Snelders says Dutch need a touch of tartan
Scotland’s pain is being shared by the people of Holland right now.
While next summer’s World Cup Finals will mark 20 years since the Dark Blues were at a major tournament, the Dutch are about to sit out a second major tournament in a row for the first time in 30 years.
The nation that gave the world Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and total football – the nation we have so often looked to for solutions to our own problems – is in crisis.
They finished third in their qualifying group behind France and Sweden, and are a long way from the country that reached the World Cup Final in 1974, 1978 and 2010, and finished third when the tournament was last played in Brazil just over three years ago.
But former Aberdeen and Rangers keeper, Theo Snelders, reckons there is a way back for the Dutch. And a start would be taking a leaf out of Scotland’s book!
The two countries have filled the void in their calendars by agreeing to meet in a friendly at Pittodrie on November 9.
Former Rangers manager Dick Advocaat is in charge of the Dutch, and has just lost the mercurial Arjen Robben to international retirement
Snelders said: “Holland need a couple of nasty players in the team.
“Scotland has always been good at producing nasty players – although you don’t want too many of them!
“Holland had them not so long ago. Players like Jaap Stam, Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong.
“But now there is nobody, especially in defence, where you need somebody aggressive, somebody opposition strikers are afraid to play against.
“The modern Dutch player is just not like that. They want the ball to feet, they want to play pretty football.
“Of course, that is important, but you need the other side of the game, too – the tough side, the aggressive side.
“When there is no variation, your play becomes predictable, and I think that is what has happened to the national team since 2014.
“That team, under Louis van Gaal, did very well to finish third at the World Cup in Brazil. But they did it using a bit of an anti-Dutch system, if you like.
“It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was effective. Since then, it is a new cycle of younger players coming through, and even though there is talent there, it hasn’t been so effective because they are too soft in defence.”
The Dutch national team’s slump has been replicated by their Under-21s and at club level. Three Eredivisie sides – Ajax, PSV and Utrecht – were knocked out of European competition in qualifying this summer.
In Ajax’s case, that meant stumbles in both Champions League and Europa League preliminary games.
Meanwhile, their elite youths have missed the last two Under- 21 European Championships in a row, and four of the last five in total.
The Dutch kids kicked off their latest qualifying cycle last month with a comprehensive 2- 0 loss to Scotland’s young lions in Paisley.
“I watched Holland’s Under-21s against Scotland and I was very impressed with the Scots,” 53-year-old Snelders continued.
“They were allowed to control the game and they did it very well.
“But what I saw from Holland shows the problems we have.
“They are a team of technical players, with the athletic attributes they need. But they were just too nice.
“Towards the end of the game, their body language was very strange – becoming frustrated, acting with anger towards the referee.
“It is not so good and there is concern, but it is not panic because there are always talents coming through.
“It is a rollercoaster – look back to 1982, 1984, 1986, there was no great talent. But then in 1988, came Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Ronald Koeman, Frank Rijkaard, and this team won the European Championships.
“The team now has come to the end of a cycle and it’s up to the younger ones to step in and rise to the challenge. “There are some on the horizon. “Justin Kluivert, who is Patrick Kluivert’s son, is only 18 but he is a talent at Ajax, who also have a 20- year- old midfielder, Frenkie de Jong, coming to the fore.
“These type of players are coming, so there is always hope.”
Hanging on to top young talent is increasingly a problem for Dutch club sides.
As in Scotland, the money simply does not exist in the Eredivisie to compete with the increasingly cash- rich giants of the European game.
Even Ajax, the storied top dogs of the Dutch game, are beginning to struggle.
“To be fair to Ajax, they are paying the price for their success last season,” said Snelders. “They went to the Europa League Final, but what happens? They lose Davinson Sanchez to Spurs, they lose Davy Klaassen to Everton.
“Young players used to play 200 games before they left Holland. Now it is sometimes just 30 or 40, so our teams suffer.
“The one positive is that there are always new players coming. But if they are always lost, it becomes hard for our teams to compete in Europe.”