Lodewijk De Kruif (L) and Rene Koster speaking at a press conference at the BFF House yesterday. PHOTO: COURTESY

Dutch coaches Lodewijk de Kruif and Rene Koster conducted a brief classroom session with the national booters to give them some idea about Dutch style of football, after their arrival in Dhaka yesterday. The Dutch duo has come here to guide Bangladesh to the AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers in March.
In the brief session, the Dutch duo focused on four key moments – recovering possession with a plan, keeping possession, planning what to do with possession and what to do if you lose the ball. The class also emphasised on the build up of attack from defence, without using the long ball while at the same time exert maximum pressure on the opposition midfield and backline to score. The formation used by the coaches was 4-2-3-1.
“I talked a little bit about the Dutch school of football and football in general. I also talked about the differences and the comparisons between European and Asian football and how we want to play,” said De Kruif after the session at the BFF House yesterday.
Later De Kruif conducted a training session under the floodlights at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.
The Dutchman also said that they discussed tactical things but didn't want to pressure the players at the moment.
“You want results and that is what we will be working on. Practically we don't know much about the players and the opponents -- Palestine, Nepal and Mariana Island – which is the difficult thing, but we can't run away from them,” said De Kruif.
“I've seen 80 per cent of the players of the national team during the league matches, even though it was not adequate for judging them. We have to start from somewhere and we want to build a good team,” said the Dutchman. “The job will be to judge the quality of the players and the level of their adaptation, and then we can sort out the areas that we will have to work on.”
De Kruif said he watched video footage of the recent match between Palestine and India which Palestine won 4-2. “Definitely we have to be prepared well to produce a good result against them [Palestine]. We will have plan for them.”