Monday, November 15, 2021 at 7:23 PM• Dominic Mostert • Last update: 19:45

After the loss of points against Montenegro (2-2), the alleged lack of leadership within the Dutch was a recurring theme in the media analyses, but according to national coach Louis van Gaal, the team with Virgil van Dijk has at least one player who has enough leadership qualities. to change course during a match. In conversation with the NOS he puts the defender in a row with other great players he has worked with.

The the Dutch was still 0-2 ahead in Montenegro ten minutes before the end, but still missed the victory and with that the certainty of a World Cup ticket. “We have leaders in the team, but it is not easy to intervene in the game,” said Van Gaal the day before the decisive game against Norway. “I have not seen many players in my career who could do that. That was Danny Blind as captain at Ajax. That was Josep Guardiola as captain of Barcelona. And that was Bastian Schweinsteiger, who was vice captain at Bayern Munich. But he could do that too .” The national coach thinks that Van Dijk ‘certainly’ has that quality. He calls the captain ‘a great influencer’, of an order he has never experienced.

With a 0-2 and 1-2 lead, the the Dutch squad looked for a wider margin on Saturday, a style of play that may have opened the doors for Montenegro’s comeback. “We said in advance that if we are leading 0-2, you have to play the game. Don’t look for 0-3 or 0-4, because that is the least important,” says Van Gaal, who saw that the spaces for the opponent were too large in the final phase. “It is a team: eleven people with their own opinion and vision. Then you can have a plan, but that goes to the Philistines when the Montenegrins score, because then the World Cup is in danger. Then everyone starts thinking from their own point of view. own vision. And that shouldn’t be. It has to come from the collective.”

In practice, the bottom line is that some players wanted to extend the lead, while other players preferred a conservative style. Van Dijk, for example, wanted to play it safe, while Memphis Depay thought that pressure should be put forward. “If things go wrong, everyone has an opinion. I don’t listen to that,” says Van Dijk himself. “I do think that I am one of the leaders and not just because I am captain. That is also because of the position, in which you have the whole field in front of you. Of course there are moments in a game when you have to take the lead. But we’re all human.”