“It is not about how talented someone is, but how that talent is handled”, says Johan Cruyff in his weekly column in ‘De Telegraaf’ with reference to the Netherlands failure to qualify to the EURO 2016. “It seems we are not able to have a good build-up against weaker teams, not allowing to have a good attack in play.”
“The Dutch national team started well against Kazakhstan, but failed in the last 20 minutes. In this phase the Kazakh played more reckless through which the Dutch lost total control. This again shows that when Dutch teams are required to decide their game plan, they are not able to do so.”
“This proves the previous World Cup has not been analysed well enough. The way the Dutch team was forced to play football back then should have been a wake-up call. However, after Brazil one has not raised enough questions about how it got this far. Instead most dealt with business as usual after the surprising third place.”
“One and a half year later the Dutch team are in trouble. Not because the players are worse, but because they were handled wrong.”