#360view: Dutch lack leaders in Euro crisis

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  • The Dutch have been woeful.

    For a nation of just 16 million, the Netherlands gift to football has been considerable.

    After emerging as a genuine world power in the 1970s, Johan Cruyff, coach Rinus Michels, Ruud Krol and Johan Neeskens formed some of the most iconic teams in history.

    Given the relative lack of history in Dutch football, it would have been reasonable to dismiss that generation of players as a happy accident but as those icons made way the Dutch system and mentality helped usher in the 1988 European Championship-winning team of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard.

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    Dennis Bergkamp, the De Boers, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf carried the torch in the mid to late 1990s (in Seedorf’s case until 2008) before in more recent times we’ve had a De Oranje dominated by Wesley Sneijder, Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben.

    Consistent producers of world class talent and teams for four decades, the Dutch are now one result from the crisis of failing to qualify for the European Championships.

    They need to likely win their final two matches, away in Kazahkstan and home to the Czech Republic and hope Turkey drop points in their final fixtures, and that’s just to reach the playoffs.

    How in a 24-team qualifying schedule it came to this is quite remarkable for a team who just 15 months ago were thrashing Spain 5-1 en route to the World Cup semi-finals.

    The seeds of this demise were arguably sown before that run as Guus Hiddink, a manager who’s track record post-2010 has been fairly undistinguished, was chosen to replace Louis van Gaal after Brazil 2014.

    Van Gaal’s great gift was how he successfully bridged the generation gap left by his predesscor Bert van Marwijk by bringing through talent to supplement the older guard of Van Persie and co.

    But a misconception was made by Hiddink that Memphis Depay, Bruno Martins Indi and Stefan De Vrij – to name three – were ready to adopt the mentality of senior internationals and lead the side.

    Yet the presence of Van Persie, Sneijder and Robben remained and the younger members of the squad were incapable or unable to stamp their personality on the team.

    While, at the same time, with the greatest respect to that afforementioned trio, whose powers are very much on the wane, none are exactly Ronald Koeman, Jan Wouters or Krol in their leadership skills.

    This lack of character in the team was perhaps best encapsulated by the performance against Turkey on Sunday.

    In a game they simply had to get a result, they emerged with a 3-0 defeat.

    It was a performance totally devoid of backbone, as if the players were incapable or unwilling to grasp the enormity and importance of the situation.

    Turkey, themselves, were on the brink of elimination from the qualification picture following a largely underwhelming campaign, yet the Dutch made them look good.

    Defensively De Oranje have been abysmal with just two clean sheets – both against Latvia – while there have been strange selection oversights, none more so than the absence of Wolfsburg striker Bas Dost this weekend.

    After just two games, Blind is already fielding questions regarding resignation and the situation is an utter mess with an overall lack of structure and vision that is most un-Dutch.

    Their qualification fate is out of their hands and even if they manage to a muster a gritty victory in Astana it could prove in vain.

    These are desperate times.

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