Arjen Robben revelling in key role

Rio de Janeiro: Always appearing older than he is, the 30-year-old Arjen Robben seems to have been around, fully formed for years.

But what we are seeing at this World Cup is a player at last coming of age. He is a player finally melding his considerable physical gifts with tactical application. He has found his time and his role. And it has taken many by surprise, not least in his homeland.

“He has reached a whole new level,” says the Dutch journalist Elko Born. “We Dutch knew he was good, knew he was important. But we didn’t see this coming. What we are seeing is amazing.”

One statistic is particularly astonishing. When he made his surging run past the Spanish defence for one of the goals that deposed the world champions, he was clocked at 19.3mph. He has always been quick. But in the past his pace was frequently compromised by injury. His two previous World Cups, in 2006 and 2010, were undermined by knocks.

Chelsea followers will remember him being struck down with niggles almost as a matter of course. His vulnerability stalled his attacking instincts, made him cautious.

Coupled with a propensity for going to ground at the merest hint of a following wind and an apparent allergy to passing the ball, he did not often top the popularity polls in the English game. Not many thought Jose Mourinho had made a mistake when he sanctioned his move to Real Madrid in the summer of 2007.

It was not until he arrived at Bayern Munich in 2009, bought by his current national manager Louis van Gaal, that Robben finally began to shake off the injury blight and play to his potential. But even then, although his pace was more frequently unleashed, he remained essentially a peripheral player, a touchline-hugger whose game was entirely predictable: if on the right he would cut in to use his left foot; if on the left he would stay there until he ran out of space.

As Manchester United discovered in the 2012 Champions League quarter-final, knowing what he might do and stopping him doing it were two different things. Yet still he could be seen as the icing on the cake rather than the key ingredient.

It was not until Pep Guardiola arrived as Bayern manager last summer that the true Robben began to emerge. The Spaniard gave him a free role behind the central striker and instructed him to move around the pitch seeking space and openings. From a one-dimensional flier he grew into a highly versatile playmaker. With his fitness no longer undermined, with his pace now unleashed, and with his confidence freshly emboldened, he was at last performing consistently as the player he always threatened to be.

Even so, his performances with Holland at this tournament have been greater than anyone expected. Except, perhaps, Van Gaal.

“Van Gaal is very good at letting important players know they are important,” says Born. “He let Robben know he has faith in him.”

He did that partly by basing the entire Dutch game plan around him and his forward colleague Robin van Persie. Playing a defensive 5-3-2 formation, Van Gaal has gone into this competition utterly dependent on Robben and Van Persie’s abilities on the breakaway. And so far, the pair are rewarding him handsomely.

Not that everyone in Holland is delighted by the sight of Robben pinning back his ears and tearing goalwards after being released by a long ball out of defence. To the purist brought up on Johan Cruyff and total football it was reckoned close to sacrilege that, against Spain, the Dutch enjoyed only 35 per cent of the ball.

Never mind the victory, think of the possession statistics. It is an attitude with which Van Gaal has little patience.

As far as he is concerned, his Robben-based counter-attacking system is the one which best exploits the strengths of the personnel available. At a press conference after the 2-0 victory over Chile, Van Gaal said: “We’re not giving away very much, but we’re creating a lot. If I didn’t do that, you’d chop off my head. I played like this with AZ [Alkmaar] and won the championship. We only ever want to score one goal more than the opponents.”