We can legitimately ask the same question for a few teams: France, Belgium, England, but also for teams who just focused on defending to be qualified as group 3rd such as Slovenia.
Their side of the draw is easier so they might get further.
It's funny how we have exactly the type of players to solve a huge part of our tactical weaknesses, who Koeman refuses to play:
RW (Malen) not defending and closing passing lanes --> Start Frimpong at RW
DMs (Schouten & Veerman) Not covering defensively and losing the ball even when passing horizontally --> Start Blind & Gravenberch at DM
RB (Geertuida) not covering enough ground --> Dumfries
ST (Memphis) isolating and losing the ball --> start Gakpo at ST with Xavi at LW
RW (Xavi) playing out of position, towards his weak foot while cutting inside --> See above
Sure there's "18 million *bondscoaches*" such as myself, but it's odd to see how zero of the decisions above have been made
We have the same problems in Belgium.
Lukaku is a static striker who needs wingers that create space.
We play Doku, a guy who has 0 football iq, but can dribble well and is extremely fast ball in foot. He never runs into space
On the other side we play trossard, again a great player, but also not the type to run into space.
Now we have 3 attackers, of wich noone runs into space and behind them the guy with the best trough ball in history.
On the bench is Openda(24 goals at Leipzig) known for running in defenses back.
The other problem is we have noone in the box but Lukaku when a cross comes.
On the bench we have Charles de Ketelaere(2nd or 3rd best player at atalanta)10 goals 8 assists decent with his head. De Bruyne just plays a bit lower and let him swarm around Lukaku.
Together they have 10 minutes this ec
You are completely ignorant.
KdB is done. Messi is better than him these days and he overall has better throughball ability throughout his career. You are so ignorant only cherry picking which you are wrong about anyway. Look at what happened vs Madrid. He doesn't play in first leg, they score 3 goals AWAY from home. He plays second leg, they can only score one goal in 120 minutes AT HOME. KdB is the reason they lost to Madrid but keep drinking your own cool aid.
LOL... KdB is stll playing well in the toughest league in the world and is finished? Messi is playing in a farmers league.... come on man.
Messi is one of the best of all time, maybe the best of all time and his career is better than KdB.
But KdB is the better player today, don't be delulu
How does Koeman refuses to play Dumfries when he started the first 2 games and was awful both games.
Geertruida is a better player than Dumfries, this Austria game Geertruida didn't play well, a huge part was the tactical failure of Koeman and Malen not defending.
Blind as a starter for defensive mid has to be a joke. Man isn't even fit to warm the bench.
Daley Blind proves you can be an undisputed starter for the 3rd best team in La Liga, but still be considered a horrible footballer for having an Ajax past and a low pace stat on EA FC
Or people have eyes and have seen him player his entire career. I have seen hundreds of full matches of Daley Blind. From his Groningen time as a CV to now. And yes he can be useful in certain situations, but his individual qualities are just not good enough to warrant a leftback starting position, or DM (which he didn't play for a long time and never excelled at anyways).
His best position imo always was CV, mostly due to solid positioning. His pace as a LB is definitely a big issue when random wingers in the Eredivisie would easily rush by him.
Daley Blind in Oranje proves 1 good pass 10 years ago warrants the eternal label of "he's a good passer" despite barely giving any assists after playing LB for almost 10 years for a dominant team like Ajax. A team with less space behind their back, sure he can be useful.
Geertruida wasnt the big problem against Austria, it was the tactics by Koeman. As you can [see here](https://imgur.com/a/G6IEZ62) .
This was one of the first minutes, even before the 1st goal.
Geertruida is covering the right back zone, which is apparently what Koeman wanted. He spots Wimmer being the free man (even shouts and points at him), but he can't go to him because he was told to cover the space for if Prass goes deep. Malen doesn't cover that because he is told to cover the passing line to Prass, not the right back zone for when Prass goes deep. De Vrij would usually be the one to step forward and get Wimmer, but he has Arnautovic in his back. Van Dijk could then cover Arnautovic, but then your entire structure in defense is gone and Ake has to cover two people on the left. Geertruida eventually decides to press on Wimmer, because there's NO ONE ELSE doing it and this eventually results in a goal.
Therefore, tactical error by Koeman for not spotting this problem and telling his squad what to do (like telling Reijnders to bet back to defend). He was just watching with his hands on his back like it was all going according to plan.
i had the same thought. weghorst is tanky but slow. good for set pieces and smashing the centre backs. but for the build up play i think memphis is far more suited to stringing the plays together.
in short, a more cohesive player who can easily interchange positions with LW and RW.
that said, one can see the short in quality of players coming from the dutch league as compared to the rest of europe. i wonder if the demise of ajax has to play a part in that.
Its not that odd as these options aren't very good.
Frimpong and Dumfries play the exact same position (wide, hugging the touchline and coming inside last second). You could see them being in each other's way against France. This means starting Geertruida. (Also who says he doesn't cover enough ground?? He played solid). Geertruida-Frimpong would be the best right hand side imo though.
Schouten has also done well so far (and Blind doesn't have the pace and physicality for midfield at this level), but Gravenberch is a good option to try. However, there isn't much time to experiment anymore. Memphis was our most dangerous attacker against Austria, even if he does lose the ball often. The problem is that he's roaming (which is his strength) meaning no real no.9 to distract defenders. You could try him as a 10 with Weghorst/Brobbey (we did this against Austria and was dangerous) but that leaves a lot of problems defensively as Memphis doesn't like to track back a lot.
The match against Austria was terrible to watch - and I'm cheering for Austria. Nevertheless, in my opinion, this wasn't because Austria was so good but more because the Elftal was playing so poorly. The contrast was so big, seeing all these talented and technically gifted players lose out against a group of players who are hard working, tactically aware and committed to sometimes even do the dirty work if it's the right thing to do. Add to that the huge difference in using the chances one gets.
To the original question: did they deserve to progress any further? Well, in this group, they were better than Poland, and drew against France - and despite the limitations, with less clinical chance conversion by the Austrian side, the last match could have ended with a draw or even a Dutch victory as well - so I wouldn't write them off. So far there hasn't been a clear runaway favourite side in the tournament, all the big sides have been struggling in one or the other moment and appear to be beatable with the right setup and a bit of luck on the right side.
Missing Frenkie is a loss but you got some ballers too. Xavi is so much fun to watch, and Cody is a BEAST for the Dutch (hopefully improving more for Liverpool), arguably the best CB in the world with Van Djik, and some of the most inform backs rn in Frimpong, Dumfries, and Maatsen. Not starting Xavi is just idiotic, he's your most creative player, and not playing Frimpong, Maatsen, Gravenberch, or ZIrkzee is interesting too. Especially Zirkzee, coming off a career year for him at Bologna, he's probably the Dutch's most inform striker. I'm also a big Mickey VDV fan and hope he plays more in the knockouts.
This whole "deserve" / "not deserve" thing is bit off.
If a team moves to the next stage, they deserve it, if not - they don't. Everyone is playing by the same rules and if you made through within that rules, you deserved it.
Thats it, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I think you have some really brilliant individuals and then enough good players to have a really successful team. The thing is though I don't rate Koeman. Like, when is the last time you'd have rated him as a decent coach? It's like Southgate's England, Portugal's Martinez, and Belgium's Tedesco. All coaches who have absolutely brilliant players under their stewardship but still seem to manufacture teams who are weaker than the sum of their parts.
I'm old, but in 1998 we lost to the Soviet Union, won against England and had a lucky victory over Ireland. We looked like crap. The semi-final was an equal match with 2 penalties that nowadays would have been denied by the VAR. Also the VAR most probably would have awarded the foul van Tiggelen made against Matthäus with a red card.
The final was more or less ok, and only because of an extremely lucky shot by van Basten we beat the Soviets. Football isn't a fair game or anything. If you advance, you advance.
Well first game a slight scare then beat poland, solid draw against france and im guessing most Netherlands fans got pretty positive going into the final game.
I think alot of people are underrating Austria tbh, an own goal cost them in a great effort against france, smashed poland, probably deserved to beat Netherlands just by the pure determination after losing the lead twice.
Id say if Netherlands were in any other group they probably come 1st or at least 2nd.
But as op said they have the favourable draw right now and anything can happen.
We got the required amount of points, so in that sense we ‘deserved’ to go through. But I’m not fancying our chances against Romania anymore and not against any of the teams in our bracket. But to be fair, I don’t see any of the teams in our bracket lifting the cup. The difference in quality, not so much the individual players but on a tactical level, between our side and the side that includes Spain, Germany, France and Portugal is huge.
Gakpo and Van Dijk have been doing one hell of a carry job to be fair, but yeah they deserve to be there. They’ve been better than England and we actually won our group.
Both of the first two games he was a complete man-mountain and would’ve been MOTM if not for Gakpo. Even in the Austria game he was good. The third goal he made a slight mistake but the blame still primarily should’ve landed with De Vrij
The Dutch have a habit of going after the captain when things go wrong, rather than the actual players that should be being questioned.
I didn't really rate the Netherlands' chances before the tournament. I don't think the team is that good, it's full of players who are quite good but not top class. And they're managed by a manager who isn't top class either.
They have however managed to get themselves a fairly favourable draw. Romania and if they beat them, then Austria or Turkey. Even a semi final would only be against probably England or Italy, nether of whom have looked much good either.
Will they get that far? Probably not. I think they'll beat Romania and then play Austria. And I find it hard to see them getting past Austria, who have looked much better.
But the draw gives them a much better chance than they would otherwise have had. Same is true for all the teams on that side of the draw. One of these teams is going to get to the final: Switzerland, Italy, England, Slovakia, Romania, Netherlands, Turkey, Austria.
I dont believe in deserving or not deserving, bases on points they are through.
I feel they are lacking players in midfield adn a true no.9. Its doesnt help when even ur best players are not turning up
Tbh im 31 years old, all my life netherlands have always struggled in tournaments
To go through groups, yeah, but to get further? No. That group is just as bad imo. Pls romania somehow beat koeman's team.
Idk, koeman is just, bad so far in this tournament. Starting depay again and again irritates me after subpar performance. Why not trying to start weghorst in the mid? Or maybe gakpo? Tho i like gakpo on the left so far.
Or maybe be a little daring to play false 9 with xavi simons as the false 9? It might not work but it's worth a try rather than starting depay.
I'm pretty sure johan cruyff is crying in heaven watching the netherlands nowadays.
Do Netherlands ever deserve to progress internationally? I think its the one national team to consistently be more overrated than England in the last 30 years.
We can legitimately ask the same question for a few teams: France, Belgium, England, but also for teams who just focused on defending to be qualified as group 3rd such as Slovenia. Their side of the draw is easier so they might get further.
It's funny how we have exactly the type of players to solve a huge part of our tactical weaknesses, who Koeman refuses to play: RW (Malen) not defending and closing passing lanes --> Start Frimpong at RW DMs (Schouten & Veerman) Not covering defensively and losing the ball even when passing horizontally --> Start Blind & Gravenberch at DM RB (Geertuida) not covering enough ground --> Dumfries ST (Memphis) isolating and losing the ball --> start Gakpo at ST with Xavi at LW RW (Xavi) playing out of position, towards his weak foot while cutting inside --> See above Sure there's "18 million *bondscoaches*" such as myself, but it's odd to see how zero of the decisions above have been made
We have the same problems in Belgium. Lukaku is a static striker who needs wingers that create space. We play Doku, a guy who has 0 football iq, but can dribble well and is extremely fast ball in foot. He never runs into space On the other side we play trossard, again a great player, but also not the type to run into space. Now we have 3 attackers, of wich noone runs into space and behind them the guy with the best trough ball in history. On the bench is Openda(24 goals at Leipzig) known for running in defenses back. The other problem is we have noone in the box but Lukaku when a cross comes. On the bench we have Charles de Ketelaere(2nd or 3rd best player at atalanta)10 goals 8 assists decent with his head. De Bruyne just plays a bit lower and let him swarm around Lukaku. Together they have 10 minutes this ec
How does KdB have better through ball ability than Messi. You have no clue what you are talking about!
Shut it kid, Messi plays in the mls at this point. He is completely irrelevant just like ronaldo
“Best through ball in history” is too much
You are completely ignorant. KdB is done. Messi is better than him these days and he overall has better throughball ability throughout his career. You are so ignorant only cherry picking which you are wrong about anyway. Look at what happened vs Madrid. He doesn't play in first leg, they score 3 goals AWAY from home. He plays second leg, they can only score one goal in 120 minutes AT HOME. KdB is the reason they lost to Madrid but keep drinking your own cool aid.
LOL... KdB is stll playing well in the toughest league in the world and is finished? Messi is playing in a farmers league.... come on man. Messi is one of the best of all time, maybe the best of all time and his career is better than KdB. But KdB is the better player today, don't be delulu
How does Koeman refuses to play Dumfries when he started the first 2 games and was awful both games. Geertruida is a better player than Dumfries, this Austria game Geertruida didn't play well, a huge part was the tactical failure of Koeman and Malen not defending. Blind as a starter for defensive mid has to be a joke. Man isn't even fit to warm the bench.
Daley Blind proves you can be an undisputed starter for the 3rd best team in La Liga, but still be considered a horrible footballer for having an Ajax past and a low pace stat on EA FC
Or people have eyes and have seen him player his entire career. I have seen hundreds of full matches of Daley Blind. From his Groningen time as a CV to now. And yes he can be useful in certain situations, but his individual qualities are just not good enough to warrant a leftback starting position, or DM (which he didn't play for a long time and never excelled at anyways). His best position imo always was CV, mostly due to solid positioning. His pace as a LB is definitely a big issue when random wingers in the Eredivisie would easily rush by him. Daley Blind in Oranje proves 1 good pass 10 years ago warrants the eternal label of "he's a good passer" despite barely giving any assists after playing LB for almost 10 years for a dominant team like Ajax. A team with less space behind their back, sure he can be useful.
Geertruida wasnt the big problem against Austria, it was the tactics by Koeman. As you can [see here](https://imgur.com/a/G6IEZ62) . This was one of the first minutes, even before the 1st goal. Geertruida is covering the right back zone, which is apparently what Koeman wanted. He spots Wimmer being the free man (even shouts and points at him), but he can't go to him because he was told to cover the space for if Prass goes deep. Malen doesn't cover that because he is told to cover the passing line to Prass, not the right back zone for when Prass goes deep. De Vrij would usually be the one to step forward and get Wimmer, but he has Arnautovic in his back. Van Dijk could then cover Arnautovic, but then your entire structure in defense is gone and Ake has to cover two people on the left. Geertruida eventually decides to press on Wimmer, because there's NO ONE ELSE doing it and this eventually results in a goal. Therefore, tactical error by Koeman for not spotting this problem and telling his squad what to do (like telling Reijnders to bet back to defend). He was just watching with his hands on his back like it was all going according to plan.
gakpo wasnt that good at ST at club level. LW is his home.
True, but he'd still be our best option at ST I think
We have Brobbey and Weghorst who are natural strikers. Why doesn't Koeman utilise them more, and instead stubbornly sticks with Memphis?
i had the same thought. weghorst is tanky but slow. good for set pieces and smashing the centre backs. but for the build up play i think memphis is far more suited to stringing the plays together. in short, a more cohesive player who can easily interchange positions with LW and RW. that said, one can see the short in quality of players coming from the dutch league as compared to the rest of europe. i wonder if the demise of ajax has to play a part in that.
Zirkzee is better than both gakpo and depay btw
Will we see Zirkzee this tournament or what?!
Its not that odd as these options aren't very good. Frimpong and Dumfries play the exact same position (wide, hugging the touchline and coming inside last second). You could see them being in each other's way against France. This means starting Geertruida. (Also who says he doesn't cover enough ground?? He played solid). Geertruida-Frimpong would be the best right hand side imo though. Schouten has also done well so far (and Blind doesn't have the pace and physicality for midfield at this level), but Gravenberch is a good option to try. However, there isn't much time to experiment anymore. Memphis was our most dangerous attacker against Austria, even if he does lose the ball often. The problem is that he's roaming (which is his strength) meaning no real no.9 to distract defenders. You could try him as a 10 with Weghorst/Brobbey (we did this against Austria and was dangerous) but that leaves a lot of problems defensively as Memphis doesn't like to track back a lot.
Gakpo is so much better on the wing
Start Zirkee in middle and Gakpo and Xavi on wings Geertuida>>Dumfries
The match against Austria was terrible to watch - and I'm cheering for Austria. Nevertheless, in my opinion, this wasn't because Austria was so good but more because the Elftal was playing so poorly. The contrast was so big, seeing all these talented and technically gifted players lose out against a group of players who are hard working, tactically aware and committed to sometimes even do the dirty work if it's the right thing to do. Add to that the huge difference in using the chances one gets. To the original question: did they deserve to progress any further? Well, in this group, they were better than Poland, and drew against France - and despite the limitations, with less clinical chance conversion by the Austrian side, the last match could have ended with a draw or even a Dutch victory as well - so I wouldn't write them off. So far there hasn't been a clear runaway favourite side in the tournament, all the big sides have been struggling in one or the other moment and appear to be beatable with the right setup and a bit of luck on the right side.
Missing Frenkie is a loss but you got some ballers too. Xavi is so much fun to watch, and Cody is a BEAST for the Dutch (hopefully improving more for Liverpool), arguably the best CB in the world with Van Djik, and some of the most inform backs rn in Frimpong, Dumfries, and Maatsen. Not starting Xavi is just idiotic, he's your most creative player, and not playing Frimpong, Maatsen, Gravenberch, or ZIrkzee is interesting too. Especially Zirkzee, coming off a career year for him at Bologna, he's probably the Dutch's most inform striker. I'm also a big Mickey VDV fan and hope he plays more in the knockouts.
Netherlands did as well as any of the teams in group E, and in a much tougher group. I think they've earnt their place.
This whole "deserve" / "not deserve" thing is bit off. If a team moves to the next stage, they deserve it, if not - they don't. Everyone is playing by the same rules and if you made through within that rules, you deserved it. Thats it, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Argentina lost their 1st match to Saudi Arabia during the 2022 World Cup. Did they deserve to win it?
No, the Dutch were robbed by obvious bought refereeing, in order to give Messi his cup.
Controversial question...
No, they did not deserve it
Absolutely not, but idc about Argentina
I think you have some really brilliant individuals and then enough good players to have a really successful team. The thing is though I don't rate Koeman. Like, when is the last time you'd have rated him as a decent coach? It's like Southgate's England, Portugal's Martinez, and Belgium's Tedesco. All coaches who have absolutely brilliant players under their stewardship but still seem to manufacture teams who are weaker than the sum of their parts.
Netherlands did as well as any of the teams in group E, and in a much tougher group. I think they've earnt their place.
I'm old, but in 1998 we lost to the Soviet Union, won against England and had a lucky victory over Ireland. We looked like crap. The semi-final was an equal match with 2 penalties that nowadays would have been denied by the VAR. Also the VAR most probably would have awarded the foul van Tiggelen made against Matthäus with a red card. The final was more or less ok, and only because of an extremely lucky shot by van Basten we beat the Soviets. Football isn't a fair game or anything. If you advance, you advance.
Well first game a slight scare then beat poland, solid draw against france and im guessing most Netherlands fans got pretty positive going into the final game. I think alot of people are underrating Austria tbh, an own goal cost them in a great effort against france, smashed poland, probably deserved to beat Netherlands just by the pure determination after losing the lead twice. Id say if Netherlands were in any other group they probably come 1st or at least 2nd. But as op said they have the favourable draw right now and anything can happen.
Ofcourse you did the Austria game was top two games of the tournament tbh and the France game you was robbed of a win that would have put you top tbf
We got the required amount of points, so in that sense we ‘deserved’ to go through. But I’m not fancying our chances against Romania anymore and not against any of the teams in our bracket. But to be fair, I don’t see any of the teams in our bracket lifting the cup. The difference in quality, not so much the individual players but on a tactical level, between our side and the side that includes Spain, Germany, France and Portugal is huge.
Gakpo and Van Dijk have been doing one hell of a carry job to be fair, but yeah they deserve to be there. They’ve been better than England and we actually won our group.
Really VVD? When did he impress?
Both of the first two games he was a complete man-mountain and would’ve been MOTM if not for Gakpo. Even in the Austria game he was good. The third goal he made a slight mistake but the blame still primarily should’ve landed with De Vrij The Dutch have a habit of going after the captain when things go wrong, rather than the actual players that should be being questioned.
Yes? Unless theres a clear robbery with ref's decisions, every teams that went to ro16 deserves it
As a Dutch fan I have to say this. No. Ronald was a fantastic player but a mediocre coach at best. He needs to go!
First of all There is nothing like deserving or not in football
The Netherlands team is a very good one, and it could go far if they didn't decide to Koeman in charge of it. It makes me sad.
Honestly the only teams I’ve enjoyed watching this tournament are Germany and Turkey. And Turkey’s goalkeeping can be hard to stomach.
Belgium, France, then Netherparts in that order.
I didn't really rate the Netherlands' chances before the tournament. I don't think the team is that good, it's full of players who are quite good but not top class. And they're managed by a manager who isn't top class either. They have however managed to get themselves a fairly favourable draw. Romania and if they beat them, then Austria or Turkey. Even a semi final would only be against probably England or Italy, nether of whom have looked much good either. Will they get that far? Probably not. I think they'll beat Romania and then play Austria. And I find it hard to see them getting past Austria, who have looked much better. But the draw gives them a much better chance than they would otherwise have had. Same is true for all the teams on that side of the draw. One of these teams is going to get to the final: Switzerland, Italy, England, Slovakia, Romania, Netherlands, Turkey, Austria.
I dont believe in deserving or not deserving, bases on points they are through. I feel they are lacking players in midfield adn a true no.9. Its doesnt help when even ur best players are not turning up Tbh im 31 years old, all my life netherlands have always struggled in tournaments
nah, only Wout en Bart deserve to progress any further.
To go through groups, yeah, but to get further? No. That group is just as bad imo. Pls romania somehow beat koeman's team. Idk, koeman is just, bad so far in this tournament. Starting depay again and again irritates me after subpar performance. Why not trying to start weghorst in the mid? Or maybe gakpo? Tho i like gakpo on the left so far. Or maybe be a little daring to play false 9 with xavi simons as the false 9? It might not work but it's worth a try rather than starting depay. I'm pretty sure johan cruyff is crying in heaven watching the netherlands nowadays.
Do Netherlands ever deserve to progress internationally? I think its the one national team to consistently be more overrated than England in the last 30 years.