Euro 2024 Preview - Are the Netherlands Underrated?

The Netherlands have underperformed at the previous 3 European Championships, is this their time to perform? With De Jong out, attention turns towards the likes of Van Dijk, Gakpo, Depay and Xavi Simons. How far can the Dutch go?

[intothefray]

The Netherlands are here! Let me know your thoughts below 👇🏼

(As an aside, I have misspoke in this video and have Netherlands in 1st and France in 2nd, this will be corrected on Monday, aka Frances video, apologies!)

[esc]

04:22 weak team in a weak group? France, Austria and Poland, doesnt seem like a weak group to me. What a disrespect

[arno]

Thanks for making this video! The quality of this years Oranje is in the width it seems to me. For example the midfield can be replaced by the engine room of PSV, should we start with guys like de jong, Reijnders, koopmeiners. Malen can be a super sub should he not start. Koeman is doing a great job in preparing two ways of playing in terms of formations. It’s much time we start beating top countries though. Last time we beat one, it was Belgium under van gaal back in the 2022 summer (2 times, nations league). Suffered losses against Argentina France Croatia Italy and Germany since..

[KimarKurosaski]

I think the Netherlands are always dark horses for these tournaments. Talent wise I honestly think only England France and Germany are ahead of them. I can see them making the semis.

[bjehulk]

I have high hopes for the Netherlands, I think they are a sleeper team. That being said, I think they will struggle against elite opposition because they don’t have an elite striker, and Wout Weghost, is the only out and out number 9. On the other hand though, they have arguably the best defense on paper, a great midfield, a good mix of youth and experience as well as a ton of players in form.

[arno]

Yes they were underrated before the 4-0 against Canada. Now people see it’s one of the teams to make it far

[yadukrishnam]

Netherlands has a great chance to win this time. Most of players are in form. Great defense if you ask. Defense wins you titles. This time they got van de van too.
Experience and youth mix.
Feels Xavi Simons will be a emerging young player

[RenevandenAssem]

Great video Into the Fray however Probably changing manager before the tournament ? Where did you get that from. The Netherlands have never done that and will not do so now two weeks before the Euro's start.

The reason Van Dijk almost never played for the youth teams was because he was originally a striker. Only after switching to CB did he get noticed.

Frenkie is injured so I am not sure if his fitness perse is an issue.

And Koeman has never stated that he will play 1-4-3-3 instead he has a couple of formation options on the pitch and practiced The 1-3-5-2 being one just as 1-4-3-3 and even 1-4-2-3-1 given the players available.

Thanks for your series great seeing them.

[palo]

I think Netherlands are in the hardest group together with the group of Spain.

[amarecudjoe]

They aren't underrated they are basically dutch psg they have the potential to go all they each year but always slip up

[mmartijn]

Best defense, top 2 midfield, attack bad!

[aorta]

Can't w8 to play 5PA1N during the finals...!
-Love Zandvoort 🙌

[martijn_yt]

'The Dutch team has a lot of great players'
...
'The Dutch team is weak and will crash out in the first knock-out round'


Instead of this creative use of logic, an objective analysis using the current strength of the teams and their recent mutual matches would have lead you to the conclusion that a 2nd place finish behind France is the most likely outcome for the Netherlands in group D. The now of group E is scheduled to play the no 2 of group E in the round of 16. Although it won't be easy, (and I might be slightly biased), i still believe that the current no 7 of the world has a decent chance to survive the round of 16 against the no 22 (Ukraine), the no 42 (Slovakia).

If the Netherlands can indeed pull off this upset in the round of 16 and advance to the quarterfinals, who will they meet ? Most likely this will be the expected winner of group F, Portugal. Matches between Portugal and the Netherlands have always been very close, with a slight edge for Portugal. I do believe however that Portugal has made a mistake by selecting Ronaldo. Ronaldo is a legendary player, but also an aging player that is not competing at the highest level anymore. He is also a player that defines how a team plays. Just as in the last world cup, I don't expect to be able to play the entire tournament at a high level.
In contrast, the Dutch team has currently a large group of young talents that will grow in the tournament. I believe this difference will be the deciding factor in this otherwise very close quarterfinaI.

Following this 'logic in absence major surprises', either Germany or Spain will be the opponent of the Netherlands in the semi final. Recent results indicate that Germany is able to play great matches, but is still less consistent than Spain, which will be the deciding factor for this nonetheless incredible quarterfinal.


If you follow the same 'logic without surprises' for the other half of the schedule, the semi finals will be:
second semi final will most likely be ;
Spain - The Netherlands
England - France

(But they might as well be : Germany - Portugal and Italy - Belgium ;))

😜

[istaranlaura]

The last time tha Niederländes wonn a nok out game is back in 2004

[BoontjeB_nl]

The 'neverlands'? Intentional or not? 😅

[mike]

Predicting a quarters loss on penalties to portugal

[sherlockhomeless]

We have some great talents like Tijani Reijnders, Joey Veerman, Micky van de Ven and Xavi Simons. But I'm not impressed by our coach. He did well in 2018 in the Nations League. We beat Germany and France then. Koeman was national coach then too. But our playing style isn't very distinguishable. Koeman isn't a tactical genius. Our goalkeepers are somewhat talented, but none of them really stands out. But hopefully Bart Verbruggen can up his game this european championship. Some people say we have to play defensively because we lack top quality forwards, but I don't think that makes any sense. In 2014 we lacked top quality defenders and for that reason we played 5-3-2 most of the time. Now we have defenders that are world class and who are fast enough to correct any mistakes (Van de Ven and Van Dijk are some of the fastest defenders in the world). I'd love to see Gakpo, Memphis and Simons as our forwards. Unfortunately Ian Maatsen hasn't been selected for the euros. My team: Verbruggen - Van de Ven, Van Dijk, De Ligt, Geertruida - Frenkie de Jong, Schouten, Reijnders - Gakpo, Memphis, Simons.

[Flowerkool]

Well, I don’t know how they are rated but recon round of 16 to round of 8 max.

[Joejoesan]

As a Dutchman I must agree. This is a weak team, especially if Frenkie de Jong is injured and Memphis has just come back from an injury. Maybe Xavi Simons can finally shine (because so far he hasn't). But then, anything is possible. Midfielders Reijnders, Koopmeiners and Veldman have had a great season so far and at the World Cup in 2014 we didn't expect much from our national team, but we beat Spain in our first match (5-1) and became third, beating Brazil in our last match.

[dennisgodman]

Don’t think they’re underrated I just cant say with confidence that they’re getting past the likes of France and Portugal