Ronald Koeman claimed his first win in charge of the Netherlands national team as the Dutch cruised to a comfortable 3-0 friendly victory over an uninspired Portugal in Geneva on Monday.<\/p>\n
The three-time World Cup runners-up have failed to qualify for this year\u2019s finals in Russia, but Koeman\u2019s second game at the helm saw goals from Memphis Depay, Ryan Babel and Virgil van Dijk seal an impressive win.<\/p>\n
It was a disappointing evening for European champions Portugal ahead of the World Cup, as talisman Cristiano Ronaldo cut an isolated figure just three days after his late brace had seen off Egypt 2-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had four chances and scored three times, they deserved their victory,\u201d said Portugal coach Fernando Santos.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago, before the Euros, we lost at home against Bulgaria. I don\u2019t think we have lost confidence, I still believe in these players for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Netherlands, who lost 1-0 to England in Amsterdam on Friday, opened the scoring in the 11th minute as Depay grabbed the first goal of the Koeman era by turning home from inside the box.<\/p>\n
That strike came against the run of play as Portugal had dominated the early stages against an unusual 5-3-2 formation deployed by the Dutch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to play with a system totally different from the one that the team has been using for a number of years,\u201d said former Everton boss Koeman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difference between tonight and last Friday is that we were more comfortable and scored quickly. The team had confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt good with the new system and results like tonight make things easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronaldo was left incensed after his appeals for a penalty were waved away, despite replays appearing to show him kick the ground when attempting to shoot.<\/p>\n
Ronald Koeman claimed his first win in charge of the Netherlands national team as the Dutch cruised to a comfortable 3-0 friendly victory over an uninspired Portugal in Geneva on Monday. The three-time World Cup runners-up have failed to qualify for this year\u2019s finals in Russia, but Koeman\u2019s second game at the helm saw goals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[793,789,794,21,792,790,791],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-international-friendly","tag-memphis-depay","tag-netherlands","tag-portugal","tag-ronald-koeman","tag-ryan-babel","tag-virgil-van-dijk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":930,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}