Former Dutch football players have banded together to slam the country’s terrible World Cup exit against Morocco, with one of them expressing ‘sick to my stomach.’
Cody Gakpo gave the Dutch a 72-minute lead in their Round of 32 match early on Tuesday morning, sparking heartfelt scenes following his Sunday announcement of the untimely death of his unborn son.
Issa Diop tied the score for Morocco in injury time forcing extra time and, eventually, penalties.
After the Netherlands missed three of their penalty attempts, Ismail Saibari scored his to give Morocco a 3-2 victory and set up a matchup with Canada in the round of 16.
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Although Ronald Koeman’s team did well in the tournament’s group stages, they were humiliated by their early elimination alongside Germany.
The Netherlands have now lost four consecutive penalty shootout games in the last three World Cups and the UEFA League of Nations Finals.
Ex-Netherlands Players Condemn The Nation’s Exit
“You can’t train pressure, but we have a national coach who took 1,423 penalties in his playing career. And he scored them all, and I’ve never seen him do anything crazy,” Pierre van Hooijdonk told NOS as reported by the Metro, furious with the way in which some of the Dutch players ran up to take their spot kicks.
“Put the ball down, run-up, and shoot, that was how it always went under Koeman. I would expect that national coach to have said: ‘guys, anyone taking a penalty is allowed to miss it. But in one way: run-up and shoot normally’. All those idiotic things, they make me so sick to my stomach.”
Rafael van der Vaart was similarly scathing. “You have a pretty tough group that you get through quite well,” he said.
“Then you think: things are starting to click a bit. Against Sweden, they scored five goals.
“What goes through your head as a coach then, that makes you think: we have to play Morocco and we’re going to do things completely differently? I really don’t understand a damn thing about that.”
