Liverpool fans watching the Netherlands dismantle Sweden 5-1 might have felt a familiar frustration. Cody Gakpo did the thing he does in an orange shirt. The thing he does less and less in red.
Fifty-fourth minute. Ball on the left edge of the box. Cuts inside onto his right foot. And instead of skying it into Row Z the way Premier League Gakpo sometimes does, this version stayed composed, picked his spot, and drilled it past Kristoffer Nordfeldt. Two goals on the night. Five in seven World Cup matches now. Twenty-three in 52 international caps.
That puts him at better than a goal every other game for the Netherlands. His Liverpool numbers are fine. Fifty goals in 180 matches. But fine isn’t what anyone expected when he showed up from PSV after scoring in all three group games in Qatar.
Last season he dropped to nine goals in 52 appearances. The guy who looked like a star in the making has started looking more like a rotation piece.
What Gakpo said about the difference
When a reporter asked him why he plays so much better for the national team, Gakpo didn’t dodge. He just sort of talked around it until he realized he might be saying too much.
“It’s a little bit different,” he said. “How I play here, where the coach wants me to be, the freedom that I have at the club.” Then he trailed off and added, “That’s it basically.”
The implication is pretty clear. Ronald Koeman gives him a freer role than Arne Slot does at Liverpool. And Gakpo benefits from playing alongside Brian Brobbey, the Sunderland striker who spent 90 minutes bullying Sweden’s backline. Atalanta’s Isak Hien had no answer for Brobbey’s strength and burst. The guy had one goal in 13 caps coming into this game and walked away with two.
“We knew his qualities,” Gakpo said, laughing. “He’s very strong. Very, very strong. His hold-up play and coming at the right time into the box is amazing. We used him very well today.”
The Dutch attack nobody believed in
Before the tournament, the storyline was straightforward. Netherlands defense? Elite. Van Dijk, Van de Ven, Dumfries. Midfield? As good as any at the World Cup with Gravenberch, De Jong and Reijnders. But where would the goals come from? Brobbey was unproven. Gakpo had been inconsistent for Liverpool. Crysencio Summerville got relegated with West Ham. Memphis Depay and Wout Weghorst are still around, which mostly just showed that nobody younger had stepped up.
Then Koeman dropped Summerville for Brobbey after the 2-2 draw with Japan, and suddenly the attack looked fluid and dangerous. Brobbey and Gakpo scored two each. Summerville got the fifth. Gakpo, Summerville, Memphis and Dumfries all picked up assists. Two of those came from Dumfries bombing forward from right back.
“Japan were very disciplined, not big chances like today,” Gakpo said. “Today there was more variation in attacking play, different positions, movement, so it was more difficult for defenders to mark us. That was maybe the little thing we missed in the last game.”
He also pointed out that the bench still has Justin Kluivert and Weghorst waiting. Depth that actually works. The question now is whether Koeman can keep this version of Gakpo going. And whether Liverpool fans will ever get to see it at Anfield again.
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