The Netherlands imposed their hierarchy to leave the US with no gunpowder on the road

Red (and not orange) has ears louis vangaal. The criticism of their team’s play in the Dutch press has already established itself as background music and has intensified since the start of the World Cup in Qatar. The stainless 71-year-old coach and his students respond with patience and results: before anyone else, The Netherlands progressed to the quarter-finals of the tournament thanks to a 3-1 victory at the Khalifa International Stadium against the United States, a team with a promising future, but which has paid dearly for the lack of punch.

The annoyance of the purists is understandable, of the lovers of the vice world champion teams led by Rinus Michels, in Germany 1974, and Ernst Happel, in Argentina 1978. This van Gaal model is far from the brightest of those. But with lucidity, a lot of tactical discipline and effectiveness in attack, he has already traveled more than halfway towards that title so often denied and which the TD hopes to achieve this time. “Even if I have to believe the Dutch media, we will never make it”chicaneed friday.

The European cast made the task seem much easier for the Americans than it was. The first goal less than 10 minutes away was essential to get her back on track: with a pure touch, the men in orange exit their playing area, break the opponent’s suffocating pressure and start running to the right to Denzel Dumfries, who left Memphis Depay in front of the net. The Barcelona striker, who arrived at the World Cup with very little recovery due to a muscle injury and had just started the third group match against Qatar, did the rest.

This Dutch side doesn’t mind playing on the counterattack and their players don’t lose heart if they have to come back, go to the ground to score or chase after an opposing full-back or midfielder. Well shielded, skilled in handling the ball and quick in every start, he neutralized the United States, bet on his lead and extended it just before the end of the first chapter with another assist from Dumfries and a shot from Daley Blind, one of the engines in between.

The United States has never given up on the good intentions, which it had already shown in its first-round pledges. But this time their talented young midfielders, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah, were not up to the task. Timothy Weah and Jesús Ferreira also failed to respond, so any attempts at attack were limited to the skill of the ever restless Christian Pulisic. Finally, when he managed to create a hazard, he crashed into the safety of goalkeeper Andries Noppert.

15 minutes from the end, a mistake by Depay at the start, a cross by Pulisic e a casual touch of Wright, who gave the ball a strange parabola and slipped it into the far post, brought the United States back into the game, who hadn’t done much to achieve it until then. But immediately Dumfries, Rayán’s best of the evening, stamped the third and transforms that last quarter of an hour into a formality.

Nineteen games unbeaten (W14 D5) the Netherlands have amassed since van Gaal took the helm in August 2021 for his third cycle in charge of the select side. And 11 matches without missteps at the World Cup (without taking into account the definitions for sanctions) adds the Orange between Brazil 2014 and this match (he was missing for Russia 2018), all with the former Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Ajax coach on the bench. Journalists don’t like the show the team puts on. But, for now, the numbers are irrefutable.