Koeman has no regrets about his moves: 'Football is crazy sometimes'

After the opening game of the World Cup against Japan, there was a lot of discussion in the Netherlands about the change of coach Ronald Koeman. He received many questions about this in the press conference after the game. Koeman didn't want to know anything about regrets.

In his first reaction to the NOS, Koeman already gave a short explanation about his reasons for replacing Crysencio Summerville and Donyell Malen after 70 minutes. The journalists who attended the press conference afterwards wanted to know more about it. Didn't Koeman think that he was giving away the initiative with the changes? “No, I didn’t think so,” reacted the national coach. "Because that always happened when we took the lead. Even after the 1-0 lead, you can see that the opponent played differently. They didn't play forward the entire first half with the pressure that they normally show; probably out of respect or maybe even out of fear. But they still did that in certain moments when they were behind."



In Koeman's eyes, this also happened after Virgil van Dijk's 1-0 win, when Summerville and Malen were still on the field. "Then we got into trouble defensively, while at that point we were still playing with speed up front. That's why I don't agree that we gave up the initiative. We weren't getting enough pressure on the sides, and that's why I brought in Nathan Aké."

"If you analyze both goals, we don't defend well on the first one, but the second one is very unfortunate because it gets touched on the way," Koeman continued. "Football is crazy sometimes because after 2-2 Japan suddenly started defending again and then in one moment we can get back to 3-2. So no, I have no regrets about my substitution."

Koeman did not immediately see the fact that the speed disappeared from his offense as a big problem. "We couldn't get out and with Teun Koopmeiners and Memphis Depay you try to get more ball control up front. If you want to get away from your own goal, you have to be able to play possession and you need players who can hold on to the ball. But that didn't work, we fell behind. That didn't even create many chances, but an unfortunate moment resulted in the 2-2. Things have to go well in that moment, and that was now against us."