By ANP · 2 minutes ago · Edited: 2 minutes ago
RTL News
No one from the Dutch national team beat around the bush after the painful defeat against Austria at the European Championship (3-2). Harsh words were spoken in the catacombs of the Olympiastadion. Wout Weghorst also saw a lot of things go wrong, but the striker was one of the first to try to switch things up.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I always say,” said Weghorst, who came on in the 72nd minute and assisted Memphis Depay’s 2-2 three minutes later. “Of course this is a bit of a ‘bit’ and we would have preferred to achieve a positive result, but my feeling has not changed that much. Whether you go first or third does not really matter. The tournament is only now starting.”
Weghorst was shocked by the start of the Dutch team. “We were unrecognizable, especially in the first half. It was not good, just bad,” said the attacker, who did not think that the Netherlands was not well prepared for Austria’s game. “At times I even thought they put less pressure than they normally do. At times they remained a little more compact in possession of the ball, but in the end they play with a certain intensity, of course. You know in advance what to expect. I think the emphasis should be much more on what you do yourself and that we should look at what we did not do well today.”
National coach Ronald Koeman victimized midfielder Joey Veerman in the first half and spoke sternly to his team during halftime. Shortly after halftime, Cody Gakpo equalized. Even after Romano Schmid’s 2-1, via Stefan de Vrij, the Dutch team came back via Depay’s 46th international goal.
“The 2-2 was a good goal. At that moment we also got into the match better. We created more chances and had more control. We had a pretty good feeling at the time. We wanted to be first in the group, so We went all out for the 3-2,” analyzed Weghorst, who saw the goal fall on the other side. “It was a hit from a counter. If you play the way we did then, with pressure forward and full speed on it, then you have to ensure that you keep the field compact in that way. I don’t think we did that well. As a team it was not good enough defensively. We were far too vulnerable and should not get into trouble as often as happened today.”
Weghorst thinks he knows where there is still profit to be made. “We have a team with many qualities and individual qualities. I don’t think we need to talk about that. Experience, energy, duels, intensity, you also have to show that. We have to look at that critically. It was a underperformance, but we should not be too negative either.”
