Moving the ball forward the last 10-15 yards on someone's boot instead of passing, then making lateral passes into the area level with or slightly behind the attacking player would be a valid and obvious tactic to break the offside trap. Robben should have been taking the ball into the deep right corner and crossing it in all game, he overpowered the defence with speed to the outside every time he did try that tactic, instead of the more common move where he was trying to take it inside past multiple defenders guarding the box.
I agree with Itse, it's not like the trap was invented yesterday and came as an astounding surprise that flummoxed the whole world; the coach should have expected it and had his players ready to deal with it. And at the very least, after half-time there should have been less offsides, but instead it seemed the Dutch thought "more of the same, except same-ier!" would get them a breakthrough.
It would be different if this was a team that themselves relied on defence to win, but this is supposedly one of, if not the, highest scoring teams in the tournament. And they couldn't score (lucky or not) against Costa Rica? Outcoached, not outplayed - until the end of the game, when putting in the sub keeper was admittedly a good plan, although only because the main keeper is known to be terrible at PKs.
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Better educated sadness than oblivious joy.
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