England’s Gareth Southgate will challenge in Amsterdam in a friendly match, the Netherlands, which is part of those few national teams with which the “three lions” have a negative balance, a match where the 47-year-old from Watford is still difficult the task of making the last election on the eve of the upcoming World Cup.
Although it is a friendly test, confrontations between the two countries have never been such, except for the “Arena of Amsterdam” at 20:45 will force two teams that had different fate in qualifying matches. The Netherlands was expected to be seen somewhat after France, finalist of last europe, but the adventure of the “oranges” at the group stage turned out to be completely failed, because the “tulips” were also ranked by Sweden, which in any case later without Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the composition, managed to leave the World Cup outside Italy, eliminating venture’s “Blues” at the playoffs stage.
For locals is a natural growth process and Dutch coach Ronald Koeman, who started his career as a national coach, as Guus Hiddink’s assistant, is now in charge of raising the country’s morale, which has been consistently part of the most important football world. Above all, the Netherlands starts a new era with two incredibly important players such as Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, however the foundations seem to be thrown and the “orange” seeks to rely on new generation gamers, but this is easily understood by the average age of the team, who is not even 25 years old.
After losing 4-0 to France at Saint-Denis, “tulips” count 5 consecutive wins, climbing to 21 in the overall FIFA classification. From the Brazilian podium now the Netherlands faces a completely different reality, however, the Federation leaders have not remained in touch and have offered friendly friendly to teams such as England, Portugal or Italy in early June. If the “oranges” will follow the World Cup in Russia as spectators, the “three lions” claim to be represented in the upcoming world championship with a prominent role of protagonists.
The expectations are too high for the English national team in the World Cup, however for the sake of truth, Gareth Southgate’s representative is quoted only by bookmakers 7 and is positioned only five places ahead of FIFA’s ranking, 16 with only 83 points more than the Netherlands . Enigmat in England are numerous, but in the absence of the defeated Harry Kane, Southgate is expected to entrust the attack to such names as Jamie Vardy, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling.
There will also be missing Ryan Bertrand, however the coach of the “three lions” is expected to experiment, even using the 27 players accumulated in the bow of 5 days, both in the meeting with the Netherlands and in the duel with Italy that would play on Tuesday evening at Wembley . England has entered the World Cup Group G with Belgium, Panama and Tunisia, however, until the beginning of the World Cup remain in less than three months, so Gareth Southgate has the difficult task to select the 23 latest names to be delivered months before the start, ie on May 14.
4 out of 5 England’s victories over the Netherlands have been recorded in friendly matches, however the “tulips” that have won the last two challenges among them, moreover within Wembley, preside over the 6-5 balance sheet in 20 general meetings, mentions the fact that “three lions” have beaten “orange” just once in the last 13 appearances.
