They went to Times Square on a NYC trip for a group photo soon after arriving at their New York base for the World Cup. Their uniformly neon training shoes in bright pink, yellow, orange caught the eyes. So FIFA World Cup’s greatest mystery – the Netherlands who have never won despite their three finals – landed with their charismatic chaos.
For years, they have combined brute and beaut, with Cryuff, van Gogh, Rembrandt, Bergkamp, Robben and now van Dijk all floating in and out of their country’s canvas. At once the most artistic team, they can in the same breath play attritional ball at the other end, though at times the brawls and bickers happen within the squad too. What’s remained common and gravitates football pensmiths to them however are their Oranje fans and why they never seem to win the whole thing ever.
Before they landed in New York, the Dutch would lose 1-0 to Algeria in a friendly, where coach Ronald Koeman was left telling his team to not play “so nice.” Two days later, a mathematical model that has predicted the last three winners accurately declared Holland would win the World Cup. Parallel realities are not uncommon for the Dutch.
The Algeria defeat was called a “a wake-up call”, though Holland play a final warm-up against Uzbekistan before starting their group F campaign on June 14 against Japan. Sweden and Tunisia. Anis Hadj Moussa’s wonder strike, set up a fine opening for Algerians against Argentina.
“This is a wake-up call,” Koeman was quoted as saying by broadcasters NOS after the Rotterdam game saw a good first half followed by a poor second one. He quickly added, “we are not going to panic.”
National press like Daily De Telegraaf would declare that “the Dutch national team boards the plane with their faces red with embarrassment.” Al Jazeera quoted Algemeen Dagblad as saying the team was leaving with “a little hangover.” Back home, the hope and dismay comes in waves, as they wonder if 1998 was perhaps their finest team. In Holland, the standards for beautiful are rather high, while the debate with pragmatism is never ending.
“We owe it to our fans to win matches like this, especially at home,” Koeman told the broadcasters. “I don’t want to blame the substitutions, but it’s clear that we became sloppier in the second half and created fewer chances. Our play became more laboured, and at times we lacked aggression. We were just a bit too soft.”
While defender Denzel Dumfries was undergoing a medical and missed the match and was missed in turn, Koeman also noted, “Algeria have shown that friendly matches are a thing of the past.
They play with their hearts. I hope we can take this with us to the World Cup in a positive way.”
Dumfries completes a formidablr Dutch defense line of Virgil van Dijk, Jurrien Timber and Memphis Depay who would become Holland’s third most-capped player in history with three appearances in this tournament. Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo further up the field, are the other big names.
What frustrated Koeman was their inability against Algeria to convert their many chances, with Donyell Malen fluffing three shots on goal. “He definitely needs to score at least one goal. Normally he does,” Koeman told NOS, before take off.
Malen was quoted as saying, “Of course, as a striker, you want to score. We created enough chances, but today they just wouldn’t go in. ‘That’s part of a striker’s life. I didn’t get out well and didn’t connect with the ball properly. I didn’t see the players next to me either, otherwise I would have laid it off.”
“I absolutely hate losing. You have to win this when you get four or five big chances,” Koeman told NOS. “If you convert those, a match like this becomes much easier. It shouldn’t be a problem then, but in the second half we played worse football. We lacked aggression and it was too nice.”
Meanwhile, German mathematician Joaquim Klement who has got his last three WC forecasts right, picked The Netherlands as winners in 2026, according to Tapmad. Klement’s model goes beyond form, and looks at GDP, population size, football culture, FIFA rankings and other random data points with statistical inputs.
He predicts a Holland vs Portugal final, as per Tapmad.
The Algeria defeat was called a "a wake-up call", though Holland play a final warm-up against Uzbekistan before starting their group F campaign on June 14 against Japan. Sweden and Tunisia. (AP Photo) 
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