Netherlands – Austria: A Lesson In Modern Football (2-3)
Austria defeated the Dutch with a well-executed modern football game plan that targeted the exact issues that were on display earlier. Overloading a mostly man-marking midfield gave them a serious upper hand on the ball, and neat execution on the ball proved the key to victory. Offensive transition moments nearly covered it up, but the Dutch have work to do.
Tactical analysis and match report by Sander IJtsma.
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Two teams with everything to play for, proven to be not shy of executing specific game plans, this was always going to be one tasty affair. To deal with a far superior France in their second group game, Netherlands set up an extreme off-the-ball setup, drawing out the tournament’s only goalless draw to that point, which put them on four points and granted them a marginal first place going into the final round of matches in Group D.
Under Ralf Rangnick, Austria are definitely an odd national team. While most would sit back in different variations of reactive approaches, Austria most definitely aims to take matters into their own hands. The high-pressing approach they took in their opening game against France wouldn’t look out of place at all in team football, but for a national team, with limited training time, it was extremely brave, executed to a tee, and it put up a very stern test for the still not quite convincing vice world champions.
In a continuing quest for his optimal starting XI, Ronald Koemand surprised by preferring Feyenoord’s Lutsharel Geertruida at right-back over Denzel Dumfries. This should provide an immediate upgrade in terms of ball progression and passing options from the back – Geertruida ended the match with the most progressive passes – at the expense of flank running and wide receiving. Donyell Malen also came into the lineup to play as the right winger, while Joey Veerman was reintroduced to form the double pivot alongside his PSV teammate Jerdy Schouten, who is having an excellent tournament so far. Out went the rather inefficient Xavi Simons and Jérémie Frimpong.
Rangnick missed Gernot Trauner who hadn’t recovered from a thigh injury sustained in the Poland match. Veteran striker Marco Arnautovic maintained his starting spot, backed by an offensive trio of Marcel Sabitzer, Romano Schmid – as surprise starter over Baumgartner – and Wimmer. Seiwald formed the machine room in defensive midfield, with Florian Grillitsch, preferred over Konrad Laimer. Max Wöber filled in for Trauner, while Alexander Prass was the starting left back over right-footed Mwene who played up till now.
Austrian storm
Straight from the kick-off, Austria completely and utterly dominated possession. After misplacing the first vertical midfield passes – a favour readily returned by Schouten – Austria settled down in their 4-2-3-1 setup and presented the Dutch with seemingly unsolvable marking issues.
Fullbacks relatively high, Grillitsch a bit withdrawn and the ball at the feet of either central defender. The Dutch – not known for executing pressing schemes – already seemed confused. Sabitzer readily moved infield to create an overload in midfield and present Schouten with difficult choices. Within a minute it was clear that the unusual 4-5-1 shape off-the-ball would lack pressure on the Austrian buildup. With two central defenders plus Grillitsch helping out, they would always play past a single ‘presser’ in Memphis, the accolades there to illustrate the half-hearted job he did off-the-ball.
Wimmer in acres of space as Sabitzer binds Schouten by moving into midfield. A second threat is a cross pass to Austria’s right wing, where Aké is confronted with two opposition players.
A rewatch of the first two minutes shows a perfect glimpse of things to come. Austria’s central pitch overload caused on-the-spot decision making in a mostly man-marking system and the Austrian players expertly took advantage. In the second minute, right-back Posch moved into midfield to aggravate things. Gakpo pointed a bit, but essentially let him be. Memphis didn’t put in the work to press the ball carrier, so Malen had to step out, leaving Prass in acres of space after a well-timed overlapping run.
On that occasion, the cross went by without harm, as it did in the third minute, from the same flank, after Wimmer found all the time and space to both receive and turn in central midfield. But just minutes later, in a carbon copy attack, this time a dropping Arnautovic had all the time and space, received, turned and played it onto the overlapping Prass. His cross found the back of the net through a clearance attempt from Malen, who just put in a long defensive run to try and make up for his erroneous positioning.
Austria led 1-0, but also utterly dominated play, raking up a total of 54 completed passes against two for the Dutch.
Chances off transitions
While their off-the-ball play was horrendous, on the ball The Netherlands did carve out some scoring chances. The common pattern in possession – as those with any experience watching Koeman’s teams would probably remember all too well – is a series of safe passes, not infrequently going backwards, the ball ending up at the goalkeeper’s feet, who then launches it long to play the second ball game.
It was a painful sight. Goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, fresh off a season at Brighton, under possession play manager Roberto De Zerbi, hitting countless long passes to 1.76m Memphis. It’s not that Holland never won anything out of it, but it didn’t help any form of sustained pressure and it opened up unnecessary opportunities for their opponents.
All chances that the Dutch collected came from transition offence. The fourteenth minute shot where Reijnders mishit a first time shot off a Gakpo cross was a well-executed four-on-four break. The 23rd minute fluffed Malen shot came off a brilliant Reijnders through ball in a situation created from a poor Austrian clearance. Decent chances, and on the night good for a goal perhaps, but nothing resembling offensive patterns of play.
Austria’s field day
By contrast, Austria showcased a lovely defensive passing masterclass in the nineteenth minute, as yet another Dutch long ball / second ball attack had broken down. The ball was expertly circulated to the central defenders, players took their rehearsed positions, invited Dutch pressure, and played right through it. A beautiful one minute fifty-four seconds Austrian passing sequence followed, putting a mental dagger in their opponent’s minds.
The examples of the poor Dutch positioning off-the-ball and the perfectly executed Austrian exploitations are numerous and painful. With such serious deficiencies in two key phases of play – defensive positioning and offensive play – all that remains is gambling on offensive transitions, and hope your players work out the rest, while making up for it through individual moments, like the Weghorst goal against Poland, the Reijnders pass that set up the Malen fluffed shot, etcetera.
The start of Austria’s most beautiful lengthy passing sequence. They clearly invited pressure, Schouten followed Grillitsch, who dropped between the central defenders. Grillitsch and Wöber moved laterally a bit, and the passing line to a completely free Sabitzer opened up.
Koeman’s change
In the 35th minute, Koeman axed Joey Veerman and brought on Xavi Simons. This moved Reijnders into the double pivot. While it was clear from the first minute on that things needed a radical change, this is usually what managers do. And it’s not entirely without sense too, as Veerman, in this case, had a stinker.
The broader point here, however, is that in such seriously deficient tactical setups, players will always have stinkers of games. It’s then easy, and very defendable, to axe an individual, illustrating your intolerance with this level of play. It’s like killing rats in your house. Probably a good thing to do when you spot one, but it’s a hell of a lot better to look at the reason they’re there in the first place.
The Dutch ended the first half without a shot on target, with just 43 percent possession share and with a lower pass accuracy than the generally very direct Austrians.
New half same issues
With the score just 1-0 to Austria, and everything still to play in this group, the second half started. A Dutch kick-off, passed to the central defender, who lumped a long pass over the sideline. Within the same minute we had the first own half turnover and it was clear that the pattern remained mostly as it was. Yeah.
However, in football you can do everything well and still lose, and you can also do everything wrong and still win. As already mentioned, transition offence relies mostly on player quality and on the first chance of a four-on-four break, Simons executed a perfect long run, played in Gakpo with a well-weighted short pass. Gakpo expertly controlled it and simply found the inside of the net at the far post. Perfect execution that made football look simple.
When you entire offensive play is transitions and long ball / second ball, this is what you get.
Off-the-ball
Gakpo’s goal illustrated his qualities on the ball, and the improvement he made in that regard in recent years. Most football, however, is played off-the-ball and sloppy Gakpo marking allowed his man Schmid a free ten-yard header, which he took well to restore Austria’s lead.
So, what are you gonna do? Call on Wout Weghorst!
Off came Donyell Malen, who had a poor game with lots of no man’s land positioning on the ball and execution errors in crucial on-the-ball moments. This moved Simons to the right wing, with Memphis – pretty untouchable for Koeman – in the ten spot. And you bring on Wijnaldum, of course, because… well.
Despite not fixing the real issues at stake – and it’s doubtful whether such systemic issues can be addressed in game by a staff that sent them out like this in the first place – bringing on Weghorst is adding energy and box presence. Exactly those ingredients played a role in the second Dutch equalizer.
Weghorst dropped into offensive midfield, shielded the ball well, played a simple linkup pass, to Schouten, who sprayed it first-time to Gakpo on the left wing. Weghorst won the header off an early cross, found Memphis and he controlled – ultimately judged not to have done so with his hand – and found the back of the net for 2-2.
With the off-the-ball issues not addressed, though, most of the team collapsed on the ball carrier in the 80th minute, which led to a six-in-line defense without anyone patrolling the zone in front of them. Substitute Baumgartner received unpressured, picked out Sabitzer’s perfectly timed run, who finished with a strong high first post attempt from an acute angle.
A thoroughly well-deserved result for the Austrians, who executed their game plan very well and took maximum advantage of the opportunities handed to them on a silver plate by the Dutch tactical setup. Transition offence is still a powerful Dutch weapon though, and it gave them two comebacks during this match. The final ten minutes, though, saw Austria in a deeper block, limiting exactly those opportunities.
Takeaways
At best, this should provide a serious wake-up call for Dutch football. It’s far from the first time that the setup off-the-ball and seriously outdated possession play limit the national team’s ceiling. As a manager, one of the key tasks is to set up an environment – in the broadest sense – that elevates the team and maximises the chances of earning a good result.
Austria manager Rangnick did exactly that. Tactically, he sets his team up in a way that wouldn’t look out of the ordinary in modern team football. Pressing schemes off the ball, smart midfield overloads on it, playing through a press when it’s poorly executed, playing over it when needed. All of that is modern coaching, nothing more, nothing less.
To then see what the Dutch come up with in their curious 4-5-1 off-the-ball scheme, largely focused on man-marking, and with possession play focused on long balls / second balls. These aren’t international football limits that dictate most teams – not Austria – to resort to simpler tactics like the 4-4-2 medium block off-the-ball. What the Dutch team offered in Berlin was a throwback to football from some time ago. And the blueprint to beat that has been laid out some years back.
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