As long as there’s Louis…Europe has hope.
Van Gaal and the Netherlands marched on to six days of rest and then a World Cup quarter-final date with Argentina. They put three past the United States here as Van Gaal completely outwitted American manager Gregg Berhalter. His tactics, with wing-backs to the fore, and the totems of this team, Memphis Depay, Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Ake, Frenkie de Jong and a new giant between the posts, all continued to develop and grow handsomely into Qatar’s World Cup.
It wasn’t always pretty and the same critics back home — Marco van Basten and Rafael van den Vaart primarily — were barking and cribbing. No matter. The Dutch are unbeaten since Van Gaal returned 16 months ago. They’ve won three and drawn one here, scoring eight along the way. He has them moving places when others aren’t.
