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#2 Familiar failings come back to hurt Holland
They say that there is a fine line between genius and stupidity. Against Costa Rica, Van Gaal was proclaimed as a genius for bringing on Krul for the shoot-out which the Dutch won. As wonderful as that decision was, the decision to send out Ron Vlaar, a centre back to take the first penalty in a crucial shootout was simply baffling.
While there is no doubt that he had a wonderful game that still doesn’t mean he goes ahead of penalty specialists like Huntelaar, who ended up not taking a penalty for the second-straight shootout. Once Vlaar missed his spot kick, he only increased the pressure on the other Dutch players and that eventually told as the ever-reliable Sneijder missed as well to send Argentina through to the Final of the World Cup.
In a matter of few days, Van Gaal has gone from a tactical genius to being just another manager who makes mistakes. While these things happen from time to time, Van Gaal’s overtly defensive tactics meant that the Dutch failed to score for the second-straight game and that was in the end, their undoing.
