What Went Wrong for Louis van Gaal & Netherlands

Louis van Gaal will manage his final game for Netherlands when the nation faces hosts Brazil in the 3rd place play-off.
The experienced manager will then be off to join his new team Manchester United and prepare them for next season.
When the Dutch absolutely dismantled reigning world champions Spain in their opening game, many fans expected that this could be their year to lift the World Cup.
However, once again the three time World Cup finalists could not deliver and were ousted by Argentina on penalties in the semis.
Without doubt, Netherlands were the best side in the world cup during the group stages. Not only did they win all their games in a difficult group, the Dutch scored highest number of goals (10) as well.
However, in the Knockout rounds, late goals somehow helped the Dutch past Mexico in the last 16 but they could not even score a single goal in the next two games and eventually bowed out on penalties.
Van Gaal shifted to more defensive approach, not only that, his best players turned off as well. The manager was praised for bringing Tim Krul on for the shootout against Costa Rica but what most failed to comment on was that the Americans out-tacticed Netherlands for 120 minutes.
The likes of England, Italy and Netherlands were not able to score against Costa Rica, Uruguay only scored from a penalty kick while Greece were the only ones to score from open play against them.
Robin van Persie was normally found sulking in offside positions and did not really turn up (was not fully fit) in the KO games. Wesley Sneijder was far from him best as well.
Once again, against Argentina, Van Gaal focused more on defense keeping a strong back line with 2 wing backs of which only Kuyt went forward at times to help in attack. Else, too much responsibility rested on the shoulders of Arjen Robben and there is so much one can do at times.
Nevertheless, United supporters know that they are getting one of the best managers in the world but perhaps this will be Van Gaal’s biggest and most difficult job.
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