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March 6th, 2008 | By: Jan | 11 Comments »

It took me some time to write this. Couldn’t see all the games live so I decided to stay away in case one of you would spill the beans .

It was an exciting round again! AC Milan, the reigning champs are out and so are Real Madrid. Well well…

Schuster couldn’t start Sneijder, Van Nistelrooy and Robben. All due to injuries. He also missed Sergio Ramos and some others so a weakened Madrid had to wipe away the 2-1 defeat against AS Roma, but they eventually lost to themselves. Again, Madrid played dominant, but sloppy. Wrong choices at the right moments, the final pass wasn’t good enough and tactically the players seemed to play their own game every now and then. In particular Beast Batiste – a strong athlete – seemed to think he could out run everyone. It took a red card in the second half for Pepe (Madrid) and an AS Roma goal to wake Madrid up. Suddenly they could play effective, but with ten men against a shrewd Roma, it was too hard. Roy Drenthe came on (for Diarra) and played a good 30 minutes, but the precision just wasn’t there. Madrid is out.

AC Milan played a weird game against Arsenal. The champs started ferocious as one would expect but after 20 minutes left the initiative to Arsenal. Bad mistake. Milan forgot to play their midfield and resorted to some modern catenaccio, hoping Pato or Kaka would sort stuff out. Clarence was sorely missed in midfield. The hard working Arsenal got what it deserved. Led by a Fabregas on fire, aided by his lieutenant Flamini, Arsenal scored twice in the last ten minutes of the game. It’s bizar to see how weak the Milan bench is. Ambrosini, Oddo, Inzaghi… What are they thinking in Milan? Super talent Pato also has some growing up to do and Wenger proved that with the right management and tactics eleven great players can really be turned into a great team. Van Persie stayed on the bench during the whole match.

Barca didn’t have a lot of problems with Celtic in Camp Nou. After two minutes Xavi scored the only goal after a brilliant Barca-like attack. The Rijkaard coached team again played an impressive match but lacked effectiveness. But who cared on the Ramblas? The next round is there… Lionel Messi had to leave the match with a muscle injury and will be sorely missed for 1,5 months. Dutchman Pieter Vink was the ref during this game and he did very well, needing no cards to keep the peace.

Edwin van der Sar and Man United won 1-0 vs Lyon thanks to a Christiano Ronaldo goal. Whatever one thinks about the handbag, he delivers…

Henk ten Cate and Chelsea didn’t have any problems with Olympiakos. Ballack and Lampard scored in the first half. Half Dutch man Kalou scored in the 48th minute.

Schalke O4 beat FC Porto and reaches the quarter finals. Fenerbace beat Sevilla with penalties. Boulahrouz is still absent in the starting line up.

Tags: Drenthe, Group C, Messi, Oranje, Robben, The Netherlands, van der Sar

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Comments

By goose | March 6th, 2008 at 7:52 am

Jan, we cant have you getting all positive on Ronnie the handbag!! haha

Posted from Netherlands

By ferenc | March 6th, 2008 at 9:31 am

i saw barca and real, 45 minutes of mu-lyon,the last 10 minutes of arsenal-milan and the penalties at porto-schalke… tuesday evening i was really sad,not interested in the game any more because we lost messi… mu-lyon was as boring as barca-celtic – the better teams didn’t want to play too much. milan-arsenal: clarence deadly missed. he’s milan’s best player. the brain. without him it wasn’t any harmony beetween kaka,pato and the rest of the team. madrid’s exit was a great joy for me like always where they loose. and a great baffle to calderon,mijatovics. schuster is definitely not as good as people thought. capello is ten times better. of course,frankie too. but my main concern is the absence of messi. (vennegoor was ok,sno played in the second half. average. one good thing for dutch football: yeseterday drenthe was actually the most dynamic madrid-player. but i seriously think that he’s not yet mature enough for oranje. in 1 year he will.)

Posted from Hungary

By dirk v.d berg | March 6th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

I figure Drenthe will move up into the Oranje lineup after the 2010 world cup, as Foppe de Haan will be head coach of the us by then, and he’ll take his star playing with him. Drenthe’s going to win the U-21 2009 Euro’s for us.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | March 6th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

It all depends on how he does at Madrid. Bert van Marwijk will go with Tim de Cler after the EC. He knows the Feyenoord player well. Emanuelson was promising on the left, but he sort of lost some form this season, so it’s up to him to make it back in the team. If Drenthe explodes at Madrid, Van Marwijk won’t ignore him. But I’ll say it again: there’s humungous competition in Madrid on the left: Robben, Robinho, Sneijder, Marcello, Heintze…

Posted from Australia

By dirk v.d berg | March 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm

Drenthe’s also been playing on the right though, at least when they played Roma the first time he was. Madrid plays 4-1-3-2 formation, and Drenthe can play the two wing backs, or the two wingers. Even if he stays in form, I think he’ll want to stay with Foppe, to win him another U-21 Championship.

Posted from Canada

By simon | March 7th, 2008 at 5:03 am

ferenc: Not sure they would have beaten Arsenal anyway… Seedorf’s been shit lately.

By Caleb | March 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am

Arsenal dominated most of the game against Milan, but who knows how it would have gone with Seedorf. I think I agree with simon that it would still have been the same, but who knows.

Jan: you’re right about the competition on the left side in Madrid, except that Drenthe, Robinho, and Robben all switch wings all the time so it doesn’t really matter, they can play on either side. Marcello and Heinze are both competiting for the left wing back place though.

I was super angry that Roma beat Madrid. Madrid dominated most of that game but they were loose like Ferenc said. I just hate Roma though, bunch of dirty cheating players, they are all like their talisman Totti (my number 1 hated player). I hope they go and loose 7-0 again, haha.

Posted from Japan

By Mario Rosado (Dutch admirer) | March 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

@dirk v.d berg: You expect Drenthe gets called to the national team after the WC 2010???. I think he is ready for the EC 2008, maybe not playing a huge role but in my opinion he’d be a very good option as a super-sub. He has a lot of guts and if Babel has been called why can’t he be called?.

Madrid-Roma: I think the coach Schuster lost the game. They weren’t lucky also because they had a lot of injured players but Schuster played a very shy team with 2 holding midfielders instead of putting Drenthe or Higuain from the start.

Casillas
Marcelo, Pepe, Cannavaro, Torres
Robinho, Guti, Diarra, Drenthe
Raul and Baptista

By dirk v.d berg | March 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

Cruyff quit from Ajax, according to Uefa.com, and soccernet.com

Posted from Canada

By ferenc | March 7th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

drenthe should go to other club like valencia,villareal,atletico. in these teams he could play more often.
@miguel: babel plays a more important role at pool than drenthe at madrid. he’s almost a regular starter and benitez likes his style. i think this is the reason why he’s at oranje and drenthe not yet.

Posted from Hungary

By Miguel Rosado | March 10th, 2008 at 2:04 am

@ferenc: I don’t think he needs to go to another club. Drenthe has been getting more chances and in the future he’ll be a regular I am pretty sure about that.

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