Tag: Koopmeiners

Prelim Squad announced for Oranje

Almost a month to go and we’re starting to leave the club competitions behind us.

You will have seen the squad selection by now? I don’t think too many surprises.

For some, the absence of Bizot was a surprise, as he was called up for the last international games. He was most likely part of the prelim squad, if not for some domestic family issues. Marco decided to forfeit the Euros as his family circumstances have not been resolved and he prefers to be with the family during the summer.

The list of injured players ( Hartman, Wieffer, Lang) might become longer with question marks for Marten de Roon, Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay and Zirkzee, while Luuk de Jong definitely retired from the NT.

Calvin Stengs, Thijs Dallinga and Steven Berghuis will have had idle hope and should something happen to Malen or Bergwijn or Xavi Simons, these three might still get a look in.

If Frenkie and Memphis can join the squad, I do believe we’ll be in good shape.

We simply need our key players to be in form and Koeman to pick a logical starting eleven for the games at the Euros.

I mean, our goalkeepers are fine. Our central defenders are top. Maatsen and Ake can cover the left side, even Blind might be able to play against opponents parking the bus. Frimpong and Dumfries will cover the right with Geertruida also on hand.

Our midfield options are pretty good, with Veerman, Schouten, Reijnders and Koopmeiners and when fit, we can expect some fire upfront from Malen, Gakpo, Simons and Brobbey.

As mentioned, we need Koeman to make the right decisions and allow the players to play to their strengths.

It may sound simplistic, but we need two teams: 1 that can dominate possession against the minions and 1 that can play on the transition when playing the strong countries who themselves want to dominate.

I will suggest three at the back in both scenarios and I would personally use Bijlow as first goalie.

My two teams:

 

 

Tell me your fave line up in the comments….

Memphis’ injury a blessing?

This is not a sentence I expected to write. Ever. Memphis has been super important for the Dutch NT, ever since his appearance at the World Cup in 2014. Under coach Koeman, the explosive and talented forward led the team, scored a record number of goals and is well on his way to become Oranje’s all time goalscorer and most likely most capped player. Or so it seemed.

But, the former Sparta youngster hasn’t been able to shine for more than a year now. His Euros was lacklustre and his World Cup a big question mark. He went from injury to injury and was absent more than present, both at Barcelona and more recently at Atletico.

But, as we established here, as the Dutch have trouble to thank their heroes and force them out to make way for new stars, it was a real question whether coach Koeman would make wholesale changes or whether he would rely on the old guard. Virgil, Cillesen, Memphis, Daley Blind, Wijnaldum…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like many coaches before ( Zwartkruis in 1980, Beenhakker in 1990, Van Marwijk in 2012, Van Gaal recently), it seemed Koeman was falling back on the old hands, but reality has reared up it’s not so ugly head and helped the former snow flake a bit.

Cillesen had a couple of howlers at the end of the season and couldn’t dig a hole big enough to hide in.

Daley Blind hardly played and has already been told he’s out of the squad.

Wijnaldum is stil with the squad but with his recent lacklustre performances and with Koopmeiners’ classy run as a #10, I don’t think Gini will feature much.

Virgil was able to claw back to a decent form, after a season of mishits and stumbles and will most likely lead the team out versus Croatia.

And Memphis? Well, he pulled out himself. Not fit enough to play and prefers – smartly – to prep for the new season in Madrid.

And it’s a blessing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arie Haan in 1974

And don’t forget: we know how coach sometime end up with their success formulas just by sheer luck, coincidence or as the result of setbacks. Michels lost all his centre backs in 1974 (Israel, Laseroms, Drost, Mansveld, Hulshof) and decided to put midfielder Arie Haan in the back with young stopper Wim Rijsbergen.

Or in 1988, when the same Michels started the Euros with 4-3-3, with Marco van Basten on the bench. A player who almost didn’t make the cut. After one match – losing versus USSR – Michels went to a 4-4-2 with Van Basten and Gullit up front. The rest is history.

Van Gaal and his three at the back in 2014? This came about due to an injury for defensive mid Kevin Strootman and an experiment of Koeman with Feyenoord away at PSV.

The Memphis injury could well be a key break for Koeman. Or, as Cruyff would say it, this could be an advantage resulting from a disadvantage.

Koeman and Van Gaal both were tempted to to use two wingbacks and three defenders, to build a solid foundation and create space for his mercurial forward. Memphis needed freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny Bosman versus USSR in 1988

But the 3 at the back system didn’t work for Koeman as he saw that his team had issues dominating the game. At the same time, Ten Hag showed how you can do it, with a 4-2-3-1 system. When Frenkie de Jong came into view, Koeman switched to the Ajax system, with two central defenders, at times augmented by the deep lying De Jong, who’d drop in between, pushing the full backs further up the field.

Frenkie made his entrance in Sneijder’s farewell match versus Peru and the new Oranje system was settled. In 2018, Koeman built his team around Virgil, Wijnaldum and Memphis. The latter two do not have the status or form they had back then and it’s time for a change.

The only two Dutch forwards who perform at a high level in big competitions are Cody Gakpo and Donyell Malen. Therefore, it seems only logical to build the team around a new #9: Gakpo.

At Liverpool, he plays like a false 9, with two offensive midfielders in his back. Fabinho, the defensive lock, will be paired with Trent Alexander-Arnold who joins the midfield from the back, a role Geertruida plays at Feyenoord. At Liverpool, Andy Robertson is the third centre back, which is the role Ake plays at Man City. Both Van Dijk and De Ligt are accustomed to this system.

It seems Oranje could well play in this same form, although Dumfries might be at odds in this role. It’s not very likely that Koeman will drop the Inter right back though, but this Liverpool/Man City system could well work for Holland.

For me, I don’t think we can go beyond Ake as left back. He can fill the job the way Blind did, as Ake too is a great passer of the ball.

This leaves space for Frenkie to explore the left side a bit and in my midfield, I would have Mats Wieffer playing the defensive mid, with Frenkie next to him but with freedom to roam on that left flank.

My number 10 in this system is Teun Koopmeiners. I don’t like him much as a six, but in the #10 role he is killing it at Atalanta. I’d pick Xavi Simons as the left winger and Malen on the right, of course.

Noppert should not start, in my view, and if it’s a toss up between Flekken and Bijlow, I’d go for the latter.

As for the RCB, I would pick De Ligt versus a static #9 and Timber versus the more diminutive forwards (like David Silva or Alexander Isak). Not sure what Croatia will bring.

This is my line up.

Oranje back to drawing board

And here is the final result of the little Scorito competition we had going, the competition of course being called Lowievenkaals Armie. Shawn is the absolute GOAT of this competition.

Shawn, congrats! You will have bragging rights till the next World Cup. Robin is France, I am Croatia and Sjaak is Morocco. Ah well….

Despite a heroic comeback versus Argentina, Oranje is home licking their wounds. I am sad Morocco didn’t get a trophy to show for their contributions and with the Atlas Lions out, the real Dutch connection ( Ziyech, Amrabat, Mazraoui, Aboukhlal) to this World Cup is gone. There is no real connection with the French for us, and generally speaking, the Dutch are not big fans of Les Blues. Messi will always be my fave player, even if he gave Weghorst and LVG a piece of his mind. The Argentinian connection is there (Rijkaard / Ten Cate > Messi, Tagliafico and Martinez > Ajax) and I wish them well.

In The Netherlands, it’s back to the drawing board. Van Gaal’s final conclusion seem to have been “We have not wingers of top class”. Despite this, it was the move of Gakpo to the left and Berghuis to the right with two tall towering strikers which got us the equaliser and extra time in the quarter finals. It was warrior Wout Weghorst who got the final free kick which Koopmeiners took in Weghorst’s Wolfburg style, to get us a sniff of hero-ism. But Van Gaal made a bad judgement call for the extra time, counting on penalty success.

The fear of conceding was bigger than the wish to kill the opponent off.

Before the match, he also made a bad call, in thinking Argentina would not adjust to us and he felt the 3-4-1-2 would give us a good chance to win. But, Scaloni surprised by bringing Martinez as an extra defender, nullifying our tactical “advantage”. Argentina forced the ball onto us and this scenario paid out for Scaloni.

One brilliant Messi pass and a cheap penalty gave Argentina the lead: Van Gaal beaten with his own stick.

Since the bronze medal in 2014 we missed out on two major tournaments. We seemed to stick to what we know best, building up from the back, possession based football with wingers. All this in an era in wich the game got quicker and more tactical. Countries like Iceland, Sweden, Turkey and Bulgaria were able to throw sand in the not-so-slick Oranje machine, by defending as a team and playing compact. Waiting for the mistake. The Dutch were the Dodo of International football.

Self professed fans of Dutch football, Guardiola and Klopp were able to introduce concepts like the high press and positioning play by dividing the playing field in particular zones. In this way they found new ways to achieve balance while attacking. In the Eredivisie, coaches like Peter Bosz, Erik ten Hag and Arne Slot followed suit and were able to perform on the European stage with success.

Ronald Koeman copied this blue print after a shaky start. Left back Blind became the third central defender in the build up. Bergwijn would drift inwards, opening up space for Dumfries who covered the full right flank. On the other flank, Koeman used Ryan Babel to keep the width on the left. The yield of the wingers was limited. Bergwijn didn’t score at all in 9 matches, Babel scored 4 in 17 matches. Oranje was very dependent on Memphis Depay and his partnership with Gini Wijnaldum. Under Koeman we beat France, Germany and England, but we also lost against France, Germany and Portugal.

We could beat any team but we could also lose against any team. Under Frank de Boer we lost against Mexico, Turkey and the Czechs using different systems. This was the context when Van Gaal stepped in.

Van Gaal decided to use the learning from the past and introduced the compact playing style to the team, with the aim to build up with short passes and moves in order to combine forward. The execution was poor, to say it nicely. The simple basic things didn’t work. Creating triangles to get players on the ball, for instance. In particular the right flank was weak. No wonder Oranje played its best game against the USA, the only game in which we had less possession than the opponent.

We can debate endlessly about what went wrong, but in essence it comes down to quality, or lack thereof. Phillipp Lahm, the former Germany full back, said it best when comparing Argentina with Holland: “All the players of Argentina have what it takes in modern football: strong in the one versus one, defensively and offensively. These individual skills are what it takes to win matches, not tactics.”

Guardiola says it differently: “When I look at a player to sign for my club, I basically look at one thing only: can he dribble. Does he control the ball? I only want players who have a dribble. All the other things, like a touch, or a pass or a shot, I can teach. I cannot teach players to dribble. It’s impossible to beat a defensive team without players who can dribble.”

These are quite succinct statements explaining the problems we currently have with Oranje.

In five matches, incl extra time vs Argentina, we mustered 17 successful dribbles. That is less than Jamal Musiala of Germany on his own. Only Cody Gakpo managed to do this more often than twice. Gakpo totalled 5 successful dribbles, all in all. Mempis had 2. Denzel Dumfries? Zero. Frenkie had 3, Timber 3 and Berwijn only 1.

Arjen Robben had 5 successful dribbles in one match, in 2014. The lack of form and fitness of Memphis was not present this time, as he usually is the player to create something out of nothing.

We lacked creativity. That is the bottom line. In 2016, the Dutch FA came with a report: Winners of Tomorrow. Their conclusion was that we needed better defenders! While at that time, Ake, De Vrij, Martins Indi, Blind and others were already playing at very decent levels in Europe. While attacking creative talent was scarce.

Our successful generations ( Cruyff, Rensenbrink, Rep, Van Basten, Roy, Witschge, Davids, Kluivert, Bergkamp, Rijkaard, Rob de Wit, Van der Vaart, Robben) were produced not at the club but on the street. Exactly like Brazilians or Moroccans are developed. The youth academies don’t seem to be able to replicate the street, in their youth development plans.

This is the most important lesson for the KNVB. That, and never ever allowing a coach to abandon his post because a dream club is interested in signing him.

Oranje and Van Gaal outplayed

In what is most likely Oranje’s worst performance for decades (even the 2012 Euro matches were better) the team lost the midfield, Van Gaal lost the tactical battle and everone else lost confidence, but we luckily drew vs Ecuador: 1-1.

We don’t do well when we score early. We have seen it before, most famously in the 1974 World Cup finals when we got a penalty in the first minute, only to lose grip and lose the match.

Where did it go wrong?

Well, it was the perfect storm. Their tactics worked well to unravel our tactics. We did not have an answer. And when the teams play similar in shape, it means the workrate, physical strength and meters ran start to really count. Ecuador were superior in this. But, if you have better ball players and better individual quality, you can still win (Memphis! Bergwijn!) but if the key players play below par, well…you’re bound to lose.

So rejoice! We didn’t lose. We stole a point from Ecuador. How sad they must be.

And what a tremendous after-party LVG and the boys will have had, to be gifted a point.

But seriously, what have we been watching? Was it a case of an over-confident Oranje? Too happy with themselves? Or is this simply a mentally and physically weak team, which needs their confidence to be inflated by a pompous coach?

I think it’s the latter.

Before the game, Van Gaal noticed that Ecuador decided to play the same shape as Oranje. To copy Oranje man for man, meaning it would become a man v man battle in midfield. And this is where we went wrong.

Van Gaal: “We will win this. I know this, because we know how to play this system better than them. And we have the better players.”

Wow.

Frenkie tried to solve the midfield problem by dropping back between our defenders, while Klaassen was instructed to push up to their back line and support the forwards, but he was swimming, leaving Koopmeiners at times as the only midfielder.

Here we see how the pass lines to the midfielders are being obstructed by the two attacking mids of Ecuador

One can remedy all this by crisper and quicker passing or using the wide players, Blind and Dumfries. This was attempted but on our right, Dumfries was wasteful whereas Ake and Blind passed the ball sluggish, allowing the opponent to settle in their roles.

This happened when Ake dribbled into midfield. The opponent needs to choose and Bergwijn and Klaassen find space in between the lines.

Van Gaal tried to remedy this by bringing Berghuis in the second half and later De Roon but Berghuis too was pulled away from the centre of the pitch often, still leaving gaps in midfield.

We didn’t create many chances, but neither did Ecuador. When Frenkie forgot he isn’t playing with Busquets at Barcelona, and played in Timber in a crowded midfield with an unexpected pass, the young Ajax defender was pushed off the ball and the defence was…non existent. Poor Noppert couldn’t do much better.

Here you see their holding mid dropping deep leaving Klaassen swimming without an opponent.

There were not many players who reached their usual level. Noppert plays as well as could be expected, with his footballing / kicking skills highly tested. I think Cillesen would have done better in several occasions. His panic kick forward resulted in the loss of possession leading up to their goal.

This is the mistake: Frenkie playing a risky ball to Timber who is on his heels, not expecting the pass and with a man in his back. Not the right decision.

I completely support the criticism by Marco van Basten on Virgil van Dijk. Big Virge thinks he plays with his voice only. His long passes, he knows how to do at Anfield, were not there. At all. Ake was Holland’s best player and that is not a good thing.

Dumfries and Koopmeiners were wasteful in possession. Memphis and Bergwijn close to invisible, while Klaassen should not have played at all in his match.

This is in the 70st minute. Frenkie as central defender. Where is our midfield??

Another example. Klaassen doesn’t even fit on the photo, he is way up the pitch leaving poor Koopmeiners to fend for himself. Where is our midfield?

And why bring Wout Weghorst?? What is the thinking there? We need guile and speed so we bring Weghorst. Not Lang? Not Xavi? Weghorst lacks the speed and skill for a match like this. You need an individual who can break open matters, when the team and the tactics fail. That is not Weghorst. Baffled.

Van Gaal said after the game that his decision to bring Weghorst and De Roon was not to win the game, but to not lose the game. To put some fight into the team. That, I can see.

From a result perspective, we are still in the top 2 of the group. It comes down to the last match versus minions Qatar. So from this perspective, no worries. Just win or draw your last game and you progress. But from the performance perspective, where do we go from here?

Is Van Gaal going to experiment now, with new players? Now? That would be worrysome. But … will he keep on playing this system and with the same midfield?

After the match, Van Gaal was realistic: “This was not good. I am surprised. I thought we would have the better of them, tactically but I was wrong. The main difference is their aggressive play. We couldn’t cope with it and lacked the form, the quality to deal with it. I am not going to badmouth my players, I need to stay positive and support them. I think we still have it all to play for, we can still win the group. In every World Cup campaign, you can have one of those matches. We played a tough second match in Brazil, after the Spain thrashing, but we were able to win that late in the game. This time we didn’t, but a draw is still a positive.”

Asked about the criticism of Van Basten on Virgil van Dijk, Van Gaal concurred: “I can see what Marco means, but we decided to have Ake play the build up as he was our free man at the back. And he did well.”

Asked about the solution, Van Gaal said: “I think our defense is not the problem. That is playing well, and has adapted well to the system but the creativity in midfield and up front is what we need to fine tune. Luckily we have more options to work with.”

Memphis sat on the bench for half the game and was able to watch the team in trouble. “They were better. It’s that simple. What went wrong with us, is that we didn’t manage to offer enough options to one another. The distances were too great and it was easy for them to interrupt our flow. You need to be there at the right time so you can play on. We didn’t manage this.”

About his own game: “I need to touch the ball often and I need to be able to take the opponent on. I was simply not able to do this. There was no space, I never got into my game. We need to analyse this and we need to show a bit more confidence, a bit more courage in our attacking play.”

Pierre van Hooijdonk was clear in his commentary: “After the first match, it was all about “the pressure” and “the first match” etc but now you see it’s not an incident. This must be alarming. But you don’t create anything. It looked lethargic, without life. The opponent was more aggressive and that can’t be happening if you are really good. Virgil said that this Ecuador was a good team, but it is not a good team. It’s an ok team. So what happens if we play against a truly good team? And I know, we have four points, we might simply go on to the knock-out stages, that is great. But we did the same at the Euros and in the first knock-out game we were done. You will have to get to that level where we can all say ” oh wow, so this is what they can do!” because otherwise you cannot make any claim on the title. You have to be able to hurt the opponent, but we were not able to do anything. Nothing. It was so slow, it was walking football.”

Van Basten: “Incredible that you’re being bullied by the number 44 on the FIFA ranking. It’s crazy that they get those chances while we can’t create anything!”

I’d love to see some major changes. A Hail Mary. Forget this 1-3-4-2-1 system. If you don’t have forwards on fire and wingbacks in form, don’t play this.

Go 4-3-3. Let the youngsters deal with it versus Qatar.

Time to play Bijlow now as well.

You lose versus Qatar with this team: you don’t deserve to progress.

You win against Qatar in a bad game, you progress and can re-group and tell the media you did this to give your key players a rest.

If you win against Qatar in a good game, you have yourself more and new options for the knock out stages.

I usually post the highlights of the match here. But I wanted something uplifting for you, this time.

Why Berghuis is in the team

It is always interesting to see how football fans respond to things going on, versus what experienced (ex-) players or coaches say. We had years of discussion about Kuyt, Daley Blind, Nigel de Jong and Heitinga, to name a few and now recently Berghuis is also on the list.

For me, it’s about how fans watch football and how the pros watch football. Spoiler: the pros use statistics nowadays to support their decisions.

I posted an analysis of Daley Blind some months ago, explaining using stats why Blind is actually in the top 10 of Europe (!) in a certain stat and this makes him quite unique.

Looking at Berghuis, we can do the same. Because surely, coaches like Van Gaal, Danny Blind, Erik ten Hag and Alfred Schreuder would not play Berghuis if they watched football they some of us here do.

Steven Berghuis was not very remarkable in his performance against Senegal. But important, he was.

In the 79th minute, the number 11 sign comes up and #20 is going to replace him. Berghuis was seemingly invisible and made way for Koopmeiners, whom he had beaten for the starting spot next to Frenkie.

Data analysis shows that the criticism on Berghuis is not valid. Berghuis only played 79 minutes, whereas the other starters who were not subbed played 98 minutes. Almost 20 minutes more. But no other Oranje player was able to play more successful passes into the final third of the opponent.

Berghuis (and Daley Blind) both played 14 balls into the attacking zone successfully.

Frenkie de Jong came after them with 11 successful passes. Then Dumfries, with 7, followed by Bergwijn (6), De Ligt and Ake (both 5) and Virgil van Dijk a mere single successful pass.

Senegal plays it smart versus Holland. They used Gueye, their defensive mid, high up the pitch to make life hard for Frenkie. The Dutch build up was made harder due to the fact that behind Gueye, two holding mids played quite narrow.

Oranje analysed the game plan patiently and after 15 minutes of probing, it’s Berghuis who breaks the spell. He’s constantly scanning the pitch and when the ball is played into him in the mid circle, he already knows what is happening behind him and he turns and curls the ball in one time to the left flank where Daley Blind has escaped Senegal’s block.

Just before the break, there were two moves again started by Berghuis, resulting in flowing attacks. First, he floats to the left side of the pitch where he finds space for a pin point pass to Bergwijn.

The Ajax forward drops the ball to Frenkie who immediately plays in to Vincent Janssen, but just too heavy, so it doesn’t result in an actual chance for the Antwerp man.

Next up, there is a one-two combination with Frenkie allowing Berghuis space in between the lines. There will be four orange jerseys in the box but no cigar, as Dumfries doesn’t manage to cross the ball in good enough.

In the second half, Berghuis role is diminished a bit, as these stats show.

First half: 33 touches, 25 successful passes, 92.5% pass accuracy

Second half: 16 touches, 12 successful passes, 80% pass accuracy

This is the result of a tactical change. The invisible Gakpo needs support so Berghuis is moved higher up the pitch, by Van Gaal. The Ajax midfielder becomes a second “10” next to Gakpo in what would become a 4-2-2-2 system. In this way, Gakpo doesn’t need to battle two midfielders, and Berghuis is sacrificed to support the PSV youngster.

Still Berghuis has the best pass in the game which is the result of a wicked mind. He sees right back Sabaly isolated against two players. Berghuis recognises the opportunity and has the skills to execute. Memphis bounces the ball back and the whole left flank opens up for Daley Blind. Berghuis plays a firm ball into space for Blind to pursue. His cross resulted in a half chance for Dumfries who can’t control the ball.

The lanky and lightfooted Berghuis will never be the midfield duel monster that a Pogba or Rodri or Rice is, but with his specific qualities in his left foot, he will always be the go to man, if you want to penetrate an opponent with forward passing. This is why he and Blind are almost beyond criticism with Van Gaal. And the stats simply support this.

This is the dats profile of Berghuis on FBref. Progressive passing and touches are actions in which the ball is played at least 11 yards forward, vis a vis the previous six passes.

Thanks to VI Pro