The Netherlands put it across the USA quite comfortably in the end winning their Round-of-16 match 3-1 at the Khalifa Stadium, but coach Louis van Gaal felt his team shared too much ball possession with their opponents. Memphis Depay (10th minute) and Daley Blind (46th) put the Dutch comfortably 2-0 ahead, scoring off well-constructed team efforts before USA’s Haji Wright (76th) pulled one back to give them a scare. Denzel Dumfries (81st) however, sealed the tie in favour of the Dutch.

Improvement needed

Later, veteran coach van Gaal, was at his analytical best. “I was very critical during the half-time analysis that I usually do with my players. In the first half, we gave away the ball far too much, unnecessarily, despite that we were 2-0 up. We need to improve on the transition and keeping possession [of the ball]. We cannot give that away. We suffered so much as we were dispossessed so often early on in the match and that is not acceptable at a World Cup. If you play top-notch countries, that’s not acceptable,” Van Gaal said at the post-match press conference.