It was with him that the Netherlands’ shootout woes in the European Championship final began Saturday. Jorrit Croon missed face-to-face with Germany goalie Jean-Paul Danneberg. A setback that the Netherlands could not overcame. The midfielder is normally a certainty, a real specialist. Now his attempt failed from the start, when he started a bit late.
Croon was one of the first to report to the press on Saturday evening after the lost European Championship final against Germany. Smiling, he responded to a joke. That he did not yet have this European Championship medal in his collection. ‘I don’t need this one either,’ says the Bloemendaler ad rem.
Of course, he immediately thinks back to the moment when he could have shot Orange to equalize. The potential 1-1. Or should have shot, if you look at Croon’s numbers. He took advantage of sixteen of his nineteen previous attempts. But number twenty is thus one to quickly forget. ‘Just goes to show that those statistics are no guarantee. I have to say that the shoot-out went weird. The buzzer went. But the goalie wasn’t ready on his goal line. And the referee didn’t indicate anything, either, that I could start. I was still waiting. Was then a little surprised by the fact that we were already starting. ‘So is it my turn already,’ I asked myself.
There was a lack of clarity. Or I wasn’t paying attention. But it was not clear to me that the shoot-out could begin. Jorrit Croon
‘Above all, I didn’t want to be fooled. Straight through. In the end I came up two tenths of a second short. I haven’t seen it again. But of course I regret that it goes that way. There was some confusion. Or I wasn’t paying attention. But for me it was not clear that the shoot-out could start. If you make that one, you are well into the series. Now you are immediately behind. That is incredibly sour. Summing up, “It went very fast, those eight seconds.
Photo: Willem Vernes
Orange did not chill the game
The lost shoot-out series is at odds with the match, in which the Netherlands dominated. ‘We did. But it wasn’t enough in regular playing time. We can blame ourselves for not finishing. That we didn’t win within sixty minutes. Other than that, I think we can be very satisfied. How we presented ourselves, what Orange stands for. We ran the balls out of our pants. Put high pressure. Kept Germany far from our goal. On the ball it was good. We kept chasing a goal even in the last minute.’
With a sigh. ‘It’s just a shame we didn’t kill the match. Everyone would have felt that was justified, I think. But that’s not how it works in top sport. If you don’t do it then, the differences in the shoot-outs are very small again. And in that, Germany simply did better.’
Photo: Willem Vernes
The end of that beautiful series
Those shoot-outs had recently become a weapon of the Dutch. The last eight series were won by the Netherlands. A world record in shoot-out land. ‘Enough has been said and written about that,’ Croon refers to the articles made about it in the run-up to and also during the tournament. ‘Yes, we went into it with a lot of confidence. But of course we didn’t think we would automatically win it because of the past. We put the same attention into it. Watched hours of laptops with images of Germany. Trained a lot on it ourselves, even in recent weeks here. So the preparation wasn’t the problem.
For the first time at a tournament, the Netherlands was the prey instead of the hunter. Of course, that was a result of the Games won in Paris. ‘But we did not think for a second: we are at the top, we won something, now we can slacken off. No, we looked even more critically. We threw even more energy at it. That is also necessary if you want to stay on top. And even then you can come up short.
The differences between us and Germany are small. That was so in Paris, that was also so now. But the feeling, what belongs to gold or silver is again very far apart.’ Another sigh. ‘I think it’s just under a year until the World Cup at home. I’m already looking forward to that.’
