BLOG - 2014 European Under-17 Championship: Malta 2-5 Netherlands - Match Report
The Dutch beat Malta 5-2 in an extremely open match where the victors' defensive fallibility was exposed by the Maltese, who come out of the game with great credit.
The Dutch began the match with a competition to see who could come up with the most embarrassing miss from six yards, with Bergwijn providing two passable entries before Schuurman failed the exercise by accidentally scoring from the rebound of one of Bergwijn's efforts, although Van De Beek a few minutes later appeared to conclude the competition with the unassailable winner when he rapped the bar from six yards out. After 13 minutes Nouri found Steven Bergwijn on the edge of the area and he stepped inside before firing into the bottom corner.
Malta then thought they'd join the Dutch missing game and from a well-worked corner routine Friggieri was left free six yards out and his controlled effort was cleared by the man on the post. Holland found this so exciting they went back to the missing and Bergwijn managed to put Paal's beautifully dinked cross wide from four yards, before Schuurman decided Paal's next through ball deserved a proper finish to equal England's score over the Maltese (3-0) after 26 minutes.
The Maltese then scored their first goal in the competition, picking up the ball in midfield they built a nice move against a sloppy Dutch defence that culminated in Friggieri curling a shot on his weaker foot from 20 yards that hit the bar and Mbong followed in to confidently slot home the rebound.
It was a revealing fact at half time that Malta had managed three shots on target to the Dutch's six, underlining a weak defensive display and poor finishing from the latter. So far in this tournament the Dutch seem to have got the idea of defence and midfield tangled up. Coach Maarten Stekelenburg talked after the first match about the two defensive midfielders taking up the space of their ball-playing defenders and having to push them forwards to create the room for the defenders to go into. It's rather bizarre because the two defensive midfielders don't appear that skilled at building possession opposed to Veendorp, Verdonk and Verloo who don't appear skilled at defending, so once you get through their midfield positions you're effectively past their defence and facing the rear rank of their offensive midfield, while conversely their defensive midfield breaks their passing moves down. It's something that meant Malta could feasibly have finished the half level at 3-3 after they almost scored from a stupidly conceded free kick in addition to Friggieri's effort off the line.
The second half demonstrated what Stekelenburg hopes to achieve with his tactics as the defensive midfielder Schuurman pushed up in search of his hat-trick and was supplied by centre-back Keziah Veendorp, who strode forward and weighted a perfect pass over defence for Schuurman to run onto, round the keeper and slip home.
The Dutch still found the missing game enticing and having achieved his hat-trick Schuurman was happy to head the ball against the bar from four yards out. Trying to increase their goal difference Stekelenburg took off a centre back in place of a striker, moving Van Der Beek further back which was to have disastrous results.
At times in the second half the Dutch stood so far off Malta they made them appear an excellent side and they created chances that, with better finishing, might have embarrassed the Dutch. As it was Joseph Mbong did a good job of that as he exposed more inadequate Dutch defending to set up Friggieri for a tap in, and Malta's second, to scenes of jubilation on the terraces and whenever Malta got the ball they were eagerly cheered on to try to get the third. They should have done sot when Grech was played through, but he missed the far post by a foot and a minute later Bergwijn curled in the Netherlands' fifth. Still there were chances for Malta as Mbong was denied by a good save from Van Osch and Friggieri curled an effort from out wide that Van Osch dived to catch as it headed for the corner.
Whatever happens in their careers despite the hat-trick of Schuurman and Bergwijn's brace, this was Mbong and Friggieri's match where the slack Dutch allowed them to show their skills as England hadn't. For the Netherlands, Bergwijn deserves a special mention for his two finishes and the quality of his build-up play even if he was often guilty of profligacy like the rest of his team-mates. Still the Dutch qualified from the group alongside England and they meet on Thursday to decide who finishes top. The Dutch will have to defend a lot better than they have in their first two matches to achieve that.
With thanks again to Samuel King, who you can follow on twitter @KingSRV
Last modified on 12 May 2014, at 17:01