Tonight Germany plays the Netherlands again to kick off the qualifying for the nect Euro Soccer Championships. Our team is in crisis and they might learn fromtheir oponent tonight. Ronald Koeman has created a team for the Netherlands that is on its way back to the top of the world - and should also serve as a role model for the DFB (German football association).
Sometimes it takes a good portion of luck to get back on track.
In spring 2017, Dutch football lay on the ground, humiliated by comparatively lightweight Swedes and Bulgarians, the Efltal collapsed in the no-man's-land of its qualifying group, with no real prospect of reaching the World Cup finals in Russia. The role of bond coach Danny Blind had long since become a political issue in his home country, his resignation overdue. Fred Grim's interim solution was followed by a second, Dick Advocaat, and the fans almost despaired of the KNVB's decision-making: the association actually tried a third time with Advocaat, who had already been Bondscoach in the early 1990s - when not only the experts were aware that a change on the coach's bench was urgently needed for a real cut.
Koeman was the one without luck
It was then that Everton FC went through a difficult period in Liverpool and dismissed their coach Ronald Koeman. After Louis van Gaal's farewell in 2014, Koeman was already the logical successor to Elftal, young and unspent, but nevertheless incredibly experienced and above all: not caught up in the old rope teams that have always thrown sticks into the legs of Dutch football.
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Since then, the Elftal has shot past some other large associations in its race to catch up. There have been only two defeats in eleven matches under Koeman: against England at its premiere and against France in the Nations League. In the test matches against high-calibre opponents such as Italy and Belgium, the team drew a draw, Portugal was swept off the pitch 3-0 and in the Nations League the underdog squad beat France and Germany, the current and dethroned world champions, to win the group.
Oranje also started successfully in the European Championship qualifying group C, against Belarus it was a 4:0. This evening the battle with my Germans is on the time table.
Detached from conventions
There are a few miraculous things happening in Dutch football, even the resurrection of Ajax Amsterdam is an important part of it. However, and there the ways separate from the main club of the country and the Elftal, Koeman in the national team less trusts the usual conventions and traditions. In Amsterdam, the dogma of the 4-3-3 is carried in front of him like it was 50 years ago, and at Oranje, Koeman, like his predecessor Van Gaal, has broken relatively quickly with it or is showing a different interpretation.
Koeman doesn't play with one, but two defensive sixes in midfield, sometimes with a chain of five in the last line. The team has renounced the total possession of the ball, as the country's football doctrine had propagated for decades. Instead, Koeman allows himself to adapt to the respective opponent, adapts, makes compromises - in order to triumph in the end.
Very good mix and team spirit
And all this with a team that currently looks like a perfect mix of young, hungry players and a few old hands, many team players and a few individualists. And who nevertheless knows how to function as a collective and put team spirit above everything else. The time of the egomaniacs is finally over. It's Koeman's greatest achievement to have formed a unit out of a bunch of extremely talented players after years and to have transformed it into an oasis of well-being in which even players who are stressed out in the club blossom out immediately.
A role model for German football
Dutch football has recovered splendidly from its dark years and Elftal is well on its way to becoming a powerful football team again. And maybe a kind of role model like some of their predecessor teams in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Also the German national team should perhaps risk a look over to their neighbours one or two times: After all, Koeman is already two or three steps ahead of Joachim Löw at the moment.
And he wants to create something similar to his counterpart, variable football with a new, inquisitive team. The upheaval. In Germany it was only initiated two weeks ago - the Netherlands has already successfully completed it.
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