Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

Holland need a miracle: Robben

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AMSTERDAM: Unless the Netherland­s can beat Sweden by a seven-goal margin on Tuesday the inventors of the beautiful game will be absent from the 2018 World Cup finals.

Having missed the cut for Euro 2016 the Netherland­s sit third in Group A and can make the play-offs only with a highscorin­g win over second-placed Sweden after a poor start to their campaign.

Coach Dick Advocaat, who took over from Danny Blind four games ago, is in no mood to concede defeat however.

“7-0 is possible,” he claimed. “Sweden have just beaten Luxembourg 8-0 so why can’t we do the same to them,” he reasoned.

Veteran Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben takes a more realistic line.

“It’s over,” he said. “Mathematic­ally it’s still possible of course, but we need a miracle.”

NO SNEIJDER

That miracle will have to be achieved without fading 33-year-old Wesley Sneijder, who has been a cornerston­e of much of their past success but whose current form is deemed not good enough by Advocaat.

Robben, Sneijder and Robin Van Persie led the way for the Netherland­s in their celebrated orange shirts, romping to the 2010 final in South Africa only to be narrowly beaten by Spain.

At the Brazil World Cup under Luis Van Gaal in 2014 they ripped Spain apart and made a fine run to the semifinals and another narrow defeat, this time by Lionel Messi’s Argentina, themselves now on the brink of disaster.

Whether or not the Dutch scrape into the play-offs, assistant coach Ruud Gullit has warned of a worrying trend that sees young Dutch players moving abroad, but then not playing first-team football.

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