01:24 PM
Netherlands vs Czech Republic preview
the match kicks off at 5pm, the coverage on ITV starts at 4.15pm. I’ll be here to bring you all the team news and the build up – but in the meantime, I will hand you over to my esteemed colleague Luke Edwards to set the scene. Luke, you have the floor…
The Johan Cruyff Arena is bouncing in the way only jubilant Dutch fans can make a stadium vibrate, each song and chant infused with the raw energy of a techno dance track.
Holland are putting on a show, slicing apart an already beaten North Macedonia with some of the most imaginative attacking football seen at this European Championship. Captain Georginio Wijnaldum has just narrowly missed out on a hat-trick, his shot flying over as Memphis Depay finally delivers the sort of performance a player who is joining Barcelona should be producing for his country.
Having gone into the tournament apparently out of kilter, Holland have turned into a side nobody will want to face in the knockout rounds. They have scored more goals than anyone and will attack you constantly, relentlessly probing when they have the ball, but also able to transition quickly on the counter-attack. They have pace and athleticism all over the pitch but there is one man who makes Holland tick – he is the puppet master, the conductor, the artist.
His name is Frenkie de Jong, he is the best young player in Europe and is proving it in his national colours. When his number, 21, was held up with 12 minutes left to play on Monday, the whole stadium stood to applaud. De Jong took his time leaving to show his appreciation to all four sides of his former home stadium at Ajax. The roar that came back each time sent goose bumps running up your arms. De Jong is loved and is repaying that love.
His performances as the playmaker in a vibrant Holland team have been outstanding. He controls everything: the pace of the team’s play, whether they pass short or long. Every team Holland faced in the group stage tried to shut him down and failed. He is running games, not playing them. If you try to press him, to rush and harass, even if you do it with two players rather than one, De Jong is more likely to thread a pass through those coming towards him than pass backwards to retain possession. That makes the opposition hesitant to put pressure on.
If the tactic is to press high, De Jong makes the players asked to do it reluctant to follow instructions. But if you stand off and let De Jong assess his options, he is just as lethal, looking for the runs of Depay, Wijnaldum, Donyell Malan or Wout Weghorst in front of him, or waiting for one of Holland’s two rapid wing-backs, Denzel Dumfries or Patrick van Aanholt, to offer width outside.
They have known how special De Jong is in Amsterdam since he signed for Ajax, aged 18, after only two first-team appearances for Willem II, in 2015. Unlike most of Ajax’s young players, De Jong had not come through their own academy, but if anything that makes him even more popular around the rest of the country.
Ajax are Holland’s biggest and most popular club, so they inevitably attract a lot of resentment, too. De Jong learnt his football elsewhere and while he is indeed one of Amsterdam’s favourite sons, playing in the centre of midfield in the Ajax team who reached the Champions League semi-finals and won the league and cup double in 2019, there is a feeling he belongs to the country rather than just its largest city.
At the age of 24, De Jong is coming of age as an international player after two testing years at Barcelona. He had a difficult first campaign in a fading side following a £75 million move, but there were performances last season that showed he was getting to grips with things in La Liga. Barcelona intend to build around him, which is why they were so keen to sign Depay. The two are used to playing with each other for Holland and the understanding between them has been a feature of the team’s three Euro 2020 wins so far.
De Jong’s performances should also be the benchmark for England’s new generation. He has far more international and club experience than Mason Mount, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden and is shaping games rather than merely featuring in them. He is two years older than Mount, three years older than Foden and one year younger than Grealish. As exciting as those players undoubtedly are, they are not yet in the same elite category as De Jong. The same is true of Marcus Rashford, someone who can match him experience-wise.
As for Holland, unless someone finds a way to stop De Jong, they are going to be very hard to beat.