The Dutch team has experienced a resurgence in the last three years under Ronald Koeman and played great football that also brought results. In the middle of last season Coman received an offer that could not be refused from Barcelona and the heads of the Dutch association brought in Frank de Boer as a replacement.
It did not work. Football was much less good, the results were bad, and the injury that disabled (and still disables) the defensive stronghold and one of the best brakes in the world, Virgil Van Dyke, did not help.
Tonight (Wednesday) in the opening of the World Cup qualifying campaign the Netherlands ran to open on the right foot and got a very tough game in Turkey – it ended in a convincing and impressive 2: 4 to the Turks, and do not be surprised if the Netherlands have already started thinking of possible replacements for De Boer.
It was Borak Yilmaz’s evening. The 35-year-old Lille striker provided an evening out of the movies like in his big days and starred with a hat-trick. It started in the 15th minute after a Cannes Celhanolo foul, continued with an accurate penalty in the 34th minute when the Milan midfielder scored the third and turned this game into a defeat.
The Netherlands, out of nowhere, came back with two goals in a minute – Davey Klassen (75) and Luke de Jong (76) got the visitors back on track, but Yilmaz (81) closed the story. The weak Orange of the evening ended with a missed Memphis DePay penalty deep in overtime.