Netherlands chances of reaching the World Cup next year took a battering in Bulgaria as Danny Blind’s side slumped to a 2-0 defeat.
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Blind left people scratching their heads before kick-off when it was announced that 17-year-old Matthijs de Ligt was chosen ahead of Wesley Hoedt in the centre of defence after Stefan de Vrij failed to recover from a shin injury. The 17-year-old had only played a handful of games for Ajax and was chosen for a must-win qualifier in Sofia ahead of one of the Serie A’s most impressive centre-backs this season.
The coaches gamble proved to be a huge mistake after only five minutes as De Ligt missed a header which allowed Spas Delev in on goal and the attacker slotted past Jeroen Zoet. Fifteen minutes later, De Ligt allow Delev to turn on the ball and fire Bulgaria 2-0 ahead from just outside the box.
After the early setbacks, Netherlands couldn’t muster a single shot on target with Bas Dost failing to find the target with a massive chance just before the break.
Blind realised his error at half-time by bringing off De LigtĀ for Hoedt, while Wesley Sneijder was called on to try and spark up a comeback. However, despite dominating possession in the second half, Netherlands couldn’t find a way back. Goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov saved well from Davy Klaassen but didn’t really have much to do as Oranje passed the ball around without much penetration.
Luuk de Jong came on with fifteen minutes left but the PSV man barely had an impact and Bulgaria more than comfortably saw out the last minutes to seal a big win for them.
Once again Dutch football is being maligned after another lifeless performance by the national team, who slip to fourth in the qualifying group. Second place now seems the only realistic hope for Oranje now but no mistakes can be made between now and the end of the group.
One question on everyone’s lips is whether the KNVB will admit their mistake and relieve us of Danny Blind’s hopeless tenure in charge.
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Now what? I can’t believe this is Netherlands. The history repeated itself again. Danny Blind failed in leading Netherlands to Euro2016 and now he is failing again in WorldCup 2018. Can you show me one game that Netherlands played well since last worldcup? what is strange is that Royal Dutch Football Association is still insisting in keeping the worst coach in Netherlands history to lead Netherlands this coach has no history and doesn’t even know his opponents. Please let him GO for the future of Netherlands in Qatar 2022. He even destroyed youngsters with the way he prepare them to the match.
Are you guys really gone keep him after all that?
Agreed, please out, Blind
Mr blind, are you a coach?Right now resign i dont think so, i think you have only one mission and it is destroying of Netherlands national team, one baby can coaching better than you,
Congratulations, you’ve done your mission as best as possibleŲ So now resign, shame of Netherlands football federation
no world cup also what they are waiting also for changing the coach. it is chaos & disaster.
Congratulation mr Blind you destroyed our team and destroyed the future of the poor guy De Ligt
Get Danny Blind out immediately
Blind needs to go.
I cant belive this is hapening…every game the nederlands team broke my hart…i eas proud to be a nederland fan but now is a shame…we will miss russia 2018 and that is beacuse of amater blind he must be she must go…i only hope de glory of nederland will one day come back…and then we will be proud again..
Blind isn’t good but these players are awful. Besides Robben and Wijndalum, you don’t have much.
we lack the world class players we used to have and don’t have much depth but if you look at the players who can start for us we should be a top 15 team in the world at the very least . Strootman one of serie A’s better players van dijk arguably the best center back in the premier league. De vrijs great as well . Promes and delay both great wingers. Dost third highest scorer in Europe this year. The blame has to be largely with the coach. It was a huge mistake to fire hiddink and name his assistant as head coach, he was part of a failed coaching team to begin with.
I agree that some/all of the coaching staff (particularly Blind) probably need to be replaced after some questionable team selections and tactics. However, in my opinion, it seems as though some of the fans making comments are forgetting that it is the PLAYERS who are out there on the pitch. It is the PLAYERS who need to be held accountable. Yes, this Dutch team is in a transitional phase. Yes, some great players missed this game due to injury. But, these can’t be used as excuses for a poor performance. Luckily, there is still time to turn it all around!
Who’s fault is it for using a 17 year old for the first time in such a crucial game for us?
I have a question dor Dutch people here. Is there any chance Blind will be dismissed before the friendly game with Italy?
I watched the game and for me, being frank, with all the blame Blind has to on him, I had the sense that Dutch players intentionally wanted to lose this game, most probably to get rid of Blind? They didn’t even show will to fight?
Lets hope so. But I think this type of performance has been there for a while.
They Oranje have become impotent because of the people leading them. I’d go far back as 2010 to find out where this came from. It was the class of the players that got us to the final not the coaching and system. The individual skills and brilliance has been coached out of the players that have come along since then.
The probably with concentrating solely on possession football is that is means passing the ball away instead of believing in yourself and having a go. It drains players of their self belief and ultimately restricts the team from playing and expressing themselves both collectively and individually.
Each generation inspired the next up until this one. But no one is telling our players to play with the same spirit as Robben, Sneijder and Van Persie. What they had wasn’t just skill, they had belief and freedom to be themselves.
That 74 just wasn’t about the system (and Cruyff) it was about the spirit and adventure. By the time Bert VM got the job the Oranje slowly but surely had been losing it.
I really feel for Robben and Sneijder tonight. I hope Blind gets sacked and they get a man in that allows them to have on final hoorah in Russia.
Sorry that was meant to be as far back as 2006. How could I forget, I was there.
Just a couple of the things Blind got wrong
1. Totally unprepared and clueless in the first half. That’s the worst performance in a half of football by the Oranje since I’ve been watching them way back in 1985. This team can play and there were glimpses of that in the second half but to come out like that in the first half is solely down to the coach.
2. Has to be about the worst selection too – de Ligt over Hoedt. It also meant that even if de Vrij had been fit he would have picked BMI over Hoedt. Hoedt is clearly a class above the two Blind picked. He now becomes the second most appropriately named man in the world after (Usain) Bolt.
Could go on and on and on Blind bashing and haven’t even started on KNVB and how they have led us to this point but I’m just too sickened to continue.
Bring some personality and belief back into the Oranje- sack Blind and bring in Gulit.
This game
Poor squad selection
Poor team selection
No game plan no tactic changes
Uninspired subs
Bad manager, needs to go
Potential replacements?
LvG, van marwick, cocu, stiuvenberg, Guilt, Jordi Cruyff?
Frank de Boer!
we are out again . I didn’t saw a nice game since Blind become incharge .It is really weird to keep giving him chance after chance . What you are waiting for
What about Frank de Boer? The selection was terrible and I would have picked Veltman as an RCB before de Ligt! I don’t even know what to say about this. It was a sad day and I think Blind made some terrible decisions today. You cannot blame the players, it’s the system and he plays them out of position constantly! Just terrible!
Sack blind, otherwise we will have to see another major tournament without oranje.
Oh good point I forgot to mention de boer