Dwight Lodeweges enjoyed his debut as national coach of the Dutch national team on Friday evening. The Canadian born received a message from his predecessor Ronald Koeman after the Nations League match against Poland (1-0 win).
“This was a nice evening like this. I already saw that Ronald had already sent me a message with congratulations. He spoke of a very good second half, so that is nice”, said 62-year-old Lodeweges in the Johan Cruijff ArenA against the WE.
Lodeweges was initially the assistant of Koeman, but due to his departure to FC Barcelona, he is doing the honors as interim national coach of Orange for the time being. For the players it was not only the first match under Lodeweges, but also the first performance since November 2019.
“Certain things are still rusty and then you see that we last met nine months ago. But in general I am very satisfied,” said Lodeweges, the first national coach since Frank Rijkaard (1998). debut game as Orange with ultimate responsibility wins.
‘Wasn’t a night for debutants’
The former trainer of NEC, Cambuur and sc Heerenveen, among others, saw that his team had difficulty with defensive Poland, especially before the break. In the second half, the Orange came out better and it quickly became 1-0 via Steven Bergwijn.
“In our way of playing it is important to have depth in our game and that was not enough in the first half. But against a team that dropped so far it is also very difficult. After the break we did better, but I thought the 1-0 score is too stuffy to bring in debutants “, said Lodeweges about bench holders Perr Schuurs, Owen Wijndal and Mohamed Ihattaren.
Due to the victory over Poland, the Orange started the Nations League very well. The Lodeweges team continues the national tournament, which replaces the exhibition matches, on Monday-evening with a home game against Italy.
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