Koeman: “We are not yet at the level of France”

In the worst possible way, Ronald Koeman’s return to the bench was made for the Netherlands, who were beaten 4-0 by France in the Euro 2024 qualifiers, with both teams in Greece’s national group. The Dutch coach criticized his players for this particular result and emphasized that the team is at a lower level than the “tricolors”.

“We showed very little in this game“, he initially said at the press conference that followed the match against the French and added:

“I didn’t expect such a gap. Not the team I had in mind to field, but you know the circumstances. I don’t want to justify this poor performance. We should have been much more aggressive and made fewer mistakes. There was nothing very positive. We showed great deficiencies in all areas of the game».

The national coach then expressed his dismay at the way the Netherlands conceded two of the four goals: “What hurts is that the first and fourth goals came from defensive mistakes and of course it’s also down to the quality of Bape. We had identified that we had to be very careful with these moves and we didn’t pay enough attention after all. France is a very strong team. They are complete, fit and quick, especially in attack, and have world-class players in all areas. And we are not at that level yet».