WORLD CUP USA ‘94: QUARTERFINALS : Dutch Are Down--and Out of Touch : Soccer: As lone Netherlands player to comment, Witschge laments blown offside call; Advocaat prefers to praise both teams.
They went down fighting--and for once, they weren’t fighting each other.
For the Netherlands World Cup team, that was a considerable achievement. Not as great a feat as getting to the final would have been, but exiting on a sad yet harmonious note will have to stand as Holland’s crowning achievement in the 1994 tournament after its 3-2 quarterfinal loss to Brazil on Saturday at the Cotton Bowl.
So distraught were the Dutch players afterward, only one player, left midfielder Rob Witschge, was composed enough to talk with reporters. The rest, according to Coach Dick Advocaat, were “down and out.”
Witschge was certainly down. And he lamented that the Dutch were out of the tournament because of a missed offside call.
Witschge contended that Bebeto’s goal, scored in the 62nd minute to give Brazil a 2-0 lead, should have been nullified because another Brazilian forward, Romario, was offside. Despite the players’ vehement arguments and Advocaat’s stony stare from the sideline, the goal stood.
“We are crushed,” Witschge said. “It’s terrible to lose like this. It is one of the saddest moments of my soccer career.”
Advocaat politely and repeatedly refused to comment on the goal. “It’s on my tongue to say it was offside, but I’m not saying that,” he said. “I haven’t said anything about the refereeing in the World Cup and I wouldn’t like to start now.”
He preferred instead to praise his opponent and his team. The Netherlands’ two goals were the most scored against Brazil in this tournament so far and it marked the first time any team had scored twice against the Brazilians in a World Cup game since the 1982 tournament in Italy.
“Brazil is world class,” Advocaat said, “and if you consider the way Holland played Brazil, I think that is a compliment to my team.”
Perhaps a compliment to Advocaat’s coaching too.
Advocaat, who was a steady but average midfielder in his playing days in Holland and the North American Soccer League, had to fight to win his players’ respect. Some wanted former star Johan Cruyff to coach them, and midfielder Ruud Gullit had so little respect for Advocaat that Gullit refused to play for the team, returned, and then left again.
Losing Gullit’s playmaking was a blow, but Advocaat didn’t concede. He tinkered with various lineups until he found a mix of energetic attacking and judicious defense, waiting patiently while striker Dennis Bergkamp found his stride and winger Peter van Vossen found his rhythm.
Advocaat got his team a round deeper into the tournament than it advanced four years ago in Italy, but Brazil proved too formidable an obstacle for Advocaat to take one more step into the semifinals.
“I leave the World Cup with good feelings,” said Advocaat, whose contract runs through 1998. “The Dutch team played very well. . . . We can leave America with our heads high. I am very proud of my boys.”
They gave him reason to be proud Saturday, as they did in their victories over Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Ireland and their 1-0 loss to Belgium.
Although the Brazilian defense neutralized the speed of winger Marc Overmars and rarely allowed Bergkamp an uncontested inch of grass, the Dutch clawed back to erase a 2-0 Brazilian lead in the second half and pulled even with less than 15 minutes to play. “Brazil was handling the ball too much. We didn’t have too many chances,” Advocaat said.
Two minutes after Bebeto’s goal, Bergkamp dodged Brazilian defender Marcio Santos to score the Netherlands’ first goal and his third goal of the tournament. Their hope rekindled, the Dutch kept pressing and tied the score in the 76th minute when Aron Winter outjumped a crowd of defenders to head a corner kick by Overmars into the net.
“We showed that if we have to, we can change the game (around), like when we came from 2-nil to make it 2-2,” Witschge said. “We just wanted to go on and create more possibilities to score goals.”
The only goal scored after that, though, was Branco’s blast through the Dutch defensive wall. “Giving up that goal on the free kick, that killed us,” Witschge said.
