World

Europe

Netherlands

A small revenge…

September 7th, 2006 | By: Jan | 11 Comments »

Revenge for Oranje! Or just… The 3-0 win over Belarus looked good on the score-board, but the quality of play left a lot to be desired. But this time, led by Wesley Sneijder, Oranje at least played with flair, with fighting spirit and pace. There were too many little beauty-mistakes as we call them in Dutch, but surfing the wave of van Persie’s courage and Kuyt’s work-ethos, Oranje sort of redeemed themselves. 6 Points out of 2 games. We’re on route.

After a half hour of play, Robin van Persie hit home a huge volley, 1-0. The second, again Arsenal’s striker, was a shot from a distance. Belarus, which played defensively but always broke dangerously, didn’t have any asnwers left, although Sneijder did have to clear a ball from the line at 1-0. In the second half, Oranje stumbled and fumbled again for a period. In particular Heijtinga made a mess of things with his lame passing game. Huntelaar, again, was invisible. Just before the end of the game, Kuyt scored a good header after a van Persie free-kick,, who was proclaimed the Man of the Match.

One of the highlights of the match was Phillip Cocu’s farewell. Cocu received a token for his services to Oranje out of the hands of one-time record capholder and former-skipper Frank de Boer.

Rumour in Holland was (is?) that if Oranje would pursue in playing poorly, the pressure on Marco would increase and the former Golf-afficianado could have said: Have a Nice Day, y’all, I’m going back to the greens. And Co Adriaanse was (is?) ready to take over… I’m glad that scenario is off, for now….

Tags: marco van basten, Robin van Persie, The Netherlands

Netherlands World Cup RSS Feed

Comments

By sphinx | September 7th, 2006 at 2:22 am

congradtulation orange! It ease me alot for the future under Basten’s hand. Persie will be hero and Kuyt proved a real workhorse while Huntelaar will have to struggle.How is performance of mid-field, Sneijder, Schaars and Lanzaart?BTW
Jan, could someone crate new blog for euro 2008 or chnage the name of this blog.

Posted from Myanmar

By Jan | September 7th, 2006 at 4:25 am

Good question Sphinx, you’ve got a reputation for asking hard questions, right :-)?

But I’m merely Mike’s understudy and can barely manage to enter some texts every now and then…

Mike???

Posted from Australia

By mrfocus | September 7th, 2006 at 5:36 am

World cup, Euro… it’s all the same.

It’s not the form that counts, it’s the content.

Although it may be good to change to something specific for the Euro to attract new readers…

By Ahmad | September 7th, 2006 at 9:30 am

I m glad that the Dutch won but couldnt watch the game here in Lebanon. Can Anyone Please tell me how well they played ?

Posted from Lebanon

By dan | September 7th, 2006 at 10:29 am

Van Persie played splendidly. Well on the way to fulfilling the immense potential we all at Arsenal (and Wenger included) know he’s capable of.

Posted from Singapore

By goose | September 7th, 2006 at 5:57 pm

well… heres my opinion on the game:

first 30 minutes it was crap, last 5 (first half) were ok, second half: first 30 min. crap, last 15 min. ok..

big man for my was Kuyt who looked like the only one really trying to revenge the game against Lux.
vanPersie played ok, scored two good goals but never managed one decent cross
Huntelaar had an awfull game, nothing he did was right..

now to midfield sphinx; Landzaat played like he always does, totally anonimous, not doing any defence, crap
Sneijder played well but only as a number 10 behind the strikers, as usual no help in defence..
deJong; vanBasten but him in to strenghten the defence, defencifly he was ok but he had no decent balls to midfield or attack (sorry, no deJong fan)
Landzaat was later subsituded by Schaars who played ok defencifly

Back: Heitinga played so very bad you almost started to feel sorry for him, when he was substituted for Boula he got bood of the pitch
Ooijer still hasnt found his confidence after his tranfer to Blackburn
Gio was ok but couldnt make his trademark runs up front
Mathijssen was ok, nothing special, vanderSar same thing…

im still not convinced, i see no real progression,

midfield is still the problem area!!

greetz

Posted from Netherlands

By sphinx | September 7th, 2006 at 10:09 pm

To find out a right mid-field mix(a trio)looks to be a hard work for Basten still.
Lanzaart has shown n’ times he couldn’t be the solution while Basten sticking on him.
Schaars, De jong and Sneijder might be a mediocre mix more on defensive duty.
One defensive midfielder(schaars or De jong), one playmaker( Seedorf or Sneijder) and one attacking mid-fielder(Vaart or Kyut) might produce more effective mid-field engine.

Posted from Myanmar

By jip jaap stam | September 7th, 2006 at 11:39 pm

knvb.nl has video highligts of all netherlands games for us overseas fans…

Posted from Canada

By HUP | September 11th, 2006 at 4:18 pm

Sneijder is our playmaked of the future. We need to find a way to mold VDV and sneijder.

Another solution and I know this we upset the 4-3-3 lovers but:

Van Nistelrooy?

Van der Vaart

Robben Sneijder Schaars Van P

I know it is not tradition but we have to play to the strenght of the team.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | September 12th, 2006 at 10:50 am

I think all that 433 / 442 stuff is getting tedious. MvB seems to hang on to 433 as if it’s a religion or something. 442 is internationally the standard. Today, wingers need to be able to pass opponents, cross the ball in and do their work. And be tactically aware. Even Robben will have to put in his work. We do not have the world’s best players at the moment, so we need to work harder and be smarter. I do agree, the future does look good, but we’re not there yet. Holland got good results with 442. Zenden and Overmars played like half midfielders in their good days. V Persie or vd Vaart could play in the Bergkamp role and Huntelaar or Van the Man could play in the most forward striker role. And Cruyff’s got a point. Let’s get the tight passing game going and we should be able tear any opponent apart!

Posted from Australia

By ferenc | September 12th, 2006 at 12:41 pm

@Jan: exactly,and seedorf could organize the whole orchestra from the midfield:-)

Posted from Hungary