Netherlands, Xavi tries Koopmeiners at centre-back: the goal brings confidence, but this is not his future
The bid to relaunch the talent of Teun Koopmeiners has started in a way nobody in the Netherlands would have expected. Xavi, the new head coach, has pushed hard in his first three matches to establish a bold, attack-minded style of play. Yet he still surprised everyone in the Nations League game against Serbia by naming the Juventus player in the starting line-up as a centre-back and not as a midfielder.
Xavi’s choice
For the style of play he wants to implement, quick in tight spaces and at times vertical, Koopmeiners does not have the tempo to play in the middle of the midfield Xavi has in mind. The former Atalanta player's basic technique could still be useful in several ways over the course of a match and that has led to the idea of trying him alongside Virgil Van Dijk as the left-sided centre-back in his back four as an alternative to Aké.
Xavi wants a fluid ball-carrying outlet from the left, and a player in that area of the pitch who can, with his head up, look in behind when needed or make use of his switches of play. On top of that, of course, there is also the desire to make use of the Juventus player's left foot, a major weapon from all set-pieces.
The goal gives confidence
One of the two flashes of brilliance Koopmeiners produced in this match came from a set piece, and both, of course, were free-kicks.
In the 31st minute, he broke the deadlock with a free-kick from the right edge of the box, whipped with lift and pace across the penalty area. No one really got a touch and the ball flew straight into the net.
Early in the second half, around the 50th minute, he stepped up for another free-kick, this time from a more central position, and drove it low under the wall. A last-gasp deflection very nearly wrong-footed Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, who still reacted well to save.
It is not the future
The match will certainly give him morale and confidence, but at least at Juventus this is not the role to relaunch him or shape his future. Alongside his attacking threat and some decent use of the ball, Koopmeiners also struggled at key moments in what should be a defender's most important basic task: marking and getting between the opponent and the goal.
For Serbia's goal for 1-1, he, along with Reijnders and even to some extent Van Dijk, was completely out of position and failed to pick up the nearby man. The clearest chance to expose all his limitations in that role came at the start of the second half, when a vertical ball played in behind him for Cvetkovic forced him to chase the Serbian striker for 30 metres.
Struggling in the chase, Koopmeiners then tried to stop him with a sliding tackle, but Cvetkovic beat him far too easily and had the whole goal to aim at. Fortunately for him, Cvetkovic's curling effort went wide, but the positioning and the attempted defensive intervention told the full story of his difficulty.
