National coach Jonker after the World Cup draw: ‘You hope to meet countries of US caliber later in the tournament’ | Dutch football

Most striking is of course the link to America, a country of which successful Orange women have no good memories in recent years. At the 2021 Olympics, the United States was too strong in the quarterfinals after penalties. In 2019, under Sarina Wiegman, the World Cup final was lost 2-0 to America, which is known as the most successful women’s football country.

“A top poster”, Jonker looked ahead from Auckland this morning at the meeting with four-time world champion United States in the group stage of the World Cup. “They are not happy that they are playing against us. For us it is a great challenge. You can immediately see where you stand in the tournament. To become world champions, you have to beat everyone and we can beat everyone. Everything just has to be right. In this case, everything has to be right early in the tournament.”

The Orange squad starts the tournament on July 23 with a match in Dunedin against Cameroon, Thailand or Portugal. Cameroon and Thailand play each other in the play-offs, after which the winner meets Portugal. At the last European Championship in England, the Orange Women narrowly beat Portugal: 3-2. ,,There is a good chance that we will now play against Portugal again,” said Jonker. “I’m not very happy about that. I watched that European Championship match on the couch and it was with my heels over the ditch. As far as I’m concerned, the quality of the opponent from pot 4 could have been less. So it is all in all a strong group, but one that we can do.”

Vietnam is clearly the weakest opponent as a World Cup debutant. And Jonker also has to read up on the Asian World Cup opponent: ,,I don’t know anything about Vietnam at the moment.”

Because the Dutch National Team was in pot 2, there was a good chance that a top opponent from pot 1 would roll out of the tube. That’s what happened: United States. New Zealand and Australia were also in pot 1 as organizing countries. ,,So I had a preference for those countries”, Jonker confessed. ,,You hope that you will hit countries of the caliber America, or Wiegman’s England, at a later stage. We are not that lucky.”

The draw of the United States also influences the preparation for the World Cup. Jonker planned to set up a training camp in America and practice there twice against the world champion. That plan has now been scrapped. ,,I would like to play a block against top opponents in April,’ said Jonker.

,,The draw definitely has an influence on our practice program. We would like to play against an Asian opponent like Vietnam, if one can be found and it is possible in terms of travel. While we are talking, the team manager is already busy consulting with other countries. She is approached and approaches countries to see how we will fill in the exercise program in February and April.”

The World Cup starts on July 20 in Auckland and the final is in Sydney on August 20.

_{View the complete group breakdown below.}