Devil’s advocate post for Marco

I wanted to give it a go. It’s just a post. Don’t shoot me.

Here are my musings…

1. Qualification matches are always tough. Here’s why…

Players are taken out of their comfort zone, their club vibe and for a week or so put in another dynamics. Another hierarchy, another coach, maybe another role… That takes time. The dynamics change all the time too. Last year, Van Persie was a “youngster”, now he is one of the leaders.

There is not enough time for a team manager to implement specific tactics (see Van Gaal as well) and you’ll have to go with what you’ve got.

A national team manager can’t make players better. That’s not their role.

Most qualification opponents have no chance in hell to reach the end tournament so they play destructive. Against Rumania, one can play football (or try to play football) against Far Oer, Wales, Iceland, Albania, Malta, Luxembourg, San Marino it’s tough. It’s hard.

See France and Scotland. England. Italy. Spain.

2. Van Basten promised attractive football, the idiot!

See, it seems we sort of punish him for trying. I think what he said three years ago was sincere. He is a football fan more than anything else and now he finds out it’s hard to do and it’s sometimes not worth it. Sometimes (particular in qualifactions) you need to play for the results and be happy that you get 6 points out of 2 dreadful matches.

3. Our material is not that good

We do have great individual players but we miss the axes and we miss the leader/build up guy at the back (Koeman, Scirea, Beckenbauer, Morten Olsen, Frank de Boer, Ayala, Marquez, Pirlo etc). Our great players are: Van Nistelrooy, Van Persie, Van der Vaart, Seedorf. Our sometimes great and sometimes not so great players are: Robben, Sneijder, Van der Sar, De Zeeuw. Our mediocre players are: Kuyt, Huntelaar, Gio, Heitinga, Ooijer, Boulah, De Cler, Melchiot… Our less than average players are: Bouma, Landzaat, Mathijsen, De Jong. Vennegoor of Hesselink (can’t decide between the two…)…. A couple of great players great team make not, as Yoda says….

4. The communication is lousy.

Marco van Basten (and Kees Jansma!!!) are lousy communicators. I always learned: when you’ve got a turd in your mouth: don’t chew it… Just swallow it… They should come out and say: “Fuckin’ hell, that was one bad game. We were dreadful. We’re so sorry. We hate this too. But, we have the three points and we’ll work on it. Honestly.”

No one in Holland is “angry” for the 3 points we got against Albania, and I think not even for the dreadful play, but more for the fact that Marco and co. want to make us believe we played a great game!! And that is, I fear, the inexperienced coach/football fan who is still to overwhelmed by the match when he enters the press conference.

Telling the press “he’ll bring Huntelaar to the WC” and then leaving him home, telling the press “Ruud is my man”, telling the press “Davids reminds him of Jan Wouters”, telling the press “he’ll change the team for Albania where he can” and then not changing it…

5. What is “good”?

Another aspect is: what do we mean by “good”? When we say we want good football, we mean: high paced football, dominating, passing and re-positioning, wingers, crosses in the box, players coming in from midfield, fore-checking and pressing, long balls over 40 meters aimed at Bergkamp…well….you know what I mean…

But if Marco sees his team struggle against Albania (reasons: form, field, referee, opponent, whatever) he thinks: if we do not give anything away, stay focused and work hard, we could get our goal… And if we do, we did “good”.

See, in view of the circumstances, Oranje did good. They stuck to the tasks set out for them. They were lucky (but JC always taught Marco that luck is something you can manifest), they worked hard and they kept believing in themselves (or in Ruud).

After a terrible experience in Albania (hostile fans, bad ref, KNVB not allowed in the stadium etc etc) they come home, relieved and happy. They have the result. And then the media attack them: it was dreadful, it was lousy, you should be ashamed of yourself, etc etc… I can really empathize with the Oranje boys that they – in turn – are agitated and annoyed with this….

Ok, now shoot me