EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Dutch coach Frans Hoek tells inside story of Tim Krul's World Cup heroics

It proved to be one of the greatest substitutions ever with Krul saving two penalties -  and being very close to stopping the others - to send the Dutch through, and it was one that Hoek had begun thinking about with long-time collaborator Louis van Gaal - who he also worked with at Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United - years earlier as they pondered how to improve their nation’s poor record in shootouts. 

“The situation was - well, there was a little bit of history, the national team has a history with penalty kicks and we are not that lucky,” he told Flashscore in an exclusive interview on the nine-year anniversary of that night.

“So the moment that we chose the final squad, we came together in Holland and I had the goalkeepers there. I started to talk to them (saying) ‘Okay, you know, it's six weeks before we go to the World Cup, which means we also have to talk about possible penalty shootouts.’ So it started there.”

Hoek quickly determined that none of the three goalkeepers in the squad - first-choice Jasper Cillessen, Michel Vorm and Krul - specialised in saving spot-kicks so, using his own experiences from his playing career, began to focus on the mental side of things. In this area, the latter began to stand out.

“I took the penalties of my team as a goalkeeper so that was the experience I had, of the moment you have to take the penalty kick and trying to save them,” he said. “I took about 40 or something like that, so I got some experience.”

“If I walk up, put the ball down and shoot and that's it, simple. But the moment I walked up and there was an injury, for example, it was a different story. You had to wait. The player started to talk to you, the opponent. I started to think, wow, if I miss, I have to run back because otherwise… you know? So it was disturbing. I became less convinced that I would score and I took those experiences with me.

“And you need to be a (certain) kind of person to try to influence the opponent, which Jasper is not. Michelle is not like that, and Tim is like that, or he at least had it in him… we had been working and it was clear that Tim was the most impressive. He was very big, had an incredible reach, but he also had that mentality to disrupt the opponent. He's from the Hague, and they are like, you know, a bit like guys from Amsterdam, they don't give a (damn) about anything. They just go for it.”

With Cillessen also failing to save penalties against Spain and Australia, the decision was made by Hoek and Van Gaal to bring Krul on if the team ended up in a penalty shootout against Costa Rica, and to only inform Krul of that decision, leaving Cillessen in the dark.

“If you are going to announce this too early, it will be influencing Jasper in his game. If you do it too late, Tim will not be prepared,” Hoek recalls. “So we decided actually the night before to make it clear (to Krul).

"So, uh, the next morning, I sit down with Tim and have a talk with him. I said to him: ‘So Tim, if it happens, if we go to penalty kicks, what would you do?’ 

“He said: ‘Put me in… I'm the best. You've seen it. I'm big, I provoke, I have the best reach, I can wait.’ That's more or less what he said, then I said ‘Okay, I agree. I agree completely with you. When there are penalty kicks, you go in.’”

“I said ‘You now have time to digest it, to prepare yourself, but don't do anything else, only exactly what we have been working on and practising on,’ and well, you could see that there was really something happening inside of him.”

When the moment came, Krul rose to the occasion. He intimidated the Costa Rica players, went the right way for every penalty and saved two of them to send the Netherlands through to the semis. 

When he did so, Cillessen - who was initially furious when he was subbed off - was one of the first to celebrate with him, but it did take some time for Hoek to calm him down.

“When he came off,” he remembers, “I said ‘Jasper, listen, I’ll explain why we changed you, but you need to know that you’ll play the next game.

“He was of course influenced by it. He kicked the water bottles, for example. It was like a kind of frustration, and he needed some time to digest it. We are not crazy, we are not stupid. We understood that. So I spoke to him, and it was difficult for him. The next day, he called and said he still wanted to talk about it. So I explained again, and then I said: 

“‘Listen, we try to make the right decision for the team because nothing is more important than the team. You are a very important part of the team. You played so far a very good World Cup, but for penalty kicks, we are convinced that Tim would be a better job’ and I gave him the reasons. ‘Okay, you can disagree with that, but that's the decision that has been made. So digest it and prepare for the game against Argentina. You have to show that you are over it because if not, it could be a problem.’”

Cillessen performed well against Argentina and this time remained in goal for the penalty shootout, with Van Gaal deciding to use his last sub to introduce Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and go for the win in extra time instead of bringing on Krul. 

The Dutch couldn’t break the deadlock though, and this time lost on penalties with their goalkeeper failing to save any. 

Nevertheless, Hoek has no issues with the decision that the manager made that night.

“Louis always has to make the final decision. He is the one, you know? We are assistants, we are coming with ideas, and then he has to make a final decision,” he said.

“And he had the feeling because of how the game went that we had a big chance to score the winning goal during the game. And of course, when he brought on Klaas it worked in the other games. And Robin was tired, he had a little bit of an injury, so Louis made the decision to bring him off.

“What we always do is, and that's the beauty of when you have good cooperation, is discuss it and ask what are the pros, what are the cons, and then we say ‘Okay, this is an option, this is an option’ and then in the end, Louis decides, and what I always say is whatever the decision is, you have to follow it 100% because you have to be a team. You expect that on and off the pitch.”

Van Gaal and Hoek would return to the helm for the 2022 World Cup, where the team was once again knocked out on penalties by Argentina. They wanted to take Krul with them to Qatar but he wasn’t keen on going, and without him to bring on, they narrowly lost the shootout 4-3 to the eventual champions.

Across the two tournaments that the coaching staff took charge of, the team didn’t lose a single match in open play, being knocked out on both occasions in the only part of the game that they had limited control of. Looking back at that record, Hoek feels pride but, more than anything, frustration. 

“Frustration,” he said when which emotion he feels more of. “The thing is, we went in 2014 and the whole country had an opinion that we shouldn't even be there, and then things happen and you play Argentina and you are so close to the final and to the World Cup… 

“And it's the same for this World Cup. People forget that in 2018, Holland did not qualify. People forget at the moment that Louis took over, we had to play in three days against Norway; if we had lost, we would not have qualified for the World Cup. So what I look back at is: we didn’t qualify in 2018, it was not easy to qualify in 2022, and then we were in the final eight and with a bit of luck, could have been in the final four. 

“So it's frustrating when you are that close and it's frustrating when you don't make it because of the penalty kicks… and to be fair, you cannot say anything negative about the players. In 2014 and in 2022, I have to say, the guys really were a team and really gave everything they had. So it's not that you can blame them, not at all. But if you are that close, it's frustrating.”

Nevertheless, he is proud of the legacy left by that now-famous substitution that he and Van Gaal made on that fateful night in Salvador. 

“It's a memorable moment because, when you see what comes after is that, you know, they take it as a reference point,” he said.

“I mean, we are now almost 10 years ahead and you can see people think about substituting (during shootouts) and they mention it (the Krul substitution) all the time. 

“So it definitely is a point of reference in the history of penalty kicks. I do like that.”