. An a big strike through the dreams of oldies like Van Dijk, Wijnaldum and Blind.

But Koeman and Co have done their homework and the players straightened their backs. Romania didn’t play as defensively as shared in an earlier blog post. They tried to emulate what Austria did but Oranje kept their cool and allowed the Romanians to huff and puff. And then Gakpo was found: 1-0.

The Liverpool winger is becoming more and more the man of the moment for Oranje. He almost had four goals, but that second one for him in the match was chalked off for offside.

Koeman surprised with Bergwijn in de line up, but it’s clear in hindsight why he picked him. A master stroke, really. The reason is: the box in midfield. Koeman wants four midfielders to form a square and as Romania only had one holding mid anchoring their midfield, this meant he was constantly needing to decide who to go with. The result was usually that Dumfries ended up as right winger, as Bergwijn joined Xavi in midfield as a second 10. And boy did it work.

If we would have been a tad more aggressive on the right flank, Dumfries and Bergwijn could have had several runs through on goal, but tardiness allowed the Romanians last ditch tackles. These resulted in corners galore but as we all know, it’s not easy to score from a corner kick. Only 4% of all corners which are hit in to the box results in a direct goal. Van Dijk would be close though, with a header on the post.

This is how the first goal came to be and it demonstrates why Bergwijn was used as he was.

Bergwijn and Simons crowding out the holding mid. Simons looks for the right back who decides to mark the RB Leipzig man, giving Gakpo the space on the left (and Dumfries on the right). Romania was constantly struggling with this approach and for this reason Bergwijn was in the team, allowing Dumfries (and Gakpo) to shine on the wings.

The only criticism you can have on this Oranje team is, that it took way too long for the second goal to be scored. We had so many chances: Memphis, Reijnders, Simons, Dumfries, Gakpo, we could have scored 4 goals before half time. Despite this, we never really got in trouble and we ended up scoring a special second goal, when tightrope walking Gakpo dribbled on the byline and allowed Malen a tap in.

The former Arsenal youth product scored his second in the extra time, after a Romania corner kick and a great run and pass by one of the best on the day, Xavi Simons.

This line up worked well. Reijnders and Schouten were imperial in midfield. Their statistics are amazing.

Xavi was top in the pockets and a constant threat. Gakpo, well, what can you say. A threat, direct to goal, great skills and potentially the topscorer of the tournament. Dumfries and De Vrij played ever so well while the ever reliable Ake played how he has been playing for years now. Unassuming perfection.

I’m not saying this line up should from now on be The Line Up. Our squad is strong and we can mix it up in relation to form, fitness and opponent. We still have the likes of Brobbey, Frimpong, Zirkzee and Van der Van waiting in the wings.

Koeman also allowed Veerman another turn as a sub, and the maligned midfielder almost scored! Not using Veerman anymore means you could probably best send him home. Class from Koeman to pick him up and use him as he does have special skills.

Turkey is next up, on Saturday, and Orkun Kokcu (ex Feyenoord) will be suspended for the match.

We’ll do a deep dive into Turkey later in the week.

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