Of course, he leaves | Bizarre statements after the Netherlands - Morocco match

Ronald Koeman defends his 5-2-3 after the Netherlands against Morocco with verve. The fact that the national coach does so in a way that raises many questions has become an additional story because admitting you’re wrong can be seen as proper self-reflection. However not for Ronald Koeman, who excuses absolutely everything, but then everything, after the utterly disappointing weak international match by the Dutch national team.

'It doesn't interest me in the slightest, dot dot dot',....Koeman began after the disappointing showing against Morocco. The poor results against top 20 countries bother him little and mean nothing to him, as became clear again after the end of a lost or not-won international match. 'Morocco would have had a bit more luck', Koeman said after the end of Netherlands - Morocco.

Ronald Koeman stands by his decision to line up in a 5-2-3 system in the World Cup match between the Netherlands and Morocco. Oranje had little grip on the game, but Koeman found his system choice defensible, and that’s all there is to it. Of course, Koeman will leave as head coach of the Netherlands national team, hopefully taking Virgil van Dijk along with him as well, who has just one good intervention to his name in four World Cup matches. That was the moment, about five minutes before Morocco’s equalizer by the fit players. 

For the match against Morocco, Koeman decided to put Tijjani Reijnders on the bench and add an extra defender in the form of Nathan Aké. On NOS, Koeman reflected on that choice, but without wanting to admit any fault. 'I look back on that positively. I don't really feel like talking about it any further. We can't blame ourselves; that’s clear from how broken the boys are. We had a dream.'

'Of course there are things that could be better. And I also saw that there were moments when we dropped too far back. We weren’t putting any pressure on them anymore, but we defended well too. You also can’t give away absolutely nothing against such a good team. But it’s all hindsight. In hindsight, everyone has the truth.'

'We started that way because in the three duels before this we gave too much away. Then you can turn a blind eye and carry on, but then it’s up to the coach to change things. All of the Netherlands has asked for five defenders—then you play with five defenders, but then it still isn’t right. But I don’t give a damn about any of that. I have no regrets.

The last time the Netherlands beat a country from the FIFA top-25 was during the period when Louis van Gaal was still the national team coach.