Holland 2-0 Denmark – Match Review

16 Jun, 2010 Robbert World Cup

At half 1 on Monday, many – Dutch fans and football lovers from other countries alike – were sitting tight for a vulgar display of Total Football power. They ended up not quite getting what they’d been hoping for.

In the absence of Arjen Robben, Holland lined up with Rafael van der Vaart on the left, Wesley Sneijder in the middle, Dirk Kuijt on the right and Robin van Persie up top. On the Danish side, half-fit Nicklas Bendtner was a surprising starter, seeing as Morten Olsen had been insisting for days that Bendtner wouldn’t be ready yet for the game against Holland.

The Danish game plan appeared to be to defend deep with the lines tightly together, close to the goal, and hit the Dutch on the counter attack. Over the course of the first half, this approach worked splendidly; the Dutch attacks were easily stifled, and the Danes had the best chances in front of the goal. Bendtner headed a cross from Dennis Rommedahl just wide of the left post, after cutting through the Dutch defence with alarming ease, whilst both Rommedahl and Thomas Kahlenberg had good shots on target.

Not that the lack of attacking prowess on the Dutch side was solely to the credit of sound Danish defending, though. The Dutch were also hampered by key players not sticking to the tactical plan. Rafael van der Vaart in particular chose to forego his remit of playing on the left, and moved into the centre at every turn. As a consequence, he occupied much the same ground as Wesley Sneijder, who plays centrally but likes to move slightly to the left to create space. Similarly, Robin van Persie often dropped deep to get the ball, without either Van der Vaart or Sneijder taking up his position up top. This resulted in 3 players being in each other’s way on a far too small strip of space, lack of width on the left, and a failure to utilise the width that was available on the right as Kuijt simply didn’t see much of the ball.

So while the Dutch had the vast majority of possession (61% in the first half), chances in front of the goal were thin on the ground, with Sneijder firing a couple of shots from a distance of 40 yards or more.

At the start of the second half, Lady Luck decided to smile favourably on the Dutch. Robin van Persie ran at the goal, was forced out to the left by excellent defending on the part of Thomas Sörensen, managed to get a cross in that Simon Poulsen misheaded and Daniel Agger’s back helped into the left side of the goal. Tough luck on Poulsen in particular, who up until that point had been one of the best men on the pitch.

With the Danish initial game plan shattered, one would have expected them to adopt a more attacking style, but that didn’t happen – if anything, they mounted less of a goal threat than they did in the first half. This meant that Holland found it increasingly easy to dominate the game.

Especially when Eljero Elia, the young HSV winger, came on to replace Rafael van der Vaart. Elia immediately provided what van der Vaart couldn’t; a real threat from the wings, pace and directness. Within minutes he’d transformed the Holland team and we were seeing the real Oranje. Ibrahim Afellay replaced the disappointing Robin van Persie shortly thereafter, taking a place on the right, with Dirk Kuijt moving into the striker position.

The second goal was testament of Holland’s rediscovered sense of self. Wesley Sneijder played an exquisite through ball onto Elia, whose shot was slightly deflected by Sörensen and hit the right post. Dirk Kuijt was present and converted the tap-in from close range. Shortly after that, Ibrahim Afellay looked close to scoring the 3-0 but Simon Poulsen partly redeemed himself for his part in the first goal with an amazing clearance.

For the Dutch, the difficult start might actually be a blessing in disguise. Far too often have they stormed into a tournament all guns blazing, only to fizzle out when it really started to matter. If Bert van Marwijk can slowly build the side into a cohesive unit, they can go from strength to strength.

The Danish, meanwhile, look to have a big task ahead of them if they want to make it out of the group. Whilst defensively sound in the first half, they found it hard to mount much of a goal threat after falling behind, and they showed less creativity than Olsen can be strictly comfortable with.