When the Dutch got desperate, they took the option that did not exactly feel like Total Football.
Plan A was getting them nowhere. So they called for the Big Man.
The Big Man was Wout Weghorst, who regular followers of English football may remember as a willing but limited 6ft 5in (197cm) centre-forward who did not score too many goals for Burnley and, in the Premier League, none whatsoever in 17 appearances while on a half-season loan from them to Manchester United.
And maybe, in its own way, Weghorst’s part in a euphoric night for the Netherlands told us about the difference between the popular perceptions of Dutch football and the reality of Ronald Koeman’s current national team.
In turn, maybe there is something for England’s footballers to realise about the opponents who await them in a Euro 2024 semi-final on Wednesday. Because this is not your classic Netherlands side.
You might know the script. Every tournament, it is the same: the references to Johan Cruyff’s stepovers, Marco van Basten’s volley in the 1988 European Championship final and all the other haughty nostalgia from the days when the team in orange shirts were eulogised for their apparent belief that losing possession of the football was a sin.
The reality, however, is that their team of modern times are trying to find glory with a different type of player.
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Look back at the previous Netherlands side to reach a European Championship semi-final, in 2004. Their line-up was filled with A-listers. Edwin van der Sar was in goal. Jaap Stam patrolled the defence. Phillip Cocu wore the captain’s armband. And we could go on: Arjen Robben on the wing, Clarence Seedorf in midfield, Edgar Davids snapping into tackles, Ruud van Nistelrooy sniffing out chances. Go through the names, one by one, and it is no wonder we have spent so long talking up Dutch football.
But that was 20 years ago and the current list of their players does not have the same type of stardust. Or to put it another way, how many of Koeman’s squad would make a joint English-Dutch XI?
Virgil van Dijk, yes. Xavi Simons, too, judging by his stylish performances throughout this tournament. Not many others, though, would get the popular vote. Memphis Depay, the Netherlands’ star attacker, would not be in.
Xavi Simons (Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
And yet, perhaps this current crop of players have other attributes that have not always been so evident in the Dutch sides since the one occasion, at Euro 88, when they have been able to convert all that precious ability into a tournament triumph.
Koeman made the point after Saturday’s 2-1 quarter-final win against Turkey that he was managing “a small country” compared to the other nations – England, Spain and France – in the tournament’s last four. This point gets missed too often given that we are talking about a nation with a population, to put it into context, roughly a fifth of the size of the country hosting this tournament.
It is true that the Netherlands, like England, feel they have become serial underachievers in major tournaments. But one of the semi-finalists in Dortmund on Wednesday is a nation with around 17.5 million people. The other, managed by Gareth Southgate, has approximately 56m.
Mostly, though, Koeman talked about the importance in this sport of having a “big heart” and how his players had demonstrated exactly that against a Turkey side who gave everything, absolutely everything, to achieving something special.
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He was making this point, Koeman explained, because there had been other times when they had been criticised for not displaying the same kind of heart — desire, spirit, togetherness, call it what you will — as other football nations. Not here, though, when it was difficult to keep count of all the blocks and saving tackles during the late period of prolonged pressure when Turkey attacked in a state of near-frenzy to try to equalise.
How could anyone doubt the attitude of the modern Dutch team after the almost heroic challenge, in the final exchanges, that meant right-back Denzel Dumfries was barely able to lift himself off the floor because of the physical exertion it had required?
(Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)
Stefan de Vrij, scorer of their equaliser, summed it up neatly afterwards: “This team knows how to suffer together.”
And there was Weghorst: arms outstretched, setting off on a victory run that began back in his own half and culminated in front of his country’s fans at the other end of the pitch.
Weghorst’s introduction at half-time had helped to turn the game upside down. His arrival immediately gave the Netherlands more presence in attack and, though they resisted any opportunity just to punt the ball in his direction, it changed the game in their favour.
More than that, he also saved the near-certainty of a second Turkish goal with a brilliant saving clearance in his own penalty area.
Still a Burnley player, Weghorst spent last season on loan at Hoffenheim, where he played 28 times in the German Bundesliga, scoring seven times. Turning 32 in just over a month, his career record also suggests he is a better player than he showed with his two English teams, where he managed a grand total of two Premier League goals in 37 appearances during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
He is not, perhaps, a classic wearer of that famous orange shirt. But what did that matter in these moments?
Put aside any football snobbery and there was actually something rather glorious in seeing the Big Man show how this Dutch team have evolved.
You would imagine he might like the idea of doing the same against England in the coming days.
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(Top photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
