Dutch looking to win trophies not friends

Mark van Bommel epitomises the new type of rugged style adopted by Netherlands manager Bert van Marwijk

AS THE old saying goes, Mark van Bommel would kick his granny if she went near him with a football. For once Dutch football is earning what might be called complicated praise as Bert van Marwijk’s men prepare for the country’s first World Cup final since 1978.

The deep well of goodwill towards the Oranje will endure but the most successful Netherlands side for 32 years is in the paradoxical position of also being the most criticised. Even many Dutch fans, who are accustomed to seeing beauty dissolve at this stage of a World Cup, feel disconnected from the new defensive pragmatism. They will cope, of course, when Sunday’s starting whistle blows. For neutrals, though, there is the unlikely sideshow of the Netherlands rewriting their own constitution.

Rucks and rumination are out, results are in. At the core of it Van Bommel appears to have a special dispensation to foul. Officially he has breached the laws of the game just 15 times but there is a suspicion that Fifa’s counters mean per minute. Against Brazil and then Uruguay on Tuesday night it was a miracle he stayed on the pitch. So skilled is the Bayern Munich enforcer at pushing the boundaries of acceptable tackling that referees are caught in his machiavellian spell.

Van Bommel was cautioned eventually in Cape Town but not for a crime of the boot. It was his mouth that put his name in the book. Dissent, in added time, was the misdemeanour to which the referee finally objected. This leniency reflects Van Bommel’s expert protestations after the moment of impact. He is a master at appearing sinned against when the opponent is jackknifed on the ground.

These are not leg-breaking atrocities but persistent acts of destruction intended to disrupt the opposition’s rhythm. The point arises so sharply in previews of the final because the Netherlands have made a break with a beautiful but flimsy past.

This Dutch side is really three-plus-seven. A trio of traditional masters – Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder – are supported by a larger gang of piano-shifters who have been educated the Dutch way but accept a reduced role in a cautious and hard-working ensemble.

Thus the new Holland play spectacular angular football only in spurts and then reorganise around a closed defence. To disparage this change can seem absurd. The Netherlands are bidding to become the first team since Brazil in 1970 to win all their qualifying games and then triumph in all seven World Cup contests. A betrayal of the country’s artistic heritage, to some, Holland’s hardened outlook also declares a new intolerance of failure, a weariness with underachievement.

Van Marwijk has owned up to the campaign against useless beauty, to borrow from an Elvis Costello song. He says: “I’m a realist. We know we can beat every country and when you know that you go to a World Cup to win it, not to try just to win one or two games. The way Barcelona played against Arsenal (in this season’s Champions League) was the best I ever saw.

“For me the result was not important because as an outsider I enjoyed watching the game so much. But when you are personally involved, results are your objective.”

This is an unmistakable repudiation of the Dutch past. Even as the names of the 1998 generation who lost a World Cup semi-final to Brazil roll from the imagination – Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert – an aesthetic gap appears between the near-miss decades and the team of Van Bommel, Nigel de Jong and even Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool’s indefatigable workhorse. Against Uruguay, the Netherlands claimed only 53 per cent of the possession: proof that more of their work is being done without the ball.

For a Dutch side not to seize possession and scribble clever patterns with it was anathema until Van Marwijk staged his revolution by stealth. The back of his team is workmanlike. It is protected by two screening midfielders who are not natural passers. Van Bommel and De Jong are destroyers, which places the creative onus on Sneijder, who appears immune to fatigue as he tries to add the World Cup to the Coppa Italia, Serie A and Champions League titles he has won with Internazionale.

“Slaughter your darlings” is a phrase aimed at writers who try too hard with words and images that clog up prose. Holland have slaughtered their darlings at this World Cup and Van Bommel has chopped down a lot of promising attacks.

There is a shaven-headed intensity about this 2010 side that rejects the effeteness of more naturally gifted Dutch teams. Even the traditional rumours about players hating one another or falling out have failed to take proper root.

Which is more commendable: entertaining failure or prosaic success? Van Marwijk would say it is too cosy for neutrals to applaud beaten Dutch teams to the airport while more cunning tournament specialists advance. But to retain enough of the old flame on Sunday they need the three artistes to shine and the referee to get tough with Van Bommel.

Guardian Service