Goose: Many Scandinavians, Swedes at least, sees Holland as the ultimate first step. We had a period when everyone moved directly to Premier League, which made most end up at the bench, and we had a period where people would move to Germany or France, but there they just didnt seem to develop as quickly as in Holland.

Since Marcus Allbäck came to Heerenveen and Zlatan came to Ajax, there’s been increasingly much players who openly say that they’d like to play in Holland before going to a bigger team. I know Dusan Djuric said it (but he moved to Switzerland because no-one wanted him) and Behrang Safari said it (very promising player, plays in the national team now, as left defender, 22 years old, watched by Ajax).

Berg, Lindgren, Allbäck and others have all said that they had a really good time in the Netherlands because its basically the same deal as Sweden, but bigger and better in a football perspective.

1. I couldn’t honestly say i no, but most ppl r goign with laudrup.
2. Definitly Johan Cruyff, and I complete agree.
3. The barefoot thing was funny, because their feet would kill if they played like that.

@lerkot; well, i hope he does get better..looks like Alves is not coming to Alkmaar…i just heard vanGaal say how much they need a striker who scores goals…guess Averladze wanst too bad after all, maybe they should have kept Koevermans…
i think its great to have all those scandis coming to Holland, is the dutch legeau seen in Sweden as a nice step up and a good place to play yoursels in the picture of the big teams in GB, Spain or Italy??
Berg already scored 11, pretty good.

grtz

What I meant was that it was hard to take a place on the Dutch midfield in the 90s when we had so many good players there, so thats why he didnt get the attention he should have got, and only got to play 49 caps (42 from start) which is a decent number but if he would be young and fresh now, he would play every cap the next.. fifteen years.

My 2cents:

1. Figo
2. JC
3. Because they wanted to play barefoot

Afonso Alves; well respected as a striker, not at all respected for the rest … in Holland, behavior like he showed isnt appreciated at all… last week a reporter asked GertJan Verbeek; any comments on Alves?? he answered; who??

Ari: seen as a failure, seen as not a good buy for Az

Kennedy Bakircioglu; seen as a great player at Twente… dont hear about him too much since his maove to Ajax … is seen as a decent player

Rasmus Lindgren; dont hear too much about him .. played very good at Groningen but hasnt made a mark at Ajax (yet)

Marcus Berg; seen as a great talent, popular guy (also with the women!), this is the kind of people we dutch like … easy going, no big mouth…this is why almost all Scandinavian players are very popular with the fans in Holland (like Stefan Petterson or Jari Littmanen)

Fredrik Stenman; dont know

George Mourad; dont know

Jonas Olsson; dont know

well, hope its any help!! haha

importent thing is that the “scandinavian mentality” is some what like the dutch … low profile, not too loud, always humble.. i actually think that Stefan Petterson has to be one the most popular foreigner ever to play in the dutch leguea (i actually have met him and he was indeed very friendly)

btw; you never told me what you meant with the comment on how it was a difficult generation for Jonk to ‘get into’?

grtz

answer #2 is definitely cruyff