Holland once more appears to be on the brink of crashing out of another big tournament thanks to the Dutch team’s inability to stop fighting with each other.
Orange implosions have been well documented over the years ever since the 1990 World Cup in Italy when a vote to change trainers took place led to an open revolt, and things were not much better four years later when then Dutch star Ruud Gullit pulled out of the Netherlands national team just weeks before the competition saying: “It is hard for me to sit here,” Gullit was quoted as saying. “I feel very emotional. I must stress I wanted to play in the United States very much.
“I won’t go into detail. I simply cannot do that at this time. I know everyone will speculate about my reasons, and they are welcome to do so. I will explain later.”
Apparently the bust up was due to trainer Dick Advocaat’s methods.
This time it is Manchester United winger Memphis Depay arguing with former United striker Robin van Persie that has Dutch trainer Danny Blind trying to play down the incident.
“It was a discussion during training about a ball that should have been given over,” he said. “Things like that happen often. There are sometimes situations in training where players think differently. That’s what happened and then it was over.”
Blind went on to deny that this was the reason van Persie was dropped from the starting team who played Kazakhstan on Saturday, putting it down to lack of playing time since joining Turkish side Fenerbahce.
“He was not fit enough to start,” Blind said. “That’s down to the fact that he has not played without pain for quite a while.”
