Will the Dutch resolve their identity crisis in Brazil?

Leonard Cohen didn’t have Dutch soccer in mind when he gave a novel the title “Beautiful Losers,” but it wouldn’t be the worst way of summing up its reputation for many years, its best years.  There wasn’t much one could call beautiful about the way the Dutch played under Bert van Marwijk’s management in the 2010 World Cup. Yet they made it through one match after another, seldom doing anything especially spectacular—except winning. Right up to the last match.

That final against Spain is mainly remembered, grimly, for Nigel de Jong’s thudding kick to Xabi Alonso’s chest. For some Netherlands fans, their romance with the team ended there. The beauty that had been fading for some time was supplanted by something indelibly ugly. The Dutch now had an identity crisis. What kind of team had they become?

Things didn’t improve in 2012’s Euro Cup competition. If the not-beautiful style of the World Cup team had at least been largely effective, it had also become fruitless. Not only did the Oranje fail to make it out of the group stage, the team was notoriously, perhaps ruinously, beset by quarreling within its ranks. Johann Cruyff, the greatest Dutch player of all time—he who said that no medal is better than being acclaimed for style—had been outspokenly critical of the 2010 World Cup team, going so far as to call its approach “anti-football.” His assessment of the Euro squad was equally damning.

Facing Spain again, today, inevitably kicks up bad memories of four years ago.  But it’s not just the residual sting of the last World Cup final. It goes deeper—perhaps even to an impulse for self-sabotage. Three World Cup final failures—in the last tournament, in 1978’s defeat to Argentina, and, in what remains for many the deepest heartbreaker, the loss to Germany in 1974—have made a mark on the collective Dutch psyche. (One of the great books on the sport, David Winner’s Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football—the subtitle alone says a mouthful—seeks to answer, among other questions: “Why did they so often screw up at the vital moments in the biggest competitions?”)

Will the Netherlands play winningly this year? Beautifully? Both? Too soon to say—but what’s certain is that we’ll see something different from its last World Cup foray because, unlike Spain, it’s a vastly different team. There’s still tremendous power up front from the likes of Wesley Sneijder and the two most valuable Dutchmen, Arjen Robben and Robin Van Persie. Some younger players who showed promise four years ago didn’t make the cut: We won’t see Ibrahim Afellay or Eljero Elia in Brazil. But there’s at least one tremendously talented youngster to keep an eye on: Ajax defender Joël Veltman.

Perhaps the greatest hope for Dutch soccer that’s both lovely to watch and winning is its current manager: The formidable Louis Van Gaal, who came up in the most beautiful era of Dutch soccer and followed a Cruyffian career trajectory from Ajax to Barcelona, where Spanish soccer arguably became more Dutch than Dutch soccer, as total voetbal  transmuted into tiki-taka. Going into today’s match, few coaches are better equipped to understand both the Dutch and the Spanish psyche, and their respective tactics—and to know how to proceed accordingly.

Van Gaal—who will succeed David Moyes as the manager of Manchester United as soon as the World Cup ends—has characterized himself as “confident, arrogant, dominant, honest, hard-working and innovative.” These qualities should ensure that he won’t tolerate any of the rancor among teammates that might have shattered their European Cup performance.

Spain has looked almost invincible in recent years, and many favor them to win it all in Brazil. They won't be easy to beat today. But under Van Gaal, this new Netherlands team has a fighting chance. I’m as nervous as any Oranje fan, but I can’t wait to watch.