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Arjen Robben: fed up with criticasters…

May 12th, 2009 | By: Jan | 20 Comments »

Arjen Robben has been fit since December 2008. Five months without an injury is almost unique for the Madrid winger. He gave Real extra impulses and shone in Oranje against Scotland and Macedonia, but had to suffer a setback this week: a calf injury.

Robben (25 years old) copped the injury against Getafe. It’s his ninth injury since his move from Chelsea to Real Madrid in 2007. He’ll be fit again for the Iceland and Norway internationals.

The pace was too low in the first half hour of the Scotland game in the ArenA. It was hard to find the free man and the first chance of the game was for the guests. But a number of dashing dribbles by Robben changed the game. Winning against Scotland appeared to be easy.

Mark van Bommel said: “You can only get Robben in a one to one situation when you up the pace. When we managed to do that, the Scots were beaten. And pretty quickly too. It appeared easy even.” Robben, after the game: “It’s important for me to have a high pace. Otherwise I’m cornered by two or three guys and it’s hard to create anything.”

Robben, when fit, is an extraordinary player. Not out of this world. “My strength is my speed and my individual action. With ball, or without. And than it’s scoring or giving the assist. It’s a weapon. The coach said we needed to leverage from it. When you don’t use me right, you don’t use that weapon.”

But, there’s also criticism. Robben sometimes doesn’t see one of his team mates in a better position. “Well, that will always be like that, I guess. It’s the nature of the beast. I do see it and I do want to improve it, so I’ll need to work hard on that aspect. But, I play 100% on intuition, so I follow my instincts. You need to make decisions in split-seconds. But I really want to do best for the team. It’s not like I want to be star or something…”

His Real Madrid coach Ramos never ever talked to him about it. “No, but I get fed up sometimes. People always comment on it. I can play a superb game and then there’s the “but”… It’s how it is, how I play. I can’t help it.”

Real does well under Ramos. Real won 15 of their last 17 games. “With Schuster, we had one flank occupied and one flank was open. Now, we have both flanks manned. I like that better. There’s more variance. Also in terms of defense, this is easier for us. The positions are held better like this.”

Robben realizes that the traditional left winger is almost exrinct. “Real old-school wingers don’t exist anymore. The ones that keep the pitch wide, pass their man and than cross in… The play on the wing is more flexible. I also play on the right as well. It’s how football developed itself.”

Oranje impresses under Van Marwijk, in particular after the wins over Scotland and Macedonia. Is this the best Oranje Robben played in? “Pfff….don’t know… We’ll need to prove that still. When you are good, you need to win prizes. And we haven’t won anything for quite some time. We were doing very well at the EC, but one lousy match and you’re out.”

Robben thinks there’s still growth in Oranje. “All the players are in full development. And that’s great. Wesley, Rafael and myself played three tournaments and we’re still 25 years or so. We’re experienced, but still young.”

Robben understands that sometimes, at Real and Oranje, good players can be benched. Like Rafael van der Vaart at Real Madrid. “Rafael really works hard. But when you don’t play you need to give 120%. I can imagine Rafael thinking: sod it! I don’t need this…”

“But I do feel the best players need to be part of Oranje and Rafael is most certainly one of them. Like Wesley. I thought he’d play against Scotland, but Van Marwijk is the coach, he decides. And that’s that.”

Robben expected to remain fit, what with his new approach through physio Van Toorn. “He helped me get stronger, with specific exercises, some nutrition supplements and a special diet. Nothing big, just little adjustments, but they work.”

After his Oranje games, he said: “My main goal is to stay fit. A whole season without injuries, that’s my goal. Only then can you get in the flow.”

Tags: Group C, Hiddink, Kuyt, Messi, Oranje, PSV, Robben, Sneijder, Vaart, Van Marwijk, Xavi

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Comments

By Mario | May 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

In my opinion and for me Robben is an incredible player who can change a game in a minute. He has remained fit and that´s what he has to acomplish because when he plays and is in his best he is unstopabble for any defender.

By Carlos | May 12th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

Jan -Interesting article about Kuyt in VI and why he is always the first name on the Liverpool team sheet according to Raf. – Mr Duracel !!

Posted from Singapore

By alaa | May 12th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

we have many good players in the dutch team, but the one who can make the difference is robben as it was with overmars in the previous generation!

By sonneveld | May 12th, 2009 at 9:54 pm

the reason not to play van persie on the right is because he would drift inside pulling more player towards robben

By Jan | May 12th, 2009 at 10:26 pm

Hey Carlos, where do you get the VI? Is that on the net or do you get it in Singapore?

By finnster01 | May 12th, 2009 at 11:48 pm

How can you compare Robben with Overmars?

That’s like comparing De Jong with Neeskens.

By bobotoh | May 13th, 2009 at 12:59 am

@finnster01, do you mean that they’re different type of player? I think they’re the same. They’re different only in quality. I wish Holland had Robben on the left, while Overmars on the right.

Posted from Indonesia

By Carlos | May 13th, 2009 at 3:07 am

Jan here’s the link -
http://www.viplanet.nl/

Posted from Singapore

By Carlos | May 13th, 2009 at 3:13 am

Actually Finn de Jong and Neeskens were/are both “hard man” midfielders. In fact Neeskens was used as a “marker” against Paolo Rossi in the 78 semi final. Overmars was pure speed – 10.4sec/100m and was 2 footed. Robben a great dribbler with speed. It would be GREAT to have them both in one team.

Posted from Singapore

By Tiju | May 13th, 2009 at 4:45 am

Roban is great player, and very close to messi and ronaldo.but recently he is pissing me off.i dont think he is that selfish but he is wasting the time with unnecessary dribles and ends with losing the ball.i would prefer kuyt over him in the first 55 minutes.

Posted from India

By Alex | May 13th, 2009 at 5:37 am

he’s not as selfish as many would like to believe. It´s just that lots of good oppurtunities get wasted by his team mates at Real so he often starts looking for goal himself. I think with 1 or 2 seasons of development Robben can be truly rated as one of the best around, like Ronaldo and Messi. Pretty funny since i already thought he would become a true superstar 1 or 2 seasons after the EC 2004. He´s really a remarkable player and Real are fools wanting to let him go.
BTW Premier League clubs will be under strict financial supervision in the future. That sounds real good to me. So they won´t be able to be 300 million in the red and still spend 100 million on players.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | May 13th, 2009 at 6:24 am

Interesting little topics being tossed around here.

My 2 cents:

Nees and De Jong aren’t similar. They are both defensive midfielders but Nees had tremendous penetration and was a superb header. I find De Jong static (which isn’t a bad thing) and he is not a good header. Nees was quite a goal scorer too, I might add.

It’s hard to judge the performance of players without knowing their charter. I remember JC telling a young Bergkamp: whenever you have the ball, take your man on! Dennis failed in that match and got heavily criticized for trying again and again, but JC later said that he wanted Dennis to keep on doing it… Robben might have instructions to do what he does. As for being selfish, he has way more assists in La Liga than a certain Mr Messi… Watch Sonneveld’s tremendous video.

Also, as said before, Overmars was speed and opportunism, Robben is more your dribbler.

I think Higuain is the blind horse at Real who dribbles while not being good at it. That’s because his vision isn’t that good (my opinion). Robben needs players around him (Sneijder, Vaart) to bounce off to. These days, it’s like Real plays without a midfield, so the fact that Robben doesn’t perform is more on the shoulders of Ramos (coach) and certain players (Raul and Higuain in particular).

Lastly, it’s great the EPL clubs are being controlled and supervised. Speaking of unfair competition. Dutch clubs are always trying to abide by the licensing rule (except for PSV ). Once every club in Europe (hello Brussels….!!!) abides by the rules, we could see a tad more fair competition…

By Jan | May 13th, 2009 at 6:32 am

Thanks Carlos . I knew the url… I just wondered if you could get the actual magazine in Singapore…

By finnster01 | May 13th, 2009 at 8:51 am

The Premier League’s 10 new rules is more than pure financial disclosure. It is also meant to stop people like Thaksin (and other convicted criminals or people closely related to convicted felons, such as Thaksin’s wife) from being able to buy a Prem club.

On the financial side, there will not be much of a change unfortunately. The only clubs this will affect are the West Hams, Newcastle (if they survive), Spurs etc.

The rules they are enforcing are very high level and will have zero to no impact on the Liverpools and Man Utd’s, who will continue to spend way beyond their means from a strict economic and corporate governance point of view. Man Utd is planning on expanding Old Trafford to 95 000 shortly. That is 10000 larger than the new Wembley and 4 times as large as Fulham’s Craven Cottage. In economic terms, it means that a club like Man U will in a single season pull in more ticket revenue from home matches than Fulham will over 4 years. And that is ignoring the TV and media fees which is where the real money is.

How is a small club ever going to compete with that?

I see clear signs that the future will be a European Super Liga with the Big 4, Spurs, Aston Villa, Barca, Real, Valencia, Inter, AC Milan, Roma, Bayern, perhaps a Werder Bremen, even Ajax, Lyon, Benfica, Olympiakos, Zenith St. Petersburg etc.

Europe is a relatively small place, easier to travel than the US which has no problems with the NFL. Soccer today is increasingly purely being driven by economics. And as long as that is the case, it makes sense, as the father of economics told us, money will take the easiest path, just like water and electricity do, and the only thing stopping it already from happening is UEFA.

But I believe it is just a question of time.

By Jan | May 13th, 2009 at 9:18 am

So, despite of the ambitions of ajax, do you think it’s possible for Ajax to win the CL one day again??

By ferenc | May 13th, 2009 at 9:41 am

maybe one day it is,but unfortunately not in the near future…

difficult to compare robben with overmars. i obviously prefer overmars, but hope that robben will improve in the future (less injury,more team-player).

Posted from Hungary

By Caleb | May 13th, 2009 at 10:01 am

I agree with Alex and Jan – Robben isn’t nearly as selfish a player as many people like to make him out to be. It’s a label that feeds itself – once people hear him being called selfish, they are very quick to look for opportunities to call him selfish again. At the same time, other selfish players (e.g. Higuain) haven’t developed that label yet, so they don’t get criticized so much.
Also, many of the chances where Robben goes for it himself instead of passing, he created those chances himself out of nothing – so you wouldn’t gain anything by replacing him with a less skillful but more team oriented player, because they wouldn’t even create those chances in the first place. Robben creates so many chances by himself, and yes, sometimes he shoots when he should pass, but he also sets up a lot of opportunities as well.

That being said, there still is some room for improvement in seeing other players in better positions.

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | May 13th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

I forgot to add Celtic and Rangers to the list.

In any event, with a European Super Liga the need for the CL would disappear (which is where UEFA makes most of its money hence they will try their best to avoid it but legally according to EU law have very few legs to stand on). The CL would become a cup again because it would be necessary, but would act like the FA Cup alongside the Super League with the odd upset here and there from the small countries.

I am convinced this will happen within the next 10 years. UEFA will fail.

By Leo | May 13th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

Robben is less selfish then C Ronaldo. Definetely less selfish then Hiquin.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | May 13th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

Just look at C Ronaldo’s reaction after being subbed against Man City. His real personality shines through every now and then. Show pony. Prima Donna.

Good player though

Comments are closed