Euro 2012: Adjustments Netherlands Must Make to Defeat Germany
Changing their starting forward group is one adjustment that the Netherlands must make against Germany in their second Group B game of Euro 2012 to bounce back from their opening-match upset loss to Denmark.
Will they be able to make improvements and avoid a defeat that would almost certainly destroy their knockout stage hopes?
Let's look at three adjustments that the Netherlands must make to beat Germany on Wednesday.
Start Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
As a manager, when you have several world-class players at one position, it's difficult to be able to play all of them in the starting XI and still field a squad that will mesh well.
Spain has this problem in the midfield since they have four or five world-class central midfielders but only about three starting spots.
Against Denmark, the Netherlands started Arsenal and top Premier League scorer Robin van Persie at striker and not Bundesliga top scorer Klaas-Jan Huntelaar from FC Schalke.
You cannot make van Persie come off the bench, but you also cannot force Huntelaar to start their as either. Germany is too good defensively to not have your best attacking talents start the match.
Having two strikers start the match with winger Ibrahim Afellay moving to the bench must happen for the Dutch if they want to score goals against Germany.
Arjen Robben Needs to be More Unselfish
Dutch winger Arjen Robben is one of the most difficult players to defend, but he is quite predictable in many situations.
Whenever he's in front of the goal and can either take a shot or pass to a teammate that has a good opportunity to score, Robben almost always takes the shot.
He needs to make the simple play and use the talents of his teammates more. Giving the ball to a player of van Persie's quality in the attacking third isn't a bad idea at all.
Robben needs to be more unselfish when going forward for the Netherlands attack to be more effective.
The Defense Must Improve
If Denmark was able to move well in the attacking third against the Dutch defense, then the German and Portugal attacking players will dominate the Netherlands in the next two matches.
The central defending has to be better, or the Dutch will have to score two to four goals per match to win.
The goalkeeping from Maarten Stekelenburg must also improve because he should have saved the only Denmark goal in Saturday's match.
Without a strong defensive performance, don't expect the Dutch to defeat Germany.
