MY ACCOUNT
Netherlands players shrugged off criticism about their style of play from supporters after seeing off the United States 3-1 to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.
The Oranje have attracted flak from fans and media due to the brand of football and system used by Louis van Gaal, with their classic ‘Total Football’ approach and 4-3-3 formation discarded.
Van Gaal prefers to deploy a back three and puts an emphasis on making the Netherlands difficult to break down, aiming to hit teams on the counter-attack.
His system was reasonably effective against the USA at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday, with the Netherlands soaking up pressure and catching Gregg Berhalter’s men on the break.
The Netherlands were 2-0 up at half-time, and although they came under more threatening pressure in the second half with the USA pulling one back, Denzel Dumfries – who set up the first two – capped off a strong individual performance to finish the Americans off.
Fans and media alike will still probably find reasons to criticise Van Gaal’s men, but for Dumfries their performance vindicated the system.
“There’s a lot of criticism because we are used to it [a certain style of play], we are good on the ball,” he said. “Normally we play 4-3-3, but we play a different system [now].
“But the goals today… this is everything. I gave an assist for the other full-back, Daley Blind, and he gave an assist to me, so today we showed the quality of the system.
“In the Netherlands we are used to having the ball, playing with possession. This is a different way of playing and I also understand the criticism because we can play much better with the ball, create more chances.
“But you see when we get the ball, we have qualities on the counter, very fast strikers, and it’s also a strength of ours. We have to focus now to continue to make the system work perfectly.”
Nathan Ake sympathised somewhat with the Netherlands’ critics, even agreeing with assessments about the Oranje perhaps failing to impress despite topping Group A.
But like Dumfries, the Manchester City defender believes the defeat of the USA showed how effective Van Gaal’s system can be.
It was put to him that winning is all that matters, to which he replied: “It is, it is, but sometimes I think playing well helps getting the result.
“In the first few games we were a little lucky sometimes with how we got the goals or how we played, we could’ve conceded, but today I think we were much more solid defensively but also attacking wise, we created so many more chances.
“I think the first few games [the critics] were right. We didn’t play our best football, but we knew from inside the camp that we got the points; played bad but got the points and qualified first.
“We knew we had to play better. I think today we showed much more [of] what we can do, play through spaces.
“Sometimes we had to defend a bit more, but we know we are very dangerous on the counter-attack and we haven’t shown that in the last games. Today, we showed that.”
The Netherlands will play either Argentina or Australia at Lusail on Friday in their quarter-final.
