Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben have embraced their coach’s counterattacking style but Holland must reach the semi-finals to keep Johan Cruyff and the other critics at bay

We are a strange nation,” shrugs one of the Dutch reporters squinting at Louis van Gaal putting his squad through its paces on a sunny morning at Flamengo’s training ground in Rio’s upmarket Leblon before Sunday’s last-16 match with Mexico. Before this Holland side left for Brazil, amid much discussion about whether Van Gaal’s defensive tactics were betraying the attacking traditions of the Total Football so memorably minted by Johan Cruyff’s side in 1974, only 5% of the public thought they could reach the final.

Many said that they could not remember expectations being so low before a major tournament and agreed that getting out of the group stages would be a big achievement. After they had blown away the reigning champions Spain in their opening game – a 5-1 evisceration illuminated by Robin van Persie’s swan-dive header – almost a third of the country expected them to win the World Cup.

Yet even as Van Gaal, bound for Old Trafford once he has taken this comparatively callow Dutch squad as far as he can in Brazil, has led his side to maximum points in the group stage an undercurrent of disquiet has remained. In a manner not entirely dissimilar to Sir Alex Ferguson, the man whose achievements at Manchester United he will ultimately be measured against, Van Gaal has spent his press conferences here taking on enemies real and imagined and circling the wagons around his players.

Amid digs at Fifa over scheduling and the quality of refereeing that led to what he described as two incorrect penalties and the unfair suspension of his captain and confidante Van Persie, he has jousted with the Dutch press over his tactics. Like the public they have been forced to come round to a 5-3-2 system – which can be switched to 4-3-3 in extremis as against Australia when they needed to come from behind to win – that Van Gaal insists suits his players best.

“You have to allow your squad to play according to the qualities they have. If I had tried to play 4-3-3 we would have been overrun by them,” said the 62-year-old following the canny 2-0 victory over Chile that ensured they topped the group and avoided the hosts Brazil in the second round. “It’s all about winning. I want to win. I’m going to pick a system that will help me win,” added Van Gaal, who is still haunted by his first two-year spell as national coach.

That ended in ignominy in 2002 when he failed to qualify for the World Cup in South Korea and Japan. Despite a stellar club career at Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and elsewhere it has remained a blot on an otherwise unimpeachable CV. Returning for a second spell following the three group stage losses that led to an early exit at Euro 2012, he faced criticism over his style and that attritional approach to the press.

But Holland’s run to the second phase – that jaw-dropping win over Spain followed by a backs-to-the-wall comeback against Australia and a tactically astute late victory over Chile – has been driven by a marked unity of purpose and togetherness. In a Dutch squad not preconditioned to the schisms of previous tournaments, the young domestically-based players, such as Stefan de Vrij, Daley Blind and Memphis Depay, have completely bought into the philosophy espoused by their coach and their senior colleagues.

Crucially, Van Persie and his vice-captain Arjen Robben – in the form of his life and capable of piercing any defence in this competition with his direct running – have become Van Gaal’s missionaries on the pitch. Alongside the fellow senior professionals Wesley Sneijder and Nigel de Jong they have formed the backbone of a young side that plays with no fear.

Despite his spiky relationship with the media, Van Gaal is no dictator – more shades of Ferguson. A few weeks before the Dutch squad gathered – the domestic players on 7 May and their internationally-based colleagues two weeks later – Van Gaal held talks with Van Persie and Robben over his planned tactics. Mindful that he did not have the players to implement the expansive football the Dutch public demanded, he sought to bring on board the captain with whom he now enjoys a relationship built on complete mutual trust.

Van Persie, who was in Holland recuperating from a knee injury, enthusiastically agreed when the pair met in the spring to watch two matches together and study the 5-3-2 system. Bayern Munich’s Robben also came on board when he was consulted by telephone. Van Gaal later said that without that approval from his senior players he would have abandoned the idea.

Dirk Kuyt, the former Liverpool striker who was successfully used as an extra wing-back in a five-man defence against Chile, said after that match the squad had total faith in Van Gaal. “He’s a high-quality coach and we know that every time he tells us how to play, it works,” he said after winning his 99th cap. “We have scored goals, many goals, so we are very happy and satisfied with the way it is going.”

Holland’s understated training camp – the only outward clue that the Dutch have taken over the famous old facilities used by Zico’s Flamengo being the fact the wooden door has been painted orange – is imbued with an atmosphere of relaxed good humour.

The former striker Patrick Kluivert has been described by Van Gaal as the “lynchpin” between the coaching staff and the players. “I must say that the atmosphere is unbelievable, it’s fantastic,” said Van Gaal. “The atmosphere in the team is wonderful and all the players are focusing on one single thing – to be in the final. It’s important to have that faith.”

In truth, Holland have been moving away from the flair and magnetism that ran like an Oranje thread through the teams of Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Ruud Gullit and Dennis Bergkamp towards a more pragmatic style for some time. The 2006 “Battle of Nuremberg” in which they went home after losing 1-0 to Portugal in a match with 16 yellow and four red cards, was followed by their often attritional run to the final under Bert van Marwijk in 2010.

That campaign in South Africa, which included victory over Brazil in the quarter-finals, sacrificed beauty for results and a narrow defeat to Spain in the final is remembered mainly for the nine yellow cards incurred. Cruyff, who has been a thorn in Van Gaal’s side in his prominent national newspaper column, called the 2010 vintage “ugly” and “vulgar” and has also been critical of the style employed in Brazil.

But Van Gaal is not easily given to self doubt and has been vindicated by the thrilling counterattacking football that has seen his side plunder 10 goals to date. If that is to continue against Mexico, they will need Van Persie at his arrogant, imperious best and Robben to keep carving a swath through defences.

“I believe that you have to create a strategy to win. The proof is in the pudding. It is nice for a coach to see it confirmed in the results,” said Van Gaal. “My group and my staff always want to score one goal more than the opponent.”

It is somehow very Dutch that the team that scored the most goals in the group phase, yet also conceded most fouls, is still being criticised for not being attacking enough. Yet slowly but surely the critics are falling away. If they can continue motoring towards a potential semi-final collision with Argentina in São Paulo, they will be drowned out altogether.