Gab MarcottiJun 30, 2026, 01:40 AM ETCloseGabriele Marcotti is a senior soccer writer for ESPN.com. Read his archive here and follow him on Twitter: @Marcotti.
Justice was served in Monterey Monday night under the watchful gaze of Cerro de la Silla. Footballing justice, that is. Not because Morocco came to play and, by and large, the Netherlands did not. The object of the game in knockout tournaments isn't to win, it's to advance; by any means necessary. Sometimes setting up defensively, parking the bus and hoping to sneak a goal in the counterattack is the best way to win. But if you're going to do it, you have to be smart about it and do it well. Ronald Koeman's team did neither.
Don't be fooled by the fact that it took 120 minutes, plus injury time, plus hydration breaks, plus penalty kicks to settle Morocco's famous 3-2 shootout win. Or the fact that as the clock ticked into second-half injury-time, the Dutch were actually leading. That was a function of Crysencio Summerville somehow inventing an improbable square ball to Cody Gakpo who, while prone on the ground on his backside, through a combination of improvisation and sheer, dumb luck, buried one of the only two Dutch shots on target in 120-plus minutes. (The other, since you ask, was Micky van de Ven's header with an xG of 0.01).
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The reality is that Koeman's opted for a muscular, bunker set-up and never quite wavered. A back three of Jan Paul van Hecke, Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Aké (yes, the guy who started 14 league games for Manchester City in the past two seasons). The jacked Denzel Dumfries on the right and the man-mountain Van de Ven on the left. Two holding midfielders like Ryan Gravenberch and Frenkie de Jong. Up front, another blue-collar guy like Gakpo and the muscle-bound bowling ball that is Brian Brobbey. Plus, the one concession to aesthetics, the tricky, fleet-footed Summerville.
Assuming Johan Cruyff -- whatever better place he's in right now -- was watching, you just know that he was shaking his head. Maybe a tear trickled gently down this cheek too. Are these my heirs? My footballing grandchildren?
If you want to set up that way, you'd better execute. Either by physically dominating the opposition or by being dangerous on the counter. The Oranje managed neither. Achraf Hakimi hit the woodwork for Morocco, twice. Azzedine Ounahi dispensed magic and bruises. Brobbey, monstered by Issa Diop and Chadi Riad, managed to get one more touch in the opposition box than James Corden, and just as many shots (zero). Putting together a measly xG of 0.23 when the game goes all the way to extra time is objectively tough, but, somehow, Koeman succeeded.
Sure, this is a low-scoring sport and a diabolical one (how else to explain that it took Morocco until Diop's thumping injury-time header to get past Bart Verbruggen?) and Koeman can tell himself that his plan nearly worked.
You don't plan on getting beaten to a pulp. Nobody does. And, while we're at it, you don't plan for whatever magic Verbruggen channeled in extra-time when Soufiane Rahimi -- with a huge gaping goal to shoot at it from a few yards out -- somehow fired home only to see the ball ricochet off the Dutch keeper's thigh and on to his outstretched arm.
Koeman's futility included bizarro substitutions, like sending on the statuesque -- in terms of mobility, not physique -- Wout Weghorst instead of, say, Memphis Depay or Donyell Malen, actual goalscorers. Or, just as Morocco are chasing the equaliser and getting set-pieces replacing your tallest defender (Van de Ven) with barely six-foot tall Jorrel Hato.
But none of this should take away from Morocco's performance.
They were calm, collected and determined to let their superior quality shine through. Coach Mohamed Ouahbi looks about as comfortable on the sidelines as an accountant dragged in to judge a wet T-shirt contest. But, compared to four years ago, Ouahbi has turned his side from a reactive one to a proactive one and tapped into their attacking potential in a way that his predecessor Walid Regraoui never could. Go back and watch Morocco's run to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar. The shirts may be the same, some of the players may be the same, but the football isn't. This group has taken a hard handbrake turn into playing like a legitimate powerhouse, with no fear, and are now more than comfortable taking the game to the opposition.
They may or may not get as far at the World Cup as four years ago, when they came within 90 minutes of the final. And, to some, that's what will matter. But they've already made their point. The FIFA ranking (No. 7 in the world) is not an accident. They're among the world's best, and they showed it on Monday.
That's why the gods of football smiled on them in the shootout, even as they trolled them before that. Ultimately, they too wanted to see the better team advance.
Source: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49222769/koemans-lack-dutch-courage-exposed-magnificent-morocco