The Dutch national team won the last practice match for the European Championship 3-0 against Georgia on Sunday. Memphis Depay, Wout Weghorst and Ryan Gravenberch scored the goals in Enschede. The newspapers concluded the day after the game in De Grolsch Veste that the KNVB had secured the ideal sparring partner to make it a true feel-good event and that all the incidents and craziness surrounding the the Dutch squad and national coach Frank de Boer were forgotten for a while, but that the doubts about the game view of national coach Frank de Boer have not been removed.
“A week before his first match at the European Championships, the the Dutch squad got lost in a dark forest whose roads are difficult to pass,” writes. de Volkskrant Monday. “The exit to the light is easy to find, but it is uncertain whether that will work.” Journalist Willem Vissers refers to the 5-3-2 system of the Dutch national team. It may just function, or it may simply not function. “A way of playing that the team barely masters, with which De Boer takes a gamble in a sense.”
A fat and a rare insufficient in the the Dutch farewell match
Maarten Stekelenburg received a 6.5 from Voetbalzone for his performance in the Dutch.
“He does not consider the attack power to be large enough to sail fully on it and is forced to build in more security. There is just little time for tinkering”, emphasizes Vissers. “The Dutch national team is like a car that has been brought to the garage a week before the holiday with defects, and the question is whether the garage owner has the parts in house. Sometimes the team is unusually insecure defensively, with a midfield suffering too much loss of possession. In the attack, the impotence is noticeable. ( . . . ) Certainly the first half was not good, due to the lack of initiative and the endless loss of the ball.”
“The patterns in the system often don’t work, because it seems that sometimes players don’t understand or feel each other”, says the journalist, who continues to find the 5-3-2 ‘a somewhat strange system for this group of players’. On the front page of the sports edition of The Telegraph is written in large letters: ‘Where is Oranje?’. Mike Verweij states that after the weak first half, De Boer is faced with the choice, six days before the start of the first group match, ‘to throw the 5-3-2 system overboard or to prepare his team in that formation for the match against Ukraine’. “If a collection of top or second-level players in Cyprus, Georgia, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Poland, Hungary and Turkey are given three imposed chances before half-time, all alarm bells should go off at De Boer,” emphasizes the journalist.
Verweij emphasizes that a system with five defenders ‘doesn’t fit this Dutch team (yet)’. “Even someone like Marten de Roon, who is one of the few who is used to playing that, drowned in the distraught-looking team. Because of his many loss of ball, he was the big dissonant before half time together with crowd favorite Wout Weghorst. Ryan Gravenberch and Donyell Malen showed with their substitutions that they might be better alternatives.” According to Verweij, De Boer must ensure that he does not lose his selection definitively, although there is nothing wrong with straightforwardness in itself. “Unless you are heading for the abyss in one straight line (read: a faltering 5-3-2 system).”
A very happy Weghorst has his first goal in the Dutch! He makes it 2-0 against Georgia. #nedgeo pic.twitter.com/yLnfoaLmtN
— NOS Football (@NOS Football) June 6, 2021
The stands for Donny van de Beek and Cody Gakpo also raised questions for Verweij. “It will not benefit the self-confidence of the pair and it is also not useful. With their stand in the stands, De Boer makes two controversial choices when making his final European Championship selection. the head of wedding is telling: ‘the Dutch wins, but only boosts morale a bit – the doubts remain’. “Anyone who looked more soberly at the game of the Dutch will conclude that the route to the European Championship will remain surrounded by doubts. The discussion about De Boer’s system will not die down, given the still stiff game and the vulnerabilities that were also abundant defensively even against Georgia,” writes John Graat.
The confidence in this team with this system remains fragile. “De Boer’s intentions – chasing the ball quickly, short man coverage in midfield, security in the heart in the back – were again barely visible. ( . . . ) Due to static play, many misunderstandings and wrong passes, even from Frenkie de Jong, hardly any chances were created. Even more worrisome was that despite this tactic, which should provide certainty, the Netherlands had to allow several opportunities even against the number 91 in the world.”
It General Newspaper writes about ‘a mediocre rehearsal’. “Rarely has a Dutch team headed towards a final tournament with lower expectations than is now the case,” concludes Sjoerd Mossou. “The victory over Georgia really couldn’t hide the fact that this the Dutch is anything but a stable, well-oiled whole. Against the average football country Georgia, the Dutch again gave way too many opportunities, this time in the much-discussed 5-3-2 system. Where the Scots scored twice, the visitors now let it go. That was not exactly the credit of the Dutch itself,” the journalist refers to the opportunities that the visitors themselves missed.
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