In a small press conference room at the Dutch team base in Wolfsburg on Monday two players were asked about Ronald Koeman, their manager. What did they know about him and, specifically, 1993 and his role in England football history? Had they asked Koeman about it? About his goal in the game against England — you know, the nail-in-the-coffin goal for their hopes of World Cup qualification? The one he scored when he should already have been sent off for that foul on David Platt?
At this point, Cody Gakpo, 25, and Micky van de Ven, 23, looked at each other in shared confusion. “We didn’t speak about it,” Van de Ven said after a pause. “We weren’t born yet,” Gakpo added.
The immediate harrumphing response here is to complain about young people today and limited spheres of interest. I mean, their coach is only one of their most celebrated, garlanded national footballers of all time. Would they not be interested in his deeds of yore?
Have their Google searches not taken them to Graham Taylor ranting at the linesman, his England career evaporating before his eyes? “The referee’s got me the sack,” Taylor tells the assistant referee, a quote preserved for ever in the riveting, excruciating Channel 4 documentary that did indeed follow his sacking. “Thank him ever so much for that, won’t you?”
On reflection, the fact is that the “Do I not like that” Taylor era was only history-making for England, because of the heights of the team’s failure, and not for Holland, who got a bit lucky with Koeman and then just moved on, as you do.
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Nevertheless, this is not a completely gratuitous reference to England being wronged by Holland before Wednesday’s semi-final; nor is it about retribution and redemption or any of the revenge themes that tend to characterise the way we tell the story of international sport.
What it is definitely about, though, is Koeman and a playing career anchored to the great Dutch Euro-winning 1988 team and how that may influence the forthcoming showdown in Dortmund.
One point that the Dutch are making when they look ahead to the semi-final is the comparative lack of a standout superstar in their side. No Jude Bellinghams, if you like; instead a flat leadership structure that had seemed to operate adequately enough in the team that Koeman inherited from Louis van Gaal from the previous World Cup, because if there was a single big figure back then, it was only ever going to be Van Gaal. This was a team accustomed to Van Gaal’s authoritarian leadership.
• Cody Gakpo: How Pelé and Van Nistelrooy helped him become Euros star
The Holland team that Koeman played in, conversely, was heaving with towering all-time greats, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten among them no less, who were comfortable taking the lead themselves, demanded the highest standards of each other and were prepared to call each other out when those standards weren’t met.
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When Koeman took over as the national coach from Van Gaal last year he found himself immediately under pressure. His new team slumped to three defeats in four, the third of which was a Nations League game against Italy where they were 2-0 down within 20 minutes (they would lose 3-2), to the booing chorus of the crowd.
Koeman accepted the blame himself publicly but what he saw was a team of tight friendships who were too forgiving of each other and, internally, he put it to them that they needed to find their voice and to take the lead themselves. In other words: I am not micromanaging you like Van Gaal, I am not taking complete ownership here, I want you to. A management style steeped in 1988.
Here at the Euros, however, weighty doubts quickly resurfaced, especially after a group-stage defeat by Austria that was so bad that Koeman substituted the midfielder Joey Veerman after 33 minutes. After that game Koeman was asked both if he was re-evaluating his future and if the eyes of the great Johan Cruyff would have been stinging had he watched this performance.
A chorus of former players also started fuelling the debate. Prominent among them was Van Basten, whose criticism was targeted at Virgil van Dijk, the captain. “He’s got to lead,” he said.
These were the words of the former Holland player Demy de Zeeuw: “You can’t imagine that you can play so bad with such good players. It seems as if Koeman cannot motivate the players. If you have been like this for three games, you have a problem.”
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Yet one thing that Koeman did have after the Austria match was an entire week until the next game. In that time he tried again to unpick the Van Gaal from the system and he put it to the players once more: you have to take the lead, you are the ones who have to work this out. He encouraged team meetings, some with him, some without. This is management of the team environment rather than the team’s tactics, which is also where Gareth Southgate has been at his strongest.
It is not that Koeman is considered tactically flawed, though. After Austria, Holland beat Romania 3-0 and then Turkey 2-1 and suddenly Koeman was being applauded for his acumen, particularly for the way he has changed games using his bench.
Here, the comparisons to Southgate become interesting. Southgate tends to take time before using his substitutes. Now that Holland are in a semi-final, Koeman’s tough treatment of Veerman is being regarded as a demonstration of strength and conviction.
More significant, though, was bringing on Wout Weghorst against Turkey for the whole of the second half, a decision which successfully altered the tactical complexion of the game. Weghorst may not quite be the embodiment of Total Football but Koeman is a pragmatist and he is now being applauded for that too.
After the game, however, he preferred to dwell on other aspects, specifically “the heart” his players had shown. “Sometimes critics say we don’t have that,” he said. This, it seems, is the part of his work with which he is most pleased. A team with some of the fortitude of 1988? “Psychologically, we are good,” he said.
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Koeman’s record in the Premier League had highs and lows, and he was sacked from his previous job at Barcelona. Yet right now, here with Holland, he appears to have got his timing right and he looms, somewhat unexpectedly, as something of a formidable opponent for England again.
• Holland scouting report: how they play and their key players for semi-final
“His experience is much greater than Southgate’s,” Rafael van der Vaart, the midfielder who played under him back in his Ajax days, says. “He is a great coach.”
Van der Vaart quickly reels off a shopping list of Koeman qualities: “The team respect him because he is one of the best players we ever had, he’s not scared to take a player off early, always calm and not so authoritarian. He’s not scary to speak to but when his face goes red, you know you are in trouble. Trust me, he is a tough cookie”.
England have, in other words, a rival for the present as well as the past. In the Netherlands, by the way, they haven’t completely forgotten about 1993. On national television on Monday they interviewed Koeman and replayed clips of the game: his goal and the foul on Platt.
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“It was a very long time ago,” Koeman said. “But it was a red card. They were certainly right about that.”
Holland 2 England 0
World Cup qualification
Wednesday October 13, 1993
De Kuip, Rotterdam
Holland (3-4-3): E de Goey – J de Wolf, R Koeman, F de Boer – J Wouters, F Rijkaard, E Koeman, D Bergkamp – M Overmars (A Winter), R de Boer (U van Gobbel), B Roy. Scorers: Koeman 62, Bergkamp 68.
England (4-3-1-2): D Seaman – P Parker, G Pallister, T Adams, T Dorigo – P Ince, C Palmer (Sub: A Sinton), L Sharpe, D Platt – P Merson (Sub: I Wright), A Shearer.
Referee: KJ Assenmacher (Ger). Attendance: 48,000.
