Van Marwijk refuses to discuss future
Reuters - Sunday 17 June 2012, 22:45
Coach Bert van Marwijk took
full responsibility for the Netherlands' huge failure at Euro
2012 but said he was not discussing his future.
The Dutch crashed out of the tournament after their third
straight loss in Group B when they went down 2-1 to Portugal on
Sunday, Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice after Rafael van der
Vaart had grabbed the lead.
"I am responsible that we failed in this tournament, but I
have a contract to 2016 [World Cup] and at the moment I am not
thinking about my future," he told reporters at the Metalist
Stadium.
"We started every match well, we started well tonight and
the scenario was right at first, but then you have to keep that
advantage and force your opponent to take more risks.
"But we didn't do that and then we gave away two goals too
easily.
"I could see from my position with the equaliser, we made a
mistake and were punished for it."
Heading into the game, the Netherlands only had a slight
chance of advancing to the last eight after losing their opening
two matches to Denmark and Germany.
Van Marwijk said it was always going to be difficult to
progress after the awful start they had made to the competition.
"This was a special situation. If you play a final and draw
it can go to penalties and you can win it that way, but we had
to win by a two-goal difference - so we had to take risks and
go forward.
"It started well, but then we didn't finish the job.
"Now is not the time to talk about my future right now. I am
not thinking about it."
He also said he had tried to improve the team that lost to
Spain in the World Cup final two years ago but acknowledged the
balance may not be quite right.
"We have a lot of quality in the team. It's basically the
same team as two years ago apart from one or two positions. We
needed more pace and youth to make it better and have more
strength in depth," he remarked.
"It's not an easy process and it was going to be difficult
to repeat what we did two years ago, but although we started
well today, mistakes let Portugal back into the game and that
was the difference."
Van Marwijk also appeared to get the backing of the Dutch FA
after the game when KNVB director Bert van Oostveen said: "I
think this coach deserves some credit as he guided us to the
World Cup final and also without any problems through two
qualifying campaigns."