Netherlands (National Football)

Having received plenty of playing time at the World Cup in Brazil, Dutch midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum has caught the eye of the international world of football. Consequently, a move, perhaps to the Italian Serie A, could be on the cards for him this summer.

After seven years in the Dutch Eredivisie, where he made his professional debut at the age of 16, the time has definitely come for Wijnaldum to consider it. Having learned all there is to learn at Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven, he must move on to a bigger league.

Not many players make their debuts in professional football at such a young age. But for Wijnaldum, a product of Feyenoord’s reputable youth academy, things were different. As a youngster, he was already being looked at to save his club—whose bad spell in the Eredivisie had been going on for multiple years.

Wijnaldum immediately impressed. Fully justifying his already notable reputation, the wonderkid led the way for a new generation of Feyenoord youngsters like a true midfield general. Wijnaldum’s concert with the Rotterdam side seemed like a match made in heaven. 

But in 2011, a peculiar development transpired. Where Dutch players usually play for their first club in the Netherlands until a club from a bigger league snaps them up, Wijnaldum decided to make a controversial move within the Eredivisie. After 111 games and 23 goals, he left Feyenoord for rivals PSV Eindhoven. 

It was unusual, but studied more closely, it was a sensible and bold move. Even with Wijnaldum—and several other highly rated youngsters—in the team, Feyenoord hadn’t been performing well. After four years in the first team, Wijnaldum had to move on, or he would run the risk of falling behind in his development. 

It was too early for a move abroad. A transfer to PSV, who were clear league challengers and potential Champions League competitors, was the only way forward.

It wasn’t easy, however. In Eindhoven, Wijnaldum had trouble adjusting. This was partly due to the position he usually had to play. Where he was used to playing as a true No. 10, a playmaker behind the main striker, Wijnaldum suddenly had to play as a right winger, forced to cut inside to end up in the central area he longed for.

Wijnaldum’s fortunes changed when PSV hired their new manager Phillip Cocu. Opting for a 4-3-3 formation, Cocu positioned him as one of the two forward-thinking central midfielders, in front of a defensive-minded midfielder. Cocu also made Wijnaldum captain.

Almost immediately, Wijnaldum seemed to hit his stride, fulfilling the potential that had been slowly cooking under the surface since his days at Feyenoord’s youth academy. After a rocking start to his career and a few years spent reaching maturity at PSV, he was finally where he needed to be.

Wijnaldum later suffered an injury and spent most of the 2013-14 season sidelined, but at the World Cup, he was a member of Louis van Gaal’s first XI. In Brazil, the midfielder performed against some of the world’s best footballers as his direct opponents.  

Van Gaal had seen the significance of Wijnaldum’s breakthrough at PSV. He had seen that the midfielder was no longer the wonderkid he had been at Feyenoord, that he was now a mature footballer whose talents had, for a large part, come to fruition.

In 2011, when he was 20 years old, Wijnaldum made the brave decision to leave his boyhood club in order to make a much-needed next step in his career. Now that he has reached a level worthy of the World Cup, he has learned all there is to learn in the Eredivisie, and the time has come to make a similar move once again.  

In order to keep his development on a steady trajectory towards the top, Wijnaldum must move to a bigger league, and because he is not quite ready to play for a top side in the Premier League or Bundesliga, the Serie A would be the perfect destination.

At a Serie A side, Wijnaldum can make the last steps needed to reach his maximum potential, and it would be wasteful not to try.

Marking the end of an impressive campaign, the Netherlands were eliminated from the World Cup in Brazil after losing the semi-final against Argentina last week.

On Saturday, the Dutch said their final goodbye, beating Brazil 3-0 in the third place playoff. Having narrowly missed the final, it was perhaps of some comfort for Dutch fans to at least see their team depart with a victory.

Ahead of the tournament, nobody expected the Netherlands to finish third. The defence was too inexperienced, it was said, and besides, there wasn’t enough quality in midfield and up front. 

Indeed, it was difficult to disagree with this sentiment. With a back line comprised almost solely of players from the Dutch Eredivisie, and with Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben as the only obviously world-class players, it didn’t seem likely the Dutch would do as well as they did against teams like reigning world champions Spain and potential dark horses Chile.

Perhaps, though, the influence of manager Louis van Gaal over his squad had been underestimated. As it turned out, the Dutch would do surprisingly well, in no small part thanks to their boss, who continuously made the right substitutions and tactical switches during games. What’s more, team discipline and harmony seemed excellent—at least from the perspective of an outsider.

More than anything, then, 2014’s Dutch campaign showed how far a team can get as a motivated and well organised collective. This Holland team wasn’t about a superstar or about groundbreaking, fast-paced football. It was about intelligence, discipline and pulling together. 

Some critics have classified Van Gaal’s Oranje, and especially the 5-3-2 formation, as thoroughly “un-Dutch”, but in this regard, Van Gaal’s Oranje fitted into Dutch football’s tradition of versatility, multiplicity and collectivity. 

Granted, perhaps it wasn’t as beautiful as the “Total Football” manager Rinus Michels and playmaker Johan Cruyff put on display in 1974, when the Dutch finished second after narrowly losing against West Germany. But just like Cruyff’s Total Football, this Dutch campaign was all about the team.

As such, 2014’s Dutch campaign was perhaps more in line with Dutch tradition than Oranje’s effort in 2010, when the Netherlands reached the final but ultimately lost against Spain during extra time. That Dutch squad, good as it was, was largely about a ruthless defence and the might of Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie and Wesley Sneijder up front.

In some regards, Van Gaal’s Oranje has designed a blueprint for a type of modern day Total Football. Gone must be the days of naive, all out attacking. Welcome back to the Dutch collective that had always been so admired by the world. 

It must become more attacking, it must become more proactive. But that’s a matter for the future. As we’ve seen in Brazil, the notion of synergy will return to the forefront of the Dutch footballing mind, and that’s a very good thing.

If Guus Hiddink, who will soon take over from Van Gaal as Dutch boss, can expand on the base put in place by his predecessor, 2014’s Dutch campaign may well turn out to be a historic one.

Robin van Persie may have had no interest in keeping his bronze medal—instead handing it off to a Dutch fan, along with his captain’s armband, moments after he was presented with it—but for coach Louis van Gaal, the Netherlands’ third-place play-off victory was a fitting send-off as he heads for his new role at Manchester United.

Van Gaal plans to arrive in England on Wednesday, by which time his country's 3-0 win over Brazil on Saturday will have been well and truly overshadowed by the result of Sunday’s final. But the victory means he achieved his (somewhat contrived) aim of becoming the first Dutch coach to go an entire tournament without losing a game in “regulation” (i.e. without a penalty shootout), having already defied most expectations for both him and his team for this World Cup.

"It was a big honour for us to be here and a once in a lifetime experience," Arjen Robben told reporters, per The Telegraph, after the game. "Today's match was the best way to end this tournament.

“We also fully deserved this third place the way we played. Nobody expected us to be in the last four."

The World Cup for Van Gaal was about redemption, having failed to even qualify for the 2002 tournament last time he was in charge of the Oranje. Drawn in a group that also included Spain and Chile, however, many neutrals feared his belated World Cup experience would end up being a truncated one, especially with a squad of players that skewed toward the young and inexperienced.

Losing Kevin Strootman, one of three players Van Gaal had previously identified as vital to his team, prior to the tournament lent further weight to that prognostication. Instead, Van Gaal turned that setback into an opportunity with a grace and expertise that United fans will be fervently hoping to see at Old Trafford next season.

Decisively and pragmatically he moved to a new system involving three centre-backs, one that perhaps erred from the Dutch tradition (one built on a fluid, attacking style) but better played to the qualities he had left to his disposal—and was rewarded by getting within a penalty shootout of the World Cup final.

That was achieved with a core of defensive players—Jasper Cillessen, Bruno Martins Indi, Daley Blind and Stefan de Vrij—all under the age of 26, all presumably some way from reaching their full potential. Youth was also sprinkled liberally throughout the rest of Van Gaal’s starting line-ups, with 23-year-old Georginio Wijnaldum becoming a regular as the competition progressed and 20-year-old forward Memphis Depay impressing enough to be one of three players on the shortlist for the young player of the tournament award.

Due to that youthful feel to the squad (11 of the 23 selected are 25 or under—while Strootman is only 24), it was widely considered that Brazil would be a tournament too soon for them: a learning experience, but not one where they could be viable contenders. But coming so close to reaching the final means both a revision of perceptions and an adjustment in future expectations—with new targets now set for tournaments to come.

"We were able to show a kind of football that is rather novel, in the Netherlands at least, with players who cooperate so well," Van Gaal told reporters, per Eurosport, alluding to the tactical changes he made.

"A coach has to work based on the quality of his squad and it worked out, apart from the fact that we are not world champions but really we were very, very close."

Van Gaal will now be succeeded by Guus Hiddink, another elder statesman of the Dutch game, who will guide the team for the next four years before one of Van Gaal’s assistants, Danny Blind, takes on the mantel in 2018. Such a long-term succession plan is rarely seen in football, but it has been intended to give the national team stability while allowing Blind time to learn about his squad and the demands of the international game.

Blind—who got to enjoy what must be one of the best feelings in football, seeing your son score in a World Cup, when full-back Daley lashed home against Brazil on Saturday—must be quietly relieved that he is not stepping into the top job right away. Because after Van Gaal’s achievements this month, the pressure will surely be on Hiddink to do even better than Van Gaal managed over the next four years.

Hiddink, like Van Gaal, has managed the national team before—taking a team that included Dennis Bergkamp, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf and the De Boer brothers to a quarter-final exit at Euro ’96 and fourth-place finish at the 1998 World Cup.

That was a brilliantly talented generation of Dutch players. Based on what Van Gaal has achieved this summer, it would seem that he is now taking the reins of another.

Most of the young players mentioned above are likely to improve considerably over the next few years, being far more experienced by time the next European Championships roll around in 2016 and, as they reach the fable 26-29 range, entering their peaks by the next World Cup. If Van Gaal was working with raw talent and making adjustments for it, Hiddink should soon have the real deal to fashion in whichever way he pleases.

For all that cause for encouragement, however, the key issue for Hiddink might be that the team’s most important players this summer are probably now past their peaks as far as international competition goes.

Arjen Robben seems to be getting better with age, but he, Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie will all be 32 by the next Euros and 34 by the time of the World Cup in Russia. Having been stalwarts of the side for so long, others will soon have to shoulder their responsibilities—although it remains to be seen which emerging Dutch players have the class to reach the very pinnacle of the European game as all three have done in their careers.

Van Gaal will not worry about that too much, however. His focus will now be on Manchester United, on restoring the club to the sort of success it enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson.

He has left his successor a blueprint for success with this Dutch side, a roadmap toward potential victory at the European Championships. With that comes pressure and expectation, of course.

Van Gaal might like that, having not always enjoyed the best relationship with Hiddink—a man who has not been afraid to appear critical of the man he will now replace over recent months.

"The next coach of the team, I heard him say he wants the Dutch way of playing football,” Van Gaal added on Saturday. “I have always played the Dutch way and I also gave it something else.

"Perhaps this will open everyone's eyes in the Netherlands and make people realise that there's not just one system.”

The benchmark has been set. It will be interesting to see how Hiddink fares from here on.

When Louis van Gaal switched from his tried-and-trusted 4-3-3 formation to 5-3-2 shortly before the World Cup in Brazil started, it immediately became apparent that the Netherlands manager’s new tactical set-up was designed to perfectly accommodate the attacking prowess of star players Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie.

In the Netherlands' opening match, against Spain, Van Gaal’s decision was immediately vindicated. Robben and Van Persie ran riot against their opponents, taking the formerly invincible tiki-taka machine apart like an old, broken car at the garage.

Van Persie, who played as Oranje’s deepest striker, with Robben playing in a free role around him, scored twice against Spain and bagged another during the Netherlands’ second group-stage match, against Australia. Not only did things go well for Oranje: The World Cup was off to a flying start for the Dutch captain as well.

But later, during the Netherlands’ round-of-16 match against Mexico, and during the quarter-final against Costa Rica, Van Persie’s performances dropped significantly. He failed to score or assist his team-mates in his role as target man. Where had the world-class striker that scored so freely against reigning world champions Spain gone?

Worse still, Van Persie played an insignificant role during the semi-final against Argentina. When Oranje desperately needed one of their star players to step up and showcase their individual brilliance, Van Persie remained quiet.

Sometimes, World Cup campaigns are defined by star players taking things into their own hands. In 1974, Johan Cruyff fulfilled that role for the Netherlands. Diego Maradona did it for Argentina in 1986.

But arguably, it’s unfair to ask for the same from this generation of footballers. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, two players generally regarded as the best footballers in the world, have not done it for their respective countries. The truth is that football is a different game now.

What’s more, before the World Cup started, Van Persie had only recently returned to fitness. He had had a train wreck of a season at Manchester United and was personally plagued by injury. It was far from ideal preparation for the intensity of the World Cup.

In this regard, it’s difficult to argue Van Persie has disappointed during this World Cup. Granted, during the knockout stage, he wasn’t as influential as Oranje fans would have hoped. But he has scored four goals in total. With last season at his club in mind, that’s an impressive performance. 

But perhaps most importantly: Is it possible to ever forget Van Persie’s “salmon dive” wonder goal against Spain? It was one of the most memorable moments of the World Cup in Brazil. That in itself is worthy of applause. 

Ahead of Van Gaal’s debut season at their club, then, followers of Manchester United have reason to look back at this World Cup and feel satisfied. The tournament gave their new boss the opportunity to gain confidence for the task ahead of him, while Van Persie was given plenty of playing time. Undoubtedly, the striker will return to his club fully fit again.

Sometimes, it’s unfair to expect a player to win the World Cup single-handedly, and that’s especially the case with Robin van Persie. On the back of the horrible season he has had at his club, Van Persie must even be admired.

They came far, very far. But eventually, it wasn’t meant to be. Having reached the semi-final against all expectations, the Netherlands can now look at their World Cup 2014 campaign and feel proud. 

Apart from an excellent performance by manager Louis van Gaal, older players like Arjen Robben, Nigel de Jong and, to a certain extent, Robin van Persie had an excellent tournament. Scoring goals up front and bossing the midfield, these players managed to inspire the players surrounding them. 

But perhaps more importantly, the Netherlands’ new generation of players stepped up, giving fans and analysts a glimpse of what’s to come in the future.  

Where most pinpointed the defence as a weakness ahead of the tournament, pointing out how it almost solely consists of relatively inexperienced players from the Dutch Eredivisie, the likes of Daley Blind, Stefan de Vrij and Bruno Martins Indi turned it into one of the Oranje’s strengths.

Twenty-four-year-old Ajax man Blind, who showed his versatility by playing as a left-back, a centre-back and as a defensive midfielder, delivered the assist for Van Persie’s “salmon diver” wonder goal against Spain. Defender De Vrij formed a rock-solid partnership with Ron Vlaar in the centre of defence, while Martins Indi showed he might just be ready for a move to a bigger league next year.

What’s more, 20-year-old PSV youngster Memphis Depay presented his talent to the world by scoring the winning goal against Australia, and he bagged another in the following match against Chile. In the quarter-final, against Costa Rica, Depay even started as left-wing-back, and while he didn’t score a goal, he impressed once again.

It’s likely all of these players will be on the pitch during the Netherlands’ third-place play-off against Brazil. It’s also likely they’ll be joined by Jordy Clasie, the 23-year-old Feyenoord midfielder. 

The talented Clasie, who’s already been dubbed the "Dutch Xavi," was not given a lot of playing time during the World Cup, but he could well become a constitutive member of the Netherlands team that Guus Hiddink, who will take over from Van Gaal as manager after the World Cup, will be building.

Especially so if Hiddink chooses to ditch Van Gaal’s 5-3-2 experiment and return to the attacking 4-3-3 formation the Dutch are so familiar with. In this system, Clasie could function as a deep-lying playmaker, spraying passes to one of the three attacking players, among whom Depay might play, or the running midfielder in front of him—for example, Kevin Strootman.

As such, the Netherlands’ third-place play-off will likely offer viewers a glimpse of the future of the Dutch team under Hiddink. This, in itself, will make it worthwhile to watch the match, at least from a Dutch perspective. 

The Netherlands, who managed to exceed expectations during the World Cup, are in essence still a very young team. In Brazil, they have shown their potential. It will be up to Hiddink to build on that.