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Brian Brobbey is a man of few words. Actions, certainly, but not words.
As the sponsors’ player of the match, after the Netherlands rounded off an impressive World Cup group stage with a 3-1 victory over Tunisia in Kansas City, he had certain media obligations. He undertook them with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist.
He was asked about his goal, his third of the tournament. “Luckily, I was in the right place,” the Sunderland forward told reporters. “To be honest, I had a feeling the ball would land there.”
Was that a question of instinct?
“Yes,” the 24-year-old said. “That of a striker, yes.”
Did the stormy conditions present a problem?
“No, it didn’t bother me. Rain is normal in football, so it didn’t bother me.”
Brobbey was questioned about winning the player of the match award. “I don’t know if there is anything to celebrate,” he replied.
Someone had the bright idea of asking him — presumably because the award he was holding bore the name of a beer — who he would fancy having a post-match drink with. This one was met with a suitably blank look.
Moving on, looking ahead to a difficult game against Morocco in the round of 32, how did he and the Netherlands team hope to maintain this positive feeling?
“I think I would just listen to the trainer (Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman) and what he has to say,” came the answer.
The archetypal Dutch centre-forward is headstrong, opinionated, forthright. They are also, in classic cases such as Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Patrick Kluivert, Robin van Persie, blessed with a certain poise, elegance or both.
As a player, as a personality, Brobbey could hardly be more different.
Brobbey is mobbed by his Netherlands team-mates after scoring against Tunisia (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Back in October 2024, when he was enduring a barren spell in front of goal at Ajax, Brobbey was heavily criticised by Van Basten. “You have all kinds of different types of strikers — big, small, fast strikers,” the three-time Ballon d’Or winner said on the Dutch TV show Rondo. “But there are basic principles. He (Brobbey) doesn’t master the basic things.”
For this, Van Basten blamed the much-vaunted Ajax academy, of which he remains one of the most distinguished alumni. He was aghast that the club’s De Toekomst facilities had produced a player so lacking in refinement. “He picks fights with everyone and everything and is always in duels,” Van Basten added. “Always pushing and pulling — and that is not smart.”
Brobbey, brought up in the Zuidoost area of south-east Amsterdam, has spent his whole life battling in one way or another. Yet here he is at the age of 24, playing in the World Cup, scoring goals for the Netherlands — two against Sweden and now one against Tunisia. Only Lionel Messi, Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland have scored more at this edition.
The aggressive approach that Van Basten referred to? At this tournament it has been one of his team’s biggest strengths. Brobbey gave Sweden defender Isak Hien a torrid time during the Netherlands’ 5-1 win in Houston on Saturday. It was a similar story on Thursday for Tunisia defender Ellyes Skhiri, who sliced the ball into his own net for the opening goal and then lost track of Brobbey for the second a few minutes later.
Brobbey is a handful. More than that, he can take a handful. That much was underlined by the sight of the No 17 peeling off the back of Skhiri’s jersey — the legacy of a grapple with Brobbey in the opening 45 minutes. By half-time, Skhiri seemed to have lost everything but the shirt off his back.
Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman celebrating against Tunisia on Thursday in Kansas City (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
There is plenty to be said for getting physical. Much of the refereeing at this World Cup has seemed to be on the lenient side and there are benefits to a centre-forward using power and strength to his advantage, as Brobbey frequently did for Sunderland in the Premier League last season.
The big question is whether the Netherlands will need to add another dimension to their attacking play if they are to win the World Cup for the first time. No team has scored more goals so far, but their 10 have come from just 40 attempts with an expected-goals (xG) return of just 4.66.
That they are outperforming their xG shows they have been clinical in front of goal — three goals for Brobbey and two apiece for Cody Gakpo and Crysencio Summerville, one each for Virgil van Dijk and Jan Paul van Hecke — but it also raises questions about how sustainable that might be.
Their coach Koeman was certainly not getting carried away. In his post-match press conference, he spoke of “sloppy moments that can cost you dearly,” citing not only the second-half goal they conceded to Hazem Mistrouri’s header from a corner, but also their lack of speed in adjusting to moments of transition, both in attack and defence. He said that “sometimes you don’t move along with the ball quite fast enough”.
“That’s my job, isn’t it?” the 63-year-old added. “To keep on telling them and not just say: ‘We won and that’s all.’ These are the areas we need to improve if we want to go on in the tournament.”
It will not be easy. The Netherlands are one of the four group winners who, rather than face a third-placed team in the next round, will face a runner-up. Worse, they face Group C runners-up Morocco, who are seventh (one place behind Brazil, one place behind the Netherlands) in the FIFA rankings and reached the semi-finals in 2022. The fact that the Netherlands, representing a famously flat country, will play Morocco in the altitude and heat of Monterey is not ideal for the Dutch either.
More invitingly, their reward, should they beat Morocco, will be to face South Africa or Canada in the round of 16. Beyond that, it could feasibly be a quarter-final against France or Germany.
Koeman was not looking too far ahead. When it was put to him that his team might be favourites to beat Morocco, he said he was “not sure” that was the case.
Brobbey, meanwhile, had just a couple of words for the Morocco game. He said he expects it to be a “nice battle”.
That would be just the way he likes it. He is a man of actions, not words.
