This Dutch team would love to be sent, but De Boer lacks word talent

Frank de Boer after the game against North Macedonia, won by the Orangemen 3-0, Amsterdam, June 21, 2021. Image Photo Guus Dubbelman / de Volkskrant
Frank de Boer after the match against North Macedonia, which Orange won 3-0, Amsterdam, June 21, 2021.Image Photo Guus Dubbelman / de Volkskrant

In the spring of 2009, after Team Orange qualified for the World Cup in South Africa, Frank de Boer walked into a cafe in Reykjavik, smiling widely. He ordered a glass of white wine, saw the press present and drank a toast: “So, you can travel again.”

As a young assistant coach, after a rich career as a professional with 112 caps, the world was open to him. He and his friend Philip Coco were a perfect match for veteran coach Bert van Marwijk, who led the team to the final.

When he was national coach, twelve years after Reykjavik, the European Championships ended in disappointment, in deep disappointment with potentially dire consequences for his further coaching career. Can he still be a successful coach? He reached the eighth final, while at least the quarter-finals were requested and de Boer spoke of “channels”, thus winning.

“The goal has not been achieved,” de Boer said on Tuesday. “The pressure is only increasing now and it’s not a healthy situation for me, nor a choice in the lead up to such an important match.” The decisive match will be played away from home against Norway in the World Cup qualifiers on 1 September. Orange cannot afford to go wrong after the defeat in Istanbul by Turkey.

This is the fourth consecutive time that De Boer has had to leave his employer prematurely, after Inter Milan (14 matches), Crystal Palace (four defeats at the start of the Premier League) and Atlanta United after a year and a half. De Boer had success at Ajax, and his first job was as a head coach in professional football. In Amsterdam he won four national titles in a row, between 2011 and 2014, despite growing criticism of boring football in recent years.

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decisive defeats هز

De Boer (51) took over the position in September last year, succeeding Ronald Koeman, who left for Barcelona. His performance varied: he played fifteen matches, eight wins, four draws and three defeats. The game has rarely been compelling. He promised to continue his own dialect on the Koman line, but he never got that special sauce. Two of those defeats were decisive, too. And in the opening match of the World Cup qualifiers series in Qatar 4-2 in Turkey, and on Sunday against the Czech Republic 2-0.

The defeat in Turkey defined his thinking in the run-up to the European Championship. He began to doubt the system of the game, usually with regular strikers on the wings, rearranged the team, based on a good match in the Nations League in Italy, in a style of the game 3-5-2 or 5-3-2, but saw hardly any habituation.

He and the key players insisted the match was getting better, but the match against the Czech Republic proved otherwise. The system, which was created to resist powerful opponents, proved to be worthless even against a middle-class opponent.

Denzel Dumfries

The star of the European Championship was Denzel Dumfries, a serving player who needs better support to achieve real success. Those stars in good times, such as Georginio Wijnaldum, Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt and Memphis Depay, saw a low point in Budapest on Sunday.

De Boer had a contract until the World Cup in Qatar at the end of next year. How to settle was also discussed in a conversation on Tuesday in the Zest League between de Boer and his agent Guido Albers on one side, as well as football director Nico Jan Hogma and professional football director Eric Judd on the other. schedule.

De Boer’s period can be described as chaotic. In a meeting during the training camp in Portugal, he apologized for an earlier press conference. It didn’t look sharp at all, whether it was about the potential vaccinations of players, the way unselected footballers were sent off, or the number of minutes played at United’s Van Donny van de Beek. But the most important: three matches in the European Championship were below average. It was entertaining against North Macedonia, but the duel was basically pointless.

De Boer lacks word talent. Perhaps he finds it difficult to convey his high standards to the group of players who like to be guided. KNVB will soon appoint a successor and has also promised to evaluate itself and refine the desired coach profile. For De Boer, it’s a personal drama. It was shot four times in a row, which is not a happy record. But his departure was inevitable.

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