A sense of history was in the air but it perhaps weighed a little differently on the teams poised to contest the penultimate last-16 tie at the Munich Football Arena on Tuesday night.
For the Netherlands, coming into the match after a sobering 3-2 defeat against Austria in the group stage a week ago, the augurs from the past lead to expectation. It was in Munich that Ronald Koeman lifted the European Championship trophy in June 1988, but there are other ghosts that have been summoned before their tie against Romania too.
Koeman, now the coach of the Oranje, was forced to take a long pause when asked in his pre-match press conference what he thought Johan Cruyff would have made of the performance against the hard-pressing Austrians, when the Netherlands were a distinct second best.
“It’s a difficult question,” he said. “I know he liked attacking football very much, but I was a part of his team a long time and we had worse matches than we did against Austria. Of course, we are a proud nation; we like to win, we like to play nice football, but it’s not always happened. We take the critics, no problem, and we’d like to turn it around and make people happy for the final result.”
There has been no shortage of soul searching over the nature of the defeat by Austria, where the Dutch were second to apparently every ball and, this being the Netherlands, it has led to some strong exchanges of opinion. Koeman made no apologies for inserting himself into conversations being held between the players about what to do – “With all respect if we’re talking about the game I need to take part” – and was frank in his assessment that a lack of communication on the field was part of the problem.
“Sometimes the communication between our centre-backs and midfield needs to be better,” he said. “We need to talk much more. With good communication you can solve problems in spaces that your opponent has taken; that’s training, that’s talking, and that’s being clear to everybody about how we want to press the opponent. That’s a lot to take on and we need to improve.”
For Koeman’s Romanian counterpart, Edward Iordanescu, the winds of history are blowing more gently. He was asked to recall the achievements of his father, Anghel, and the Romania team who reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1994. Could Munich be a new Pasadena?
“Of course we like looking at the past – those were fantastic moments, I was there,” Iordanescu said. “But now it’s different generation who have unity, personality and spirit. We will try everything but we know we have to be close to perfection in order to have a good result. Don’t get fooled by some moments in how the Dutch played against Austria; they were already qualified and maybe not as concentrated. Teams at this level know how to get over the line and we need to prepare well.”
Both sides have been well represented by their supporters in Germany and Iordanescu said he needed Romania’s to make a difference again if they are to reach their second European Championship quarter-final. “When you’re playing with history in front of you then obviously you want it a lot and you are ready to give your all,” he said.
“Everything we’ve built so far we’ve done with realism. We’ve consolidated a good group both at a human level and an athletic level and we have a country behind us. We need the fans tomorrow for this very difficult game.”
Both coaches kept their selections close to their chests but each seem likely to make changes. Koeman acknowledged he had yet to find the right balance in his midfield, and Iordanescu must at least find a replacement for the suspended left-back Nicusor Bancu.
“The Netherlands have always produced good football, they started trends, and I am not the only one inspired by their football,” Iordanescu said. “They have a coach who is already at a very high level after being an incredible footballer. He knows Dutch football very well and I am sure we will confront all these elements tomorrow.”
