The Dutch team has one foot in the European Championship in Germany. Ronald Koeman’s team won well deservedly, but unnecessarily difficultly, against Greece (0-1) and in the last two games in November – against Ireland at home and Gibraltar away – one win is enough.
If already placed France ‘just’ does its sporting duty when visiting the Greeks, the Netherlands will even be certain of EURO 2024.
Koeman made two changes to his starting line-up in cooled-down Athens. Mats Wieffer was the expected replacement for Marten de Roon, who disappointed against France. The fact that Joey Veerman had to sit on the bench was more remarkable. The Volendammer could look back on an excellent previous international match, but had to give up his place to Steven Bergwijn for tactical reasons.
This meant that Denzel Dumfries, Wieffer, Tijjani Reijnders and Quilindschy Hartman played for goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen and the three central defenders Lutsharel Geertruida, Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Aké, with which the national coach made a clear choice for the running ability of Wieffer and Reijnders. During the build-up, Hartman became the fourth ‘defender’. That worked, but had the disadvantage that Dumfries was already stuck to the right instead of getting there.
Empty spots
Wout Weghorst appeared to have recovered from his injury in time and was positioned as a striker, with Bergwijn and Xavi Simons close behind him to put pressure on the three (playing poor) Greek central defenders. Compared to the home match, which was won 3-0 in Eindhoven at the beginning of September, Koeman therefore fielded five other players. Mark Fleken, Frenkie de Jong and Cody Gakpo were not present due to illness and injuries, while De Roon and Daley Blind were substitutes in Athens.
In the OPAP Arena it became clear once again that the average Greek cares more about his club than about the national team. While the stadium was still quite haunted at the beginning of October during the Europa League match between AEK Athens and Ajax, the empty places now stood out. The Uruguayan national coach of the Greeks, Gustavo Poyet, did not make room in his team for the ‘Dutch’ strikers Vangelis Pavlidis (AZ) and Giorgos Giakoumakis (ex-VVV).
Excellent tactical response
Poyet appeared to have learned from the encounter in the Netherlands and – as Koeman expected – adjusted his tactics. The Netherlands’ tactical response was excellent, because after a rough start, the guests were in control until half time.
It should be noted that Koeman’s call for more ‘smartness’ remained unanswered. The Dutch most experienced player Van Dijk obviously did not concede a penalty after a push against Fotis Ioannidis, but the hand in the back from the Greek attacker was clumsy. The same applied to Geertruida kicking the ball away, who had received a yellow card in the previous action. The Greeks begged in vain for red. However, the Feyenoord player had to pay for the fact that he was given a yellow card at half time with a substitution. He was replaced by Donyell Malen, so the Dutch national team continued in a 4-3-3 formation.
Weghorst misses a penalty
Koeman’s team, which called the shots after twenty minutes, should have already been ahead at that moment. Reijnders, again the best man on the Dutch side, fired wide once and saw his second attempt saved by Odysseas Vlachodimos. The biggest chance, however, was for Weghorst, who was allowed to score from eleven meters, after Van Dijk had been knocked down illegally in the enemy sixteen-metre area.
The fact that the Hoffenheim player took a seat behind the ball was surprising, because he does not exactly have good penalty statistics and Bergwijn does. Moreover, the Ajax attacker turned out to be ‘laser-point resistant’ from the spot when he visited AEK Athens at the beginning of this month. Weghorst was not and missed.
The European Championship ticket should also have been secured after the break in the traditional Dutch formation. Bergwijn was given a free passage, partly due to a good running action by Weghorst, but his hard effort was cleverly turned away by Vlachodimos. Simons then fired just wide and was sloppy instead of putting Bergwijn alone in front of the keeper.
Ioannidis proved in between that the Dutch team had to stay alert. The Greek took off on the right side, showed Aké his heels, but punted the ball into the side net. With debutant Brian Brobbey and Veerman for Weghorst and Simons and later Micky van de Ven in place of Hartman, the Netherlands had to at least get a point.
With Giakoumakis and Pavlidis as battering rams, the Greeks naturally tried to prevent this. A setback for Koeman was that Wieffer had to leave the field injured. With De Roon as his replacement, the Dutch team faltered for a moment after Van de Ven lost the ball, but the draw was no longer in danger. In fact, the Netherlands left the field with a victory. Dumfries was knocked down and Hernandez-Hernandez pointed to the penalty spot again. The VAR had doubts and allowed the Spanish referee to view the images at the edge of the field. However, he stuck to his decision. And Van Dijk showed himself to be a real captain by taking a seat behind the ball. The 0-1 was worth gold.
After Brobbey was knocked out, Hernandez-Hernandez was called to the screen again, but this time he decided not to give a penalty. No one cared about that at Oranje, because not much later he blew his whistle.