Dunga: "Holland play like South Americans"

Tuesday, 29 June 2010

For the fourth time Holland will face Brazil at a World Cup final on Friday in Port Elizabeth. The last time the two teams met during a big tournament was in 1998, during the World Cup in France. It was 1-1 after overtime, and Brazil went through on penalties, losing the final to France.

In 1994 Holland were also eliminated by Brazil. After having gone down 2-0, the team of coach Dick Advocaat came back to 2-2, but then Branco decided the game with a free kick: 3-2. Brazil went on to win the Cup in a final against Italy.

In 1974 Holland knocked out the then reigning World Champions in the semis, beating them 2-0 in a very tough and physical game. Holland lost the final to Germany.

Poor buildup
In a way one could say it's Holland's turn to win, but fortunately it doesn't work that way. Yet after Monday night's game of the Brazilians against Chile, Dutch manager Bert van Marwijk and his staff will have seen plenty of clues on how to beat the 'Divine Canaries'.

Dunga's team basically play a 4-2-4 system, which translates into a block of six defenders and four forwards who can do as they please up front. When these four can be brought into play, they can cause all sorts of problems for any defense.

The Brazilian weakness is in their build up from behind. As we have seen in the games against Portugal and Chile, the Brazilian defenders have trouble building up when they are put under pressure, mostly quickly hoofing the ball forward aimlessly. They get dangerous when Maicon on the right and Bastos on the left can involve themselves up front, and they are lethal at set pieces. None of these things should greatly worry the Dutch though.

Portugal have so far been the only team to confront the Brazilians with a good organization and they managed to neutralize the Brazilian forwards and to expose the Brazilian center backs a number of times. Especially Juan seems vulnerable when the defense gets stretched, and Bastos does not seem to have the defensive qualities to put much in the way of Arjen Robben.

On the right Maicon looks equally shaky with people running at him, yet much will depend on whether Van Marwijk decides to play Kuyt or Elia against the Inter-player (Madrid next season).

Holland always do well against the big sides, and when they can improve from the four games we've seen of them so far, Holland are the team to beat for Brazil on the way to the final.

"Holland will be tougher"
Brazilian coach Dunga knows it. "Holland are hard to beat," he said after his team beat Chile. "They are technically strong and they play a South American style football."

Similar words came from striker Luis Fabiano, who scored his third game of the tournament against Chile. "We're on track, but we have a long way to go. Chile were tough, but against the Netherlands on Friday it will be even tougher."

Robinho, who scored Brazil's third on Monday agreed with his team mate: "We played better against Chile than we did during the group stages. But we have to improve. Than we can beat Holland as well."