Full time Oranje – Australia: 1-2

On the physical front, maybe this run out will get them ready for playing Norway and Iceland? There will plenty of elbows and 2m tall giants to worry about then.

Actually makes sense to me. I have complained on this board of the lack of friendlies against physical teams. Maybe KNVB have taken notice.

@ Jan

Timmer didn’t do anything really wrong in this game. I really lack confidence in his ability after watching the mistakes he made when he was chosen in the game against Austria. Ever since then, I have a slight heart attack every time he comes out of the 6 yard box to punch out a ball. It also seems that when he dives for a ball being played to the corner, he actually does not dive and simply falls to either side – he really does not travel much in terms of distance which makes me think he’s just not there athletically speaking.

Posted from  Canada

@Finn, my fault!

Jason has an interesting observation on Timmer’s diving for balls. It does seem more like a “fall” than a “leap” across and down. Either a very unusual style or he completely lacks explosive athletic movements.

Posted from  United States

I’m pretty sure Stek won’t be suspended for the upcoming game, because friendlies are under FIFA and quali’s are under UEFA.

Posted from  Canada

guys, no hard feeklings but australia r a curse to this beautiful game..They dont have any technical/tactical skills, they just let their physical power/elbows and studs doing the talking, they WILL NEVER MAKE IT IN FOOTBALL:..i dont have anything against that nation, i have been there, t is beautiful but football is not their cup of tea..their players simply cant pass the ball and resort to brutal rugby tackles..They will be exposed very soon..this was only a friendly after all..if they play Spain in any important tournament, be ready to expect a Tennis like score..definately aussies will never see the ball if they play portugal or spain and will lose by atleast 5 goals

us aussies do love a tackle thats for sure, but i really dont think we r ‘dirty’ tacklers just ‘hard’ tacklers (sure we do foul a bit, but i have definately seen worse). Against spain we probably would get destroyed, but then again so would most teams in the world at the moment. There is nt really a midfield in the world that can deal with players like fabregas, xabi alonso, xabi, ineista and just about every other player, and with the depths of forwards like david villa, torres, raul, morientes, i cant see many backlines in the world that could deal with that (and if u do manage to attack u have to get past casilas, the best keeper in the world for me) but in the end a great result for australia against wat i believe to be one of the best nations in the world for football( defineatly for watching them play)

Posted from  Australia

Holland is weak. If Holland cannot beat a team like Australia, then Holland is very weak. They should call VdS and RvN back.

Posted from  Indonesia

I agree that Australia 1) played well (Holman among others) 2) will grow even more 3) didn’t play rough or mean. Physical play is part of this game. Don’t think for a minute that De Jong, Van Bommel and Ooijer are pussies in that category.

And I don’t think Holland is weak. They didn’t play a great game, sure, but conceding such an equalizer (after a personal mistake and a penalty) and then conceding another in the second half… I’m not too fussed. Vennegoor had two reasonable opportunities and Kuyt had one. With a bit of luck we could have equalized.

Verbeek is a smart and saffy coach. Players like Culina, Neill, Kewell, Emerton have been around and Holman, Carney and even Kennedy seem to be exciting players for the future. Schwarzer is a good goalie… I can’t see Australia win the WC yet but they can surely upset the big name teams. Remember their game vs Italy in 2006.

That’s absolutely rubbish about australia are overly physical and dirty. It seems to me that is based on one awful wilkshire tackle before the last world cup and propagated by japan trying to influence referees.

Australia played possession football and created two good chances in the first half by good passing. We match the dutch in the first half.

Sure we aren’t there with the spain, brazil, argentina, holland, portugal etc but we are making progress getting there. Australia are a lot more technical now then 10 years ago and 10 years in the future we’ll see a more sophisticated side.

Posted from  Australia

i have to laugh out loudly at dasilva´s preposterous comments..he says that australia is stronger now and in 10 years will be technically more stronger..he forgets to post that even the football power nations will get more stronger..for example , i cant see this austrlian side even competeing with my Spain or Portugal or Italy or Brazil or Argentina..Football is not ur cup of tea..Holland is just an over hyped side with is nothing tactically though they have some individual brilliant players..Holland is the most over rated side in the world..even before world cup 2006, they strrugle in a friendly against a viscious, dirty australia, i mean australia is a bane for football and when teams like australia play, it is not a good advertisement for this game..players like Grella, Lucal Neill, Chipperfield, Emerton are a joke to watch, they just use their physique in a rugby like way..It is not very long when FIFA recognise sthis and gives referees liniency to stop australia and other such teams the freedom to play Rugby/football..between, Holland is over hyped, once in a blue moon they defeat France or Italy( i read somewhere that they cant even win against power nations for 40 years!!)..

Posted from  Spain

What a joke – Spain win one recent tournament and all of a sudden their fans think they are the authority on football! Long forgotten are the days when Spain were even worse under-performers than Holland, and for a much longer period…

Dasilva – funny you should mention that the myth of Australia as a dirty team is being propogated by Japan to influence referees. I was in Japan watching the last game between Australia and Japan, and I think that’s where the opinion started for me. There was some dirty play in that game, but I guess most teams have moments where they seem dirty. Maybe I was just being influenced by my surroundings?

Posted from  Canada

@jan carlos;

overrated?? us dutch? nah
think we played some decent games during the EC and i didnt hear anybody saying Holland was the fav to win the EC

what the world expects from us dutch is nice, attacking football…dont think weve let them down during the last EC or WC74 – 78 – 98 EC88 – 92-00-08

have you posted here before under a different name?

Posted from  Netherlands

What a bunch of drivel .

I suppose all the Dutch players who made Barcelona what it was in the last 30 years and the guys who now play in Madrid are actually all Spanish ?

What a joker, this Juan Carlos. Is this actually the Spanish King?

I think Italy and Argentina (and maybe even Spain) and Portugal have more of a reputation of playing mean than Australia. The Aussies play with their hearts and will always put up a fight. It’s not a girls’ sports, you know JC (what, blasphemy, you don’t deserve Johan Cruyff’s initials!!!).

Its true that other sides will improve but since Australia is far behind. We will improve at the faster rate (how much more technical can you give someone who is already technically gifted).

you also ignored that australia has actually defeated Brazil and argentina before.

There far more sides that are more dirty than australia.

Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Uruguay are notorious for dirty play. I remember one of our best players Ray Baartz nearly died from a karatee chop from uruguay player back in the 1973. 2005 world cup qualifier a player one of hte players elbow tim cahill in the head when the referee wasn’t looking. Against Brazil – the brazillians were blatently fouling viduka and getting awayy with it. So don’t single us out for overly physical and dirty play.

Australian don’t do that crap. We put in the tackle and sometimes hard tackles but I seen much more devious foulling tactics from other nations.

I think Kevin Muscat perhaps singled handedly gave us that reputation but I think we have progress from the more thuggish sides back in the 80’s and early 90s.

Australia at the world cup 2006 played possession football. We have been playing possession football ever since Hiddink taken over. We also have players in the more technical leagues such as italy and holland. like I said we are not there yet but

Posted from  Australia

Dasilva, don’t let yourself get worked over by people saying that the Aussies play a mean game. It’s just not true. They’re tough, but it is a contact sport and it’s not for sissies.

I’m a blow in to Australia myself but I respect the Australian team and their sportsmanship and mentality. If Holland would have 20% of Australia’s mentality we’d be the permanent champs of the world

Guys, lemme be clear, as for the holland , again and again (as usual) they get exposed for what they are, a group of talented individuals who just cannot play as a team.To even lose against a useless, technically inept bunch of rough tackling thugs like aussies, that too at home is what we call Humiliation..Recapping the Euro match against Russia, Holland were a one man team that night, and without VDS would have conceded about 10.
Russia on the other hand, like all of Hiddink’s teams, don’t necessarily have the household names but ALWAYS work as a unit.
And a unit will beat individuals EVERY week.So losing against Russia was not really a shocker, Russians are technically very good( even glimpse a Zenit, they are a delight to watch!!),but losing against a team of technically inferior thugs was a bit too much, even though it was a friendly!!The truth is that international football is where individuals who rarely play together are lumped together and expected to perform as a club team which just isn’t possible. More often than not we see that there is little unity or cohesion amongst these teams. Any country able (with the help of Hiddink, for example!) to pull together and play collectively will, invariably, do well.
too much pomp and underestimation of the opposition costed the dutch. only because they’ve beaten a non existent french side (they shouldn’t have won 3-0 against italy) they taught they’ve won the tournament (remember how they celebrated qualifying for the next round). Moreover dirk kuyt has shown what an average footballer he is. the reemergence of russia doesn’t surprise me because there has never been any doubt in their technical skill, they lacked self-confidence for years and hiddink has made’em believe in themselves.i’ve never seen a team attacking for 120 minutes, it should’ve ended 6-1.

Holland is a team of a few gifted individuals, they have always been since times immemoriable but they are overrated a tad to much..I just read somewhere that they could not even defeat Italy in a competitive match for something like 38 years or so and it is highly unacceptable if one considers Holland as a super power in football which it is not!! Now, i do envisage bad times for the Dutch football..Your best player VDS has retired, so that is a terrible loss for ou, he was always stopping , making incredible saves each match in and out , i dont see Holland having a great defence, so…bad times are ahead

What’s truly pathetic, Emmanuel, is your complete ignorance. Your claims are the ridiculous ones, and I can’t be bothered to read them anymore. Ignored from now on.

Posted from  Canada

italians are pathetic people … all talk, never accomplish anyhing

you just be glad we rich EU countries pay for you 3world country to survive

now please go back to your uni-brow mother and leave us alone!

Posted from  Netherlands

@ Juan Carlos
amsterdam is paradise on earth, trust me it is.

@Juan Carlos,

for your information, Suriname is certainly not located in Africa, so whenever you get your head out of your ass, I suggest that you take a look at a map and preferably one where Italy isn’t at the centre of the universe…so much for pretending you are smarter than the dutch.

oh and cut out that racist crap, there is no need for that.

Posted from  Canada

@juan carlos; with achieving i wasnt talking football ..just in general

my comment bout your hairy mother still goes .. spanish, italian … all hairy

reckon youre still a bit pissed off cause we dutch stole your maps to the West, still pissed off cause we beat you spanish (Phillip II) in the 80 years war and so becoming the first republic in the world

good to see Franco’s Spain is still alive and kicking, pathetic racist..did your first girlfriend left you for a black man??

now we all know youre a tough man..a true internet hooligan, maybe its time to get back to the homeworks and leave us alone

Posted from  Netherlands

Juan Carlos & Emmanuel

I’m a Brit and they way you are both slagging off the Aussie side, who beat the Dutch fair and square, and almost eliminated the last World Cup winners in 2006 – I can only think it must be due to fear!! You know the Aussie’s are good at what ever sport they set their mind too, and their results have improved consistently year after year for the past decade…progress requires money and then comes public interest, in that order! There is 10x more money being pumped into football now in Aus then there was 3yrs ago…so more people are taking it up. God help you both when Football is the preferred sport in that country. The Brits and Aussie’s shat on the Spanish in Beijing too! (just for good measure) p.s. with all your whinging you should move to the UK, you’d really fit in.

Posted from  United Kingdom

@ Jan Carlos, most dribble i have read in some time. Anyone else think that Van Bommel’s first two challenges were a disgrace. And to the gk’s challenge, that could have severely injured Kennedy. And no i dont expect a gk to know how to tackle but that’s a sending off by the letter of the law. In a friendly he could have got away with a yellow. This wasn’t even Australia’s strongest side so it’s looks promising under Pim.

Posted from  Australia