During the press conference for his official presentation as national coach of the Dutch national team, Louis van Gaal got into a discussion with Valentijn Driessen on Tuesday afternoon. During the press conference, the new elector repeated several times that it will be ‘not easy’ to become successful with the the Dutch squad, but Driessen did not agree with that framing. The journalist of The Telegraph be aware of the quality within the selection.
Representing clubs such as Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and Internazionale in the 25-man squad, and World Cup qualifiers against Norway (1 September), Montenegro (4 September) and Turkey (September 7) in prospect, according to Driessen, Van Gaal can hardly maintain that he has a very tough job ahead of him. “I have also said that I have faith in the group of players. I am not saying that it is impossible, but we are thin in the keepers and the left and right strikers. Those are exactly the building blocks of the Dutch School, where you always about in your newspaper,” the national coach responded.
The discussion between Louis van Gaal and Valentijn Driessen can be seen from minute 42:00.
Driessen didn’t seem very pleased with Van Gaal’s derogatory choice of words “Newspaper. Newspaper huh”, he said. Van Gaal continued his answer: “If you’re that thin in that, you can’t actually play 4-3-3. But you always want that. I don’t think we have the players. You say so, so I hope you also put your shadow team in your newspaper.” However, Van Gaal admitted that the players he has spoken to so far prefer the 4-3-3 system. During the European Championship, the the Dutch squad played under Frank de Boer in a 5-3-2 system and the eighth final turned out to be the end station.
Van Gaal did not want to reveal which players he spoke to. “I always listen to my players, but I look at the quality of the opponent, and at the qualities of my own selection, and then I apply a system to that. I have done that all my life as a coach, and it has some success, but I’m not that far yet, that I’m going to play 1-4-3-3,” he said.