Orthodoxy, in the end, prevailed. International football, perhaps, always has a slightly retro feel, with its teams of mismatched parts, the basic pressing structures, the preponderance of games decided not by tactical plans or even ability, but by human desire and passion and doing the right thing at just the right time. It is, perhaps, a more heroic form of the game, a world in which there is still a place for champions to rise above the analysis of the technocrats.
And there is little more retro than the tactic, in extremis, of throwing on a big man. For Ronald Koeman, as for Louis van Gaal before him, when there is an emergency for the Netherlands, call for Wout Weghorst. The Burnley striker might not be the Cruyffian idea of the Total Footballing front man, but this is not the first time he has turned a game for his country after coming off the bench. Weghorst didn’t score, but he gave the Netherlands a focal point to their attack around which Cody Gakpo, Memphis Depay and Xavi Simons could operate, and he gave them a way that Austria couldn’t find in the last 16 to break down this Turkish defence. He actually won only one header, touched the ball just 13 times, but presence is not easily measured by statistics.
