Justice was served in Monterey, Mexico, on Monday night under the watchful gaze of Cerro de la Silla. Football justice, that is. Not because Morocco came to play and, by and large, the Netherlands did not. The object of the game in knockout tournaments isn’t to win, it’s to advance by any means necessary. Sometimes, setting up defensively, parking the bus and hoping to sneak a goal in the counterattack is the best way to win. But if you’re going to do it, you have to be smart about it and do it well. Ronald Koeman’s team did neither.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that it took 120 minutes, plus injury time, plus hydration breaks, plus penalty kicks to settle Morocco’s 3-2 shootout win. Or the fact that as the clock ticked into second-half injury time, the Dutch were leading. Crysencio Summerville, while on his backside, passed the ball to Cody Gakpo, who buried one of the only two Dutch shots on target in 120-plus minutes. (The other was Micky van de Ven’s header with an xG of 0.01).
Koeman has opted for a muscular, bunker setup and never quite wavered. A back three of Jan Paul van Hecke, Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Aké, who started 14 league games for Manchester City in the past two seasons. Denzel Dumfries on the right and Van de Ven on the left. Two holding midfielders, such as Ryan Gravenberch and Frenkie de Jong. Up front, another blue-collar player, such as Gakpo and the powerful Brian Brobbey. Plus, the one concession to aesthetics, the tricky, fleet-footed Summerville.
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Dutch legend Johan Cruyff might have shed a tear watching this team.
If you want to set up that way, you’d better execute. Either by physically dominating the opposition or by being dangerous on the counter. The Oranje managed neither. Achraf Hakimi hit the crossbar for Morocco, twice. Azzedine Ounahi dispensed magic and bruises. Brobbey, defended by Issa Diop and Chadi Riad, managed one more touch in the opposition box than James Corden, and just as many shots (zero). Putting together a measly xG of 0.23 when the game goes to extra time is objectively tough, but, somehow, Koeman succeeded.
Sure, this is a low-scoring sport and a diabolical one (how else to explain Diop’s thumping injury-time header getting past Bart Verbruggen?), and Koeman can tell himself that his plan nearly worked.
It didn’t.
You don’t plan on getting beaten to a pulp. Nobody does. And you don’t plan for whatever magic Verbruggen channeled in extra-time when Soufiane Rahimi — with a huge goal to shoot at it from a few yards out — fired a shot that ricocheted off the Dutch keeper’s thigh and on to his outstretched arm.
Koeman’s futility included bizarre substitutions, such as sending on the statuesque — in terms of mobility, not physique — Wout Weghorst instead of, say, Memphis Depay or Donyell Malen, actual goalscorers. Or, just as Morocco are chasing the equaliser and getting set pieces, he replaced his tallest defender (Van de Ven) with barely 6-foot Jorrel Hato.
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But none of this should take away from Morocco’s performance.
They were calm, collected and determined to let their superior quality shine through. Coach Mohamed Ouahbi doesn’t look comfortable on the sidelines. But, compared with four years ago, Ouahbi has turned his side from reactive to proactive and tapped into its attacking potential in a way that his predecessor Walid Regragui never could. Go back and watch Morocco’s run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar. The shirts might be the same, some of the players might be the same, but the football isn’t. This group has taken a hard handbrake turn into playing like a legitimate powerhouse, with no fear, and is now more than comfortable taking the game to the opposition.
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Morocco might not get as far as four years ago, when they came within 90 minutes of the final. And, to some, that’s what will matter. But they’ve already made their point. The FIFA ranking (No. 7 in the world) is not an accident. They’re among the world’s best, and they showed it Monday.
That’s why the gods of football smiled on them in the shootout, even as they trolled them before that. Ultimately, they too wanted to see the better team advance.
