As was expected Serbia just defended a lot, leaving little space for any attacks. From the get-go they were quite physical as well with multiple rough fouls, including one on Gakpo which eventually led to him being subbed out. Luckily for us that physicality eventually got us a penalty, albeit a weak one, but still a pen in my opinion. I’m happy Mexx Meerdink was confident and immediately stepped up to take it, a confident striker is really what we miss, and he took it well. We started very bad in the second half, defense was sleeping and Verbruggen bailed us out with a double save, but that was not enough. After that it stayed rather poor. Getting Guus Til in helped immediately with a good assist of him and an even better goal from Meerdink, proper strikers goal. I’m not very sure what to think of this performance, there’s good things i saw and bad things i saw. Mostly that was good is Mexx Meerdink, and also a solid midfield. But defensively we were bad, and offensively we lacked creativity but it’s also tough against such a low-block. Though despite that all i already see improvement compared to the Koeman era. It’s only the second game under Xavi, so if it continues to improve it’s sure to be exciting in two years time. I’m also glad more Eredivisie players are important, in a way you can say it’s good that all our best players were in big leagues, but for the league it’s important that we have good players as well and we definitely have those. Man of the match is the easiest decision, obviously Meerdink, it can’t be anyone else. He was the second player this century to score his first goal for Netherlands from the spot, after Vincent Janssen in 2016.