Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:17 PM• Dominic Mostert

Louis van Gaal has previewed Friday night’s World Cup qualifier against Latvia. The national coach of the Dutch national team repeats in front of the camera of the NOS his plan to play ‘total pressing’. He announced attacking football and considers some opportunities for Latvia. Van Gaal therefore emphasized the importance of good residual defence. The match starts Friday evening at 8.45 pm in Riga.

“The most complicated thing is that they will probably defend very compactly, that we will mainly attack and that there is a lot of space behind our backs, from which every amateur club could escape two or three times,” says Van Gaal. He says he knows in advance that Latvia will have ‘two or three chances’. “We have to make sure that we are good in the rest defence. I didn’t insist on that, because it went very well against Turkey and Montenegro.” Preventing Latvia’s chances is a task for the entire team, according to Van Gaal. “We play total pressing, hopefully you have seen that. We do that with eleven.”

“The keeper also participates”, the choice lord adds. “He should be able to more or less walk the space behind Virgil van Dijk and Stefan de Vrij, without being passed by a long ball over him. That’s the trick. We want to play reasonably compact, although that is not possible because we also are attacking.” On an offensive level, the the Dutch has to rely on the ‘creative players’, says Van Gaal. “So from Gakpo, Memphis and Berghuis. In midfield you also have a creative midfielder like Frenkie de Jong, and you still have Daley Blind. That should work.”

Placing Guus Til on the place of the suspended Georginio Wijnaldum was an ‘abc’, according to Van Gaal. “Because he’s a running midfielder who’s fantastic in total pressing. And he’s been scoring a lot of goals lately. You get players who have the feeling.” According to the national coach, players such as Til and Davy Klaassen are always in or around the penalty area and can therefore be in the right position to run into a ball at the right time. “That’s a quality. If I draft other players, they don’t get that far. They do. I also make Memphis stronger as a result.”