2021 The Netherlands thread

Netherlands have been very thorough and had the replacement on site. Big credit to them as it saved them a lot of time to get that player up to speed. And they got lucky it happened while they are still allowed to replace the player. 24 hours later they would not have been allowed to.

 

Virtually everyone plays on it half the year growing up, and some play on it year round.

 

I think the key in these situations, generally, is to minimize the number of changes you make to adjust to the injury. So, ideally, one would want to simply put another player in Spitse's midfield spot and keep everyone else in their accustomed roles. In that way you've limited the disruption--made one change that is going to affect team play, chemistry. If you take Groenen, say, and put her in Spitse's role, you then need another player to take Groenen's role. Then you've got two players in new roles instead of just one--and that tends not to be a good thing. And in this case there is nobody on the team who can provide what Groenen does with her work rate, challenges, etc. I'd be loathe to move her unless I thought there was no other good alternative. We'll see what the coaches come up with. A translation I saw today described Spitse's injury, in English, as damage to an "inner tube" of the knee. I'm guessing that she injured (tore) one of her ligments. If that's the case, and I hope it isn't, she may not be available for next summer's Euro Championship either.

 

I completely agree with not wanting to minimize Groenen's box to box play by putting her at CDM, but you wouldn't be putting a player in a new role if you position Roord in Groenen's typical role. She's definitely more of a natural CM/CAM than a RW; I think she's done quite well generally when she's been out wide, but it's still apparent at times that she's out of position there. Personally, I want to see Janssen-Groenen-Roord, but I expect to see Groenen-Roord-van de Donk. (I do like Janssen over van der Gragt at CB, but Janssen at CDM is my preference.)

 

Wiegman, after seeing both Wilms and Folklsmerta at right back, seems to have decided that neither of them are quite ready for prime time and has gone back to Dongen--putting her at leftback, as usual, and moving D. Janssen to right back. (Where would the Dutch be without Dominque and her versatility?). And in the midfield, the coach has moved Roord back to the midfield, as expected. Let's see how they look today.

 

Here's another thing that the Dutch will miss from Spitse's absence--her professional fouling! Spitse is very good at putting a solid knock on an opposing midfielder trying to get a counter move started. I'm not sure we'll get that with her out of the tourney.

 

Thoughts on today's match? It's hard to make much of it given how poor Zambia is/was.

If the Dutch beat Brazil on Saturday and Sweden beats Australia, it's very likely that The Netherlands would play the U.S. in the quarterfinals, based on what I heard today, as the winner of our group would play the 2nd place team in the U.S.A/Sweden group, and a Sweden win against the Aussies would seem to assure the U.S. of being second in that group.

 

The Dutch defense against pace is scary; it was a great match from Banda. I still like Janssen over van der Gragt at CB, but she needs to not have errors like the third goal and the giveaway to Gauvin in the 3-3 France match when she plays there. I have to agree with some comments I’ve seen about van Veenandaal’s attitude on Banda’s first goal. She made a judgment error there but just seemed to take everything out on her defenders. I mean the defending wasn’t great, but good goalkeeping prevents that goal.

 

It is hard to make much of it apart from the Dutch defense needs to be sorted out vs pace. I thought the front six (apart from maybe van de Sanden) were very good, and Nouwen’s passing was great. We’ll see how that holds up vs Brazil and China.

Groenen had a lot of good defensive moments in my opinion, but she did get caught out in a couple moments that are acceptable as a box to box CM but you want to minimize as a lone holder. I imagine it’ll be more of a double pivot with Roord in future matches.

That’s why I don’t get some Dutch fans mocking the US online. I guess they’re more confident than I am.

 

I thought it was a very sloppy game from the Orange Lionesses and the two goals against in what was it, 90 seconds, are inexcusable.

 

Yea, I'm not too confident, either, although I do think the Dutch should beat Brazil. And if they do, The Netherlands could be headed to a QF match with the U.S. I don't think this Dutch team is capable of playing as well against the U.S. as Sweden did today, which was fairly brilliantly. They haven't shown it. Maybe it's just a matchup thing. One thing I liked about Sweden's play is that when they won the ball in the midfield, they went forward--quickly and directly. The Dutch do that as well, but at times they also dither--want to organize after winning the ball---make a back or lateral pass or two, and lose counter opportunities. I suppose a lot of it depends on the positioning of players--the Swedes certainly got it right today. I think beating Germany, finally, in the World Cup, really gave that team a psychological boost.

Van Veenendaal seems a bit off to me these days--she misjudged the ball and botched that first Zambia goal. And while D. Janssen is invaluable with her versatility, I wonder if the Dutch are getting the best out of her given how much she's been moved around. She was rather settled in at CB for an extended period with the NT, has played the same position for Wolfsburg, but Nouen's emergence enabled Wiegman to move her to outside back. That's a good thing--but after playing on the left in recent friendlies she was today on the right. She was fine, but it's hard to be completely comfortable and confident when you are new to a position or a side. And I'm just not high on Van Dongen, who doesn't have the athleticism/pace/physicality you ideally want in an outside back (think Carpenter). It's a demanding position. However, Van Dongen is smart enough to know her limitations and plays conservatively as a result, which isn't a bad thing, and she has played in a fair number of big matches. A year or so ago, Wiegman played Beerensteyn at rightback in a match--and I thought, yea, she's got qualities for the position. And I still think that--but Wiegman didn't stick with the move. I might have, but it's a moot point now.

 

Sarina Wiegmans red alert: My girls need to get outside, the hotel is like a prison
https://www.ad.nl/olympische-spelen...buiten-ons-hotel-is-een-gevangenis~a0d26f935/

So Wiegman and her staff agitate against the rules and insist on relaxation at the IOC. “We're going to break open doors soon. We don't want to get infected, don't go shopping or anything. But there is a very beautiful garden in the hotel where we are. You can just go out there, there is no chicken. But that's not allowed either. And I don't see the purpose of that anymore. The organization just has to do something about it.”

 

I think it’s a matchup thing. What other top team does Sweden consistently challenge as much as the US? They certainly didn’t play to that kind of level vs the Dutch at the Euros and WWC. I know friendlies can be hard to get up for, but 0-0 vs Australia (look at Australia’s other results) and just 1-0 vs Norway? Football is such a fascinating sport at times.

 

Yeah, fair enough on van Dongen; she can hit a mean penetrative pass though at times. On Miedema's third and fourth goals, van Dongen's pass set things in motion. (Funnily enough, Groenen-van Dongen-van de Donk-Miedema was the sequence for both goals.)

 

Van Dongen can make some good passes, to be sure--but for me an outside back (and any player) needs to be comfortable dribbling with both feet and needs to be able to drive inside, away from touchline, occasionally, to not only escape pressure but to put pressure on the opponent and create openings for teammates. She rarely if ever does that. I mentioned Carpenter as an example of an ideal outside back and yet forgot Bronze, who has the perfect combination of outside back qualities. She turns away pressure on her defensive side of the field and then puts pressure on the opponent going forward. She's a beast. All this said, Van Dongen is smart and I like her personally.

With Spitse out and Roord back in the midfield, the Dutch will have to get a good tourney out of Van de Sanden. She's been on the outs for a couple of years and so I'm happy she's getting this opportunity to show herself again. She had a nice goal yesterday.

 

No doubt about van de Sanden. I wouldn't rule out Beerensteyn getting starts in this tournament, which is something a lot of fans want. That being said, when she did start vs Sweden and the United States in the 2019 WWC, she didn't really fare any better than van de Sanden did. The Dutch will definitely need consistent chance creation/end product from whoever plays at RW, and honestly, they'll also need more consistency than their two star attackers showed in the 2019 WWC.

 

Lieke Martens was still suffering from her toe injury in the WC2019 and since she completely revovered from that is again the star for Barcelona, so I expect her to shine this campaign.
Dunno what you mean with consistency from Miedema.

 

Honestly don't think Miedema was particularly great at the World Cup, which is the sole focus of my consistency comment, and I thought she was only world class level in the Cameroon match. We can just disagree there though.

 

Miedema had to do alot of the creative work, normally coming from Lieke and as such she dropped back in the midfield or wandered to the sideline and by doing so burned alot of energy she needed for her actual role as a striker. She still did score alot.

 

Well, sure, but I can't recall much that she did that was very creative. (Being very creative without scoring is what Miedema did in the 5-0 Australia and 2-1 Germany matches.) She scored in two matches; Morgan got so much stick said about her for scoring in just two of the matches, and Miedema didn't replicate the kind of critical non goal scoring work that Morgan did for example vs France. Agree to disagree.

 

Tough, competitive match with Brazil. The Dutch struggling a bit in the back--the inexperience of Wilms and maybe Nouen, too, is showing. Team gave up too many corners in the first half.

The Dutch attacking mostly down the left with Martens, who had a good half. Not much going on on the right with Van de Sanden and Wilms. Groenen and Van de Donk doing a lot of work, as usual; Roord, somewhat quiet, and would like to see Janssen get a cross or two into the box. There are counter-attacking opportunities to be had, and Martens had a good chance off a Miedema pass that she no doubt wishes she had back. We'll see how this plays out with subs in the 2nd half; fatigue certainly may be a factor.

 

For anybody who cares to do so, compare Groenen’s passing and ball recovery numbers between Miedema’s 2nd goal and Ludmila’s goal with her numbers the rest of the match following Ludmila’s goal. The Dutch started to play through Groenen, which was also the basis for the Dutch’s best period in the first half (min 30 to 35), and they got back into the match. What a free kick that was from Janssen (Groenen with a van de Donk at WWC2019 assist), and van de Donk came up with a great assist and a great tackle in the box on Debinha. Wilms was comfortably the best player in the Dutch back 5 vs Brazil. If anyone can tell me why Roord followed up one of the best runs in this tournament so far with a tame long distance shot instead of playing in van de Donk 1 on 1, please let me know. She had a rough 2nd half in my opinion; I hope she can bounce back well.

 

I sometimes shudder to think what the Dutch team would be like without Groenen. The work rate of her and DvD are a huge part of the team's success over the last 4 years.

I too though Roord had a lackluster game--lost the ball a few times, and just didn't seem to have that much influence in attack. But I also know that my observations can be faulty/wrong because there's so much ball turnover in soccer that it can be hard to say whether a midfielder (perhaps more so than a forward or defender) had a good or decent match or not, just watching a streamed/televised match. There's a guy who's publishing InStat stats on all these Olympic matches (and he does it for U.S. college and NWSL as well), and the InStat highest rated performances for this match were 1) Miedema, 2) Ludmila, 3) Janssen, 4) Roord and 5) Debinha. So, yea, I was surprised to see Roord in that spot. Who was it that lost the ball near the Dutch right touchline that led to Ludmila getting into the box and getting fouled (barely, maybe) by Van der Gragt? The TV camera cut back to the action late, so it was hard to tell--but it looked to be either Wilms or Roord.

I thought Janssen was pretty solid overall, though she can counted on to have a bad giveaway almost every match. Wilms had some good defensive moments but her inexperience really shows to me; she gets caught out of position (typically too far forward) quite a lot. She will be a good player when she gets stronger and has another year of development and international play. I was glad to see her play today--invaluable experience. Nouen is also a young, new starter who will be good/very good, but her mistake today was costly. The back four as a whole are just having more shaky moments than they did, say, during the World Cup.

Watch Van de Sanden now and it's easy to see why she's been benched by club and country. Her attacking play--decisions and deliveries--is just too inconsistent. For every solid cross or play that she makes on the wing, she'll have one or more "what are you doing?" moments. She had oodles of space on the wing in the second half after a nice run and long pass to her, there were a couple of Dutch players around the box--one not open, really, and Martens open but at least 10/12 yards from goal. Van de Sanden could have driven in on goal and tried to create something or tried to shoot a cross to Martens; she hit a cross--but the ball went about 20 feet over the goal and wasn't anywhere close to anybody or anything. It would be like me trying to cross the ball. Beerensteyn has a better skill set, IMO--but she's frustrating, too. She's strong and talented enough to help create quality chances but they seldom happen--and she spends more time on the grass than any player I've watched.

DvD with a great cross to Miedema. Janssen with a tremendous free-kick

It will be interesting to see how Wiegman plays it against China. She's got to give Groenen and DvD at least a half of rest, I should think, but we'll see. I'd try to rest Martens, Miedema and Van der Gragt, too--more or less, depending. If I'm Wiegman, I rest some of my key players and don't mind if Brazil thumps Zambia and wins the group, as that would leave The Netherlands playing either Japan or Canada rather than the U.S. I saw the first half of Japan v. GB this morning and it was /boring./

 

Pretty much agree with you across the board. I'm well aware of the guy who posts inStat ratings/rankings. I find myself often disagreeing with them, and Roord being in the top 5 is a ranking with which I definitely don't agree. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure if Debinha really did that much either apart from scoring one goal and having a nice double nutmeg move that she ended up taking too heavy of a touch on the second nutmeg. I guess I'm willing to be corrected there though. Not 100% sure, but I think it was Roord that gave the ball away leading up to the PK.

I went into the 2017 Euros with Martens hands down my favorite female Dutch player. By the end of it, Groenen was ahead of Martens for me. Very much a fan of her style of play. I've been a bit critical of van de Donk's play at major tournaments before, but her output so far this Olympics is impressive to go along with her usual work rate. No disagreements with your player assessments.

Agreed on how Wiegman should handle the China match. Roord, Groenen, and Martens have each played two full 90s, and van de Donk has also almost played that much. (I was honestly very surprised to see Martens go the full 90 vs Zambia.) So, maybe two or all of Kaagman, Pelova, and Folkertsma will see significant minutes vs China; it will indeed be interesting. I definitely don't want to overlook Canada or Japan, but yeah, if given a choice, I'd rather face either of them than the USWNT in the quarterfinals.