Netherlands still defending style despite reaching World Cup quarter-finals

Tuesday, 29 June 2010
By Mike Corder (CP)

The Netherlands is being forced to do more defending off the pitch at the World Cup than on it. Bert van Marwijk's team made it four wins from four matches Monday, reaching the quarter-finals after only conceding two goals in South Africa — and still the coach and players are fending off questions about the workmanlike style of their play.

The Slovak defense knows there's no stopping this man

"We want to play beautifully, but it doesn't always work," midfielder Mark van Bommel said after another patchy Dutch performance led to a 2-1 victory over Slovakia. "But the bottom line is we qualified for the quarter-finals. We know what we're doing."

The narrow victory in Durban came on the day Johan Cruyff said Chile had taken over from the Dutch as the most entertaining team at the World Cup.

"It was always our quality to offer fans something extra," Cruyff said of past Netherlands teams in his column in Dutch daily De Telegraaf. "We may never have won the ultimate prize, but the whole world talked about us. Chile has taken over that role from us."

That kind of praise wasn't quite enough to inspire the Chileans later Monday, when they lost 3-0 to Brazil in the second round.

It means the Dutch will meet five-time champion Brazil in a quarter-final at Port Elizabeth on Friday.

The Netherlands has been regarded as the best team never to win the World Cup since it fell agonizingly short in 1974 and 1978 — when it twice reached the final only to lose to hosts Germany and Argentina. The teams' fluent attacking style and flowing passing moves made them the darlings of football fans the world over.

But despite that stylish play and a string of world-class players such as Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Dennis Bergkamp, the Netherlands has brought home just one trophy — the 1988 European Championship.

Under Van Marwijk, the team has been transformed into a more pragmatic unit that seeks to grind out wins.

"I think in all the matches we've played you can see that we've been able to control possession and deny our opponents any space," Van Marwijk said. "We simply want to win and I don't think we're doing a bad job."

There were hopes that Arjen Robben's return to the starting lineup for the first time at the World Cup after recovering from a left hamstring injury would ignite a more attacking style. But he also wants this team to shrug off its reputation of not being able to close out tournaments.

"In the past, everyone said the Dutch play nice football but they never win something," he said. "That's something we've improved on today. It wasn't the best game but we're going through to the next round."

Robben scored in the first half and Wesley Sneijder made it 2-0 late in the game before Robert Vittek pulled back a consolation goal for Slovakia from the penalty spot in the last kick of the match.

Van Marwijk pointed out that the score could have been much higher. His team missed several good chances to score and Slovakia goalkeeper Jan Mucha pulled off a great save to deny Robben in the 50th minute.

Striker Robin van Persie may be the least happy at Van Marwijk's philosophy, and he was clearly frustrated at being substituted in the 80th minute. The Arsenal star was expected to be among the tournament's top scorers, but has found the net just once so far.

"I shook his hand and understood that he was disappointed, that's not a bad thing," Van Marwijk said of Van Persie's reaction. "Everyone wants to play the whole game."