“That was the reason that we quickly played a lost match. You can lose to France, but the difference was too big. I did not expect that,” he said to NOS cameras. “We lose the ball 20 meters in front of our own goal. That was punished by an opponent with a lot of quality. We were naive.”
Omens
Beforehand, the omens for the match against the losing World Cup finalist were already unfavorable. After Frenkie de Jong had previously withdrawn injured, another five players left the training camp yesterday due to a contracted virus. But that was still no excuse for tonight’s disgrace, the national coach thought.
“It was annoying that many players dropped out due to a virus, but that is separate from this. We did not do well at all. I do not only blame the young players. I had indeed expected more from the older players.”
One of those older people is captain Virgil van Dijk. “We started very badly. As a result, we immediately fell behind the facts. And an opponent with the quality of France then plays it out very easily. We could not recover, lost the duels, suffered too much loss of possession and were punished.”
