The Dutch national team disappointed on Friday during the second group match at the World Cup in Qatar. The Dutch did not get further than a 1-1 draw against Ecuador. With that, the team of national coach Louis van Gaal also got away well. Still, ex-international Willy van de Kerkhof remains optimistic. “Win five more games and we’ll be world champions!”
What went wrong for the Dutch against Ecuador? “Everything”, the Helmond PSV icon looked back on Saturday morning in the radio program ‘Weekend’ on Omroep Brabant. “We played the ball around much too calmly, much too weak. Marco van Basten said it well: Virgil van Dijk is one of the best football players in this Dutch national team, but he was one of the most mediocre players on Friday. A ball wide playing is not his thing. All in all it was a happy draw. But we will go through to the next round, whether we finish first or second in this group.”
“This display is over, the next match is coming.”
Willy is not sure whether there was an underestimation by the Orange, which had won the first World Cup match against Senegal 2-0. “Maybe so. I thought Ecuador played football very well, in a way that we are not really used to. Very aggressive, very short on the ball. You saw that Ecuador deservedly scored 1-1 due to the errors that the Dutch national team piled up. Then do you see that a Frenkie de Jong also does not come into the game. He stayed in the back too much. Then you get this kind of football. Then we are not ourselves. “
But according to the former midfielder, we should not dwell too long on this deception. “This display is over, the next game is coming up. It’s game by game. We have to win five more and then we will be world champions.”
“We have a great team.”
In addition, the ex-international adheres to the World Cup in 1978, in which he was active. Then the Orange made little of it in the group stage. “The first round then also went very, very moderately. Something like that creeps in. We then got away very well in the third group match against Scotland, but in the end we became vice world champions. So it can still go well. I trust the Orange “We have a great team. Ecuador may have underestimated them on Friday, but a draw is good. We move on to the next round.”
For this, the Dutch national team must beat host country Qatar on Tuesday. Qatar lost the first two group matches. The Orange must guard against a new case of underestimation, but Willy has no doubt that Van Gaal Qatar’s team will be right. “Yes, of course!”