The Nations League game between Italy and the Netherlands did not yield a winner on Wednesday-evening: 1-1. National coach Frank de Boer threw the helm considerably and brought his team within the lines in Bergamo in a 5-3-2 system. Rafael van der Vaart shares with the NOS compliments De Boer, but at the same time is of the opinion that the coach ‘did not change to win’.

“A big compliment for Frank, after such a bad week he prepared his team well. Everything came out what he wanted, he will be very satisfied. He stopped changing to win, that’s the only thing I regret. But yes, we did not expect 1-1 ”, says Van der Vaart. De Boer changed twice in the last fifteen minutes: Joël Veltman replaced Daley Blind, while Ryan Babel came in for Memphis Depay. Presenter Tom Egbers wonders how the choice lord could have changed.

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“You bring Veltman, you bring Babel in the very last second. You saw how it was played that they both thought 1-1 were fine. It may be too big a step to say that you are going for the win right away. There have certainly been opportunities to win ”, Van der Vaart emphasizes. “You had eight shots on target, Italy one”, Pierre van Hooijdonk commented. “That says something, doesn’t it? Maybe we are very easily satisfied with this 1-1, given the match in Bosnia. Very secretly hope and think you can get this match out. I thought the Netherlands was better than Italy. ”

Egbers asks whether Orange’s relatively good performance is directly related to the changed system. “I personally don’t like it, but it is a way to fight a very good team,” says Van der Vaart. “That’s how Koeman started, with the idea: we’re not good enough, we’re going to play more defensively and aim for the switch. But I thought they radiated confidence at the ball, as was the case under Koeman. They got that in those few days and it was good to see. ”

De Boer also receives a compliment from his captain Virgil van Dijk. “We discuss things like that with the group, how we think about it. We have trained well on it in recent days. The trainer handled it well, all credits to him. To tie in here is an achievement we can build on, ”says Van Dijk at the NOS about the change of the system. “We did well, with a good organization. There was more to it, but 1-1 is not wrong. We wanted to achieve a result, because it had to be different than in the ArenA. ”