budgetmeansbudget wrote:Holland missed the Euros prior to the World Cup, been going through a lean period in recent years. Possibly now coming out of it, lack a high quality striker though.
The Dutch are going through a bit of a crisis of how to approach football in the modern age. In the 70s to 90s, their top teams were revolutionary in coaching players, and their youth setups were an example to the rest of the world, but everyone has copied their systems and learned from them, and now they no longer hold an advantage. Dutch media seem to think that the Division is at (by far) its worst levels of quality in nearly 50 years, and I guess this can to a certain extent be show by how many of their talented players find their way to top clubs. There used to be a mark of "hes dutch, hes young, he will be good", and those players filtered to top clubs; now top clubs are scared excelling in the Dutch league means nothing.
Looking at the team, its a mix of younger stand out lads from domestic leagues who are yet to attract foreigners, or failed imports like Babel, Depay, Blind. The exception could be the two Ajax lads, de Ligt and De Jong are seen as the next generation, and City and Barcelona are apparently trying to sign them. If they turn out to be flops like others in the past, then its hard to see how Holland can move on.
To give you a perspective of the perceived problems, only last week the Dutch mega clubs (PSV, Ajax and Feyenoord) all reached an agreement where they will voluntarily start to give up champions league revenue to be shared to other dutch clubs, in the hope extra investment in the middle and bottom of the league will improve the quality, and help the top clubs players to play better football, which has knock on effects in Europe and Internationals. I think this year 10% each of total revenue is distributed, but over the coming years it will start to increase to 50-60%. Pretty amazing of these clubs to come together and volunteer this, but the Dutch are clueless how to work out the funk, and are trying once again to think out the box and get investment into the grassroots.