How to get the Orange Clock Working
The Netherlands took on Peru in a friendly yesterday. This lead me to remember my first (and only) blog post from exactly a year ago detailing the issues the Dutch had in creating quality chances. I decided to take a look at how the Dutch played a year on from looking like an uninspired possession-based team.
Building Out of the Back
Obviously a popular topic nowadays with Guardiola taking the Premier League by storm, building out of the back has consumed the Dutch way of playing. The interesting part is how the Dutch are effectively playing a regurgitated form of their own brand of soccer. Guardiola took inspiration from the Dutch legend Johan Cruyff’s brand of Total Football. This brand of soccer requires every player on the pitch to know how to play with the ball at their feet, using possession as a Swiss army knife. Possession of the ball provides not only chances for the attacking team, but allows stifles the number of chances for the defending team. It also allowing the attacking team to rest a bit more and forces the defending team to follow the ball and tire quickly. With the success that Guardiola has produced using this type of possession soccer, it seems as though the Dutch have said, “Hey he got that from us, we should try doing it, too.” And like many imitators of this style, the result has been nowhere near the same as what Guardiola has produced. Even the extremely successful Spanish sides under del Bosque used possession primarily as a defensive tool, passing the ball to death and winning 1–0. Directionless possession of this manner is boring to watch and ineffective unless the team consists of some of the greatest midfielders of the generation. Unfortunately the Netherlands seems to be the one of the teams to adapt this style of possession.
Peru (September 7)
The positives to take from the game was a pleasant farewell to Wesley Sneijder in a game that the Dutch managed to grab a win that included a few young, talented faces.
Now on to the negatives.

I will start in the 36' to keep this post to a reasonable length. Starting here we see Peru sitting deep in their 4-4-2 holding onto their 0–1 lead. There are then 5 orange shirts sitting in front of the Peru’s first line of pressure. No orange shirts are in between Peru’s first two lines to provide an option. Babel does well maintaining width on the left and Tete does the same on the right (out of picture), but Strootman(4) and Wijnaldum(1) have both dropped to “help” build out from the back. Blind(3) is effectively useless because he is not wide or high enough to stretch the Peru midfield line, and is not a useful passing option. The alternative is to let van Dijk carry the ball, as he is more than capable of doing so, and have Wijanldum and Strootman behind the first line of Peruvian pressure. Blind and de Ligt can be either side of van Dijk to provide a 3v2 overload of Peru’s forwards. This would make sense as de Ligt is capable with the ball and Blind is clearly not comfortable racing forward and providing width like a typical modern fullback.

Now we see that Blind is stretching the play and the two holding midfielders have not dropped into the central defenders’ space, yay! However, now there are four Dutch players in a horizontal line (a well-known sin in Guardiola’s positional play). But don’t worry, Strootman looks like he is coming back to provide an option, right?

Hooray! But wait, look at the time in the two screenshots. Strootman’s movement took 5 seconds. This is the issue with the Dutch style of possession at the moment. They can figure out the correct places to be, but it takes SOOOO long sometimes that they have now given the defense plenty of time to react. There is no urgency in their possession.

Here Sneijder finally gets tired of his central defenders having all of the ball so he drops deep to try to get it. Now there are 6 (!) Dutch players between the ball and first line of pressure. It does however open up a large gap behind Peru’s central midfielders in the middle of the field. Unfortunately, neither Babel or Vormer are smart enough to make use of that space and the attack fizzles out. The ref does look to have found himself in plenty of space at least.
The second half saw the immediate entrance of Frenkie de Jong and Davy Pröpper in place of Wijnaldum and Strootman. I was excited to see what de Jong might be able to bring and what Pröpper can do as a deeper midfielder as I’ve only seen him play as a 10/second striker previously. The reason I was excited was not because I thought de Jong and Pröpper would instantly pick up the right positions, but because I hoped they would be more adventurous in their passing and dribbling. When Wijnaldum or Strootman got on the ball in a decent position in the first half, they struggled to play forward, line-breaking passes.



All of this ends up leading to a decent chance for Vormer, but he misses. Another similar build up ends up with Vormer through on goal, but, yet again, he goes wide. de Jong’s introduction has lead to a much more urgent Dutch side in possession. His forward passing and dribbling leading to more chances.


Again, de Jong almost single-handedly starts an attack from the defensive third of the field. His willingness and ability to play a bit riskier from the back allows the Dutch to advance up the field. This is in sharp contrast to what was seen in the first half when Wijnaldum and Strootman struggled to take up good positions to receive the ball. And even if they did receive the ball in a decent spot, they played sideways or backwards which just slowed down the attack and allowed the defense to regroup.
Conclusion
Even though after de Jong’s entrance the Netherlands came back and scored 2 to win, the build up was still not responsible for either goal. de Jong was responsible for the first goal when he intercepted a Peru pass in the final third and played in Memphis for a nice finish. The second goal then came through a counter attack started and finished by Memphis.
But the solution to the build up issue is: Frenkie de Jong needs to be playing as a 6/8. They have no other options in central midfield who are willing to take the risks that he does. I think he would fit best next to a midfield destroyer type. That would allow de Jong to drop and receive the ball to play out of the back, but also allow him the freedom to move forward. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if such a player exists in the Dutch national team setup at the moment. The Oranje will just have to make due with what’s there on Sunday againtst France in their first UEFA Nations League match.
