Rinus Michels, Yuan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola, you may be wondering what the relationship of the famous Spanish coach to his predecessors? But it is a close relationship that expresses the gratitude of the world to the Netherlands and Dutch football.
The Dutch national team was not strong or ancient before the seventies of the last century. It did not have a clear and specific identity. It did not even participate continuously in major tournaments, the World Cup or the Euro.
In the World Cup before World War II, the Netherlands national team participated in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, and both were eliminated from the first round in matches that were held directly in the knockout system.
Even after the war, he did not participate in the 1950 and 1954 editions and failed to qualify for four consecutive editions.
As for the Euro, he did not participate in the 1960 edition, and failed to qualify for the 1964, 1968 and 1972 editions.
That all changed thanks to the one man who put Ajax and Dutch football on top in the 1970s, Rinus Michels.
The historical coach of Ajax led him to crown the Champions League and get to the 1974 World Cup runner-up, in the most prominent achievement of Dutch football at the time, when he invented the term total football.
Total ball, which relied on the speed of rotation of the ball with changing positions between players, was a revolutionary idea at the time, including Michels inspired Cruyff, who continued this method when he became a coach to lead Barcelona to the first Champions League title in the club’s history in 1992.
Hence, Barcelona continued to rely on comprehensive football and train all its Sunni teams in the 4-3-3 method. Guardiola, who started his football revolution with the product of that method, came with Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez.
Barcelona ate with Guardiola green and dry and developed the overall ball to Tiki Taka, and from here the world began to change its concept and footballing methods again.
It all happened thanks to Holland.
But.
not giant
Excuse me here, the Netherlands is not a giant team like Brazil, Germany or Italy.
Why?
If we talk about titles, the Netherlands has only one title in its history, which is Euro 1988, and it was under the leadership of historical coach Michaels.
Yes, some describe it as the most unfortunate team for not winning the World Cup so far, and in terms of numbers as well, the Netherlands is the most team that reached the final and did not win the cup in its history, and that happened in 1974, 1978 and 2010.
But other than that, the Netherlands does not qualify for the World Cup from the ground up, as happened in 1982, 1986, 2002 and 2018, in total, the mills, when calculating the next version, participated in the World Cup 11 times out of 22, or 50% only.
Or, with participation, it does not reach much advanced stages, except for the 1998, 2010 and 2014 editions.
Compared to Brazil, Germany or Italy, the trio is always present in the World Cup or the advanced roles, Germany, for example, from 2002 to 2018 only missed the semi-finals once.
To further clarify what I want to say, the Netherlands, after winning Euro 1988, maintained its identity until it began to lose it in the middle of the current century, and here began its crisis, which Cruyff talked about.
The team always has distinguished players such as Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben. He did not present the most enjoyable ball, and Cruyff even commented on their loss in the World Cup final against Spain, saying: “It pains me that the Netherlands chose that ugly ball to win the title, but it also lost.” “.
And here you see the clear crisis that Dutch football is suffering from so far, for example, before Euro 2020, Ronald Koeman restored the total ball and the Netherlands continued to prey on all its competitors except for the defeat from Portugal in the European Nations League final.
But with his departure and the arrival of Frank de Boer, all this changed, and with the return of Louis van Gaal to lead the national team, it represents giving up the total ball. He wants to achieve results and by any method, even if he plays 3-5-2 like the Brazilian World Cup in which he finished third.
The identity crisis, with the lack of qualification in the first place in many cases, and the lack of access to advanced roles, all prove that the Netherlands needs a lot of work to restore its identity to return to the scene through the big door.
Despite this, it cannot be denied that the Netherlands presented many legends throughout history, it is enough just to look at the history of your team and you will find at least a Dutch player or coach who was influential in it.
This is in addition to the ways of playing that the world is still revolving around now and that emanates from total football.
Perhaps with a little luck or luck sometimes, or the decisive factor, she would have won many titles, but the lack of continuity and the exploitation of reaching the finals as a beginning and not an end is what makes him not in the ranks of the world’s giants.
Perilous road to reach Qatar
The Netherlands national team had to wait for the last round of the European qualifiers to officially reserve its ticket in Qatar.
The Dutch national team was placed in Group G in the qualifiers, along with Turkey, Norway, Montenegro, Latvia and Gibraltar.
On paper, the Netherlands is the favorite to qualify for the World Cup, but that did not happen.
The start in the group was disastrous, after the Dutch national team was defeated by Turkey by four goals to two goals in the first round.
Despite the victories over Latvia and Gibraltar in the next two rounds, coach Frank de Boer was sacked because of the farewell to Euro 2020 from the 16th by the Czechs.
Here, the Dutch federation persuaded the former national team coach in two terms, Louis van Gaal, to return from retirement to lead the team, and indeed, the agreement was reached in 2021.
Van Gaal began the qualifying campaign with the Netherlands with a disappointing draw with Norway.
But then he took one victory after another until he tied again, this time with Montenegro.
In the last round of qualifying, the Netherlands had 20 points, compared to 18 for Turkey.
The goal difference was in the Netherlands’ favour, but any stumble in defeat would send them to the playoffs and Turkey would qualify directly in return.
But the Dutch managed to score two goals in the 84th and 91st minutes against Norway, to qualify for the World Cup directly and not care about Turkey’s victory over Montenegro at the same time.
bad world cup
As we mentioned, the Netherlands national team qualified for the World Cup 11 times out of 22, considering the next edition in Qatar.
The Dutch national team reached the semi-finals 5 times and the final on three occasions, but never won the title.
Al-Tawahin won the bronze and fourth place only once in each of them.
In total, the Netherlands national team played 50 matches in the World Cup, winning 27 matches, drawing 12 and losing 11 times.
The Netherlands team scored 86 goals and conceded 48 during its history in the tournament.
The secret of the nickname .. The Netherlands is not the Netherlands
The Netherlands national team has many nicknames, such as the Mills, the Orange Legion or the Clocwork Orange. “Sorry, I did not find a more appropriate translation of the name, but we will explain it.”
As for the mills, it is the easiest thing to know its significance. The Netherlands owns many mills in the country, numbering one thousand, and some of them are listed by UNESCO as monuments that should be preserved.
Windmills played a large role in Dutch culture and helped them exploit the winds to generate energy and avoid floods, especially in the south.
As for the Orange Legion, or in English, Oranje, it refers to the country’s current royal family, and it comes from the European Nassau dynasty, which served the Netherlands in the 80-year war against Spain and then became presidents of the republic at the time and then kings.
Members of that family were famous for wearing orange shirts.
And by moving to the title Cloclwork Orange, it is called more on the 1974 generation, who entertained the world with the magic of total football.
During that tournament, the Dutch national team players were not restricted to positions, but everyone attacked and everyone defended as one block and you feel that they move around the field like clockwise.
That generation enjoyed the world and that name has been associated with them since that time until this day.
But there is an unofficial name by which the Netherlands national team is known, and that is the Netherlands itself.
The Netherlands is originally called Netherland or the Lowlands, but the name Holland has remained the most popular in the world.
What is the secret of the name?
The Netherlands consists of 12 provinces, including two provinces, Nord Holland and Zuid Holland, and together they form the word Holland, while the rest of the 10 provinces form the word Netherland.
Until the government decided in 2020 to change the name of the Netherlands and officially adopt the word Netherland in its official address and promotional tourism advertisements and adopt the letter NL in reference to the Netherlands with allocating $ 320,000 for a promotional campaign for the new name.
The Iconic Van Gaal Against Cancer
This is the third term for coach Louis van Gaal to lead the Dutch national team after a first term that lasted for a year and several months, in which he failed to lead the team to qualify for the 2002 World Cup after he could not even catch up with the play-off, and came third behind Portugal and Ireland.
The second term began in August 2012 after the national team was bid farewell with coach Bert van Marwijk Euro 2012 from the group stage.
Van Gaal led the Netherlands to qualify for the 2014 World Cup semi-finals before losing to Argentina on penalties and beating Brazil to finish third.
While the third and current term began after the dismissal of Frank de Boer after the failure in Euro 2020 and the elimination from the round of 16.
In April of this year, Van Gaal announced that he had testicular cancer.
At the end of the same month, the 71-year-old coach announced his recovery after undergoing extensive treatment.
Lots of talent but
The current generation of the Dutch national team has several distinguished players in all its lines. In defense, there is the second most expensive defender in history, Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool), and next to him is young Matthias de Ligt (Bayern Munich) and Goraen Timber (Ajax).
In the middle are Frenkie de Jong (Barcelona), with Georginio Wijnaldum (Roma), Stephen Bergwein (Ajax), Ryan Gravenberch (Bayern Munich) and Xavi Simons (PSV).
As for the attack, there are Memphis Depay (Barcelona), Cody Gabko (PSV Eindhoven), Arnaut Dankhuma (Villarreal), and Brian Probe (Ajax).
But the problem is that many of these players are not currently going through their best levels with their clubs a few days before the World Cup.
Van Dijk this season with Liverpool is making a lot of mistakes and is not the defender he was in past years, and the next World Cup is his first and perhaps last tournament as he is 31 years old.
De Jong and Depay do not play mainly with Barcelona.
Can Van Gaal solve the crises of his most prominent players before the World Cup?
World Cup competitors
The Netherlands national team is in Group A in the World Cup, along with the owners of the land Qatar, the champions of the African Nations Cup, Senegal, and Ecuador.
Theoretically, the Netherlands can qualify from that group, but in practice it will face fierce competition from the hosts, who certainly do not want to leave the tournament in the first round.
In addition to the star-studded Senegal team, which is not afraid of confronting adults, and if it were not for the fair play rule, it would have qualified instead of Japan in the 2018 edition to the round of 16.
Ecuador remains the weakest link in that group.
The dates of the Netherlands national team matches in the World Cup are as follows:
First round against Senegal on November 21.
Second round against Ecuador on November 25.
Third round against Qatar on November 29.
