The Netherlands beat Hungary 3-0 in Tilburg on Tuesday. Three goals in the first half. I read NOS’s match report on the 7:32 train, notebook open on my knees, and opened a new tab: “winning, but less”.
Silly question, but how can a team that wins 3-0 look like it’s apologising? I worked it out. The Friday before, the Netherlands had won 8-0 in Hungary. According to NOS, the job was already done. So on Tuesday, they were playing against their own Friday.
The head coach, Arjan Veurink, “expected a bit more”. He told NOS: “The bar was also set very high after last Friday.” I noted the word bar. Who set it? They did. When? Friday. They jumped over it too well, and now they can’t see it.
Esmee Brugts scored, and she said: “Harder than Friday.” She thinks the team could have dominated more. Jill Roord, who came on as a substitute, did not score. She explained that it is always hard to play against such a low block, and that the sparkle of Friday was hard to find again. Sparkle. They’re talking about a match like a drink left open for four days.
Someone is happy, though. Isa Kardinaal, 21, a centre-back for the London City Lionesses, made her debut. She was told five minutes before the match that she would play. Five minutes. I get two days’ notice for a meeting. She summed up her evening in one word: “Proud!” It’s the only quote on the page without a comparison.
In my day, we won 3-0 and went home for dinner. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing.
Veurink wants to work on the precision errors before the next international window. In December, the Netherlands face Slovenia in the play-offs for the World Cup. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: NOS.
