The Netherlands lost to Morocco in a penalty shootout in the FIFA World Cup round of 16. Koopmeiners was interviewed by Dutch media outlet nos after the match.

Tonight was a very difficult night for you. How do you view this match?

It was a very intense match, with many chances for both sides, and the game's momentum kept changing. Sometimes we created threats, and sometimes the opponent took the initiative. In the end, the opponent equalized near the end of the match, and then it went to a penalty shootout.

You have always been a player who provides clear post-match analysis. You just mentioned that we had many chances, but there are also some voices from outside who believe that after changing the formation, the chances did not significantly increase.

Yes, but as you know, at 90 minutes, we were leading 1-0. That's a fact. So many things are "what if," but it's pointless to talk about them now. When the game reached 90 minutes and we were still leading, it showed that this system was effective. If we could have finished the game smoothly, there would have been no problem.

I also agree with you that there were times when we could have controlled the ball better and been calmer on the field. If we could have kept possession for longer, perhaps we could have created more truly threatening chances. However, we made this decision before the match because we believed it would better leverage our strengths with this lineup. There were some phases where we did achieve this, but there were also some phases where I think we could have done better. Additionally, when we played in a 4-3-3 formation before, we also felt there were areas for improvement and areas where we did well. So all of these are just post-match assumptions now.

How is this kind of adjustment usually formed? Who proposed it? Was it the head coach? He also mentioned that he communicated with players individually and discussed it with the whole team. What was this process like?

This was the result of a collective discussion. We would propose different game scenarios, imagine various situations, and also analyze opponents and watch game footage. So this wasn't a temporary solution that just came to mind, but rather it was thoroughly analyzed and discussed within the team, and also practiced in training. Therefore, we were prepared in this regard.

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