Group C Preview

once we make it through this tough group, things will get easier and the young players will get more confidence in themselves. guys ,my dream was always to see overmars and robben playing together in the team. they are the best two you could ever have.

Posted from  United States

Another Overmars fan! Excellent. My Oranje shirt has Overmars #11 on the back. He was quick wasn’t he? *nostalgic sigh*

Posted from  United States

oh, he was the quickest player in the world, mannnnnnnn, i remeer the first game he played with the orange , i remember it was a friendly against tunisia in 1994, the dutch were preparing for the world cup, when i saw him chasing the ball , i was like helllllll is this real he incerdibly quick.

Posted from  United States

mike , are you dutch ? because i see you are very attached to the team:)? you know what bothers me, is that we dutch fans are very few with respect to germany or italy or brazil, why? i think ppl who love attractive soccer should be dutch fans.

Posted from  United States

Why things will get easier after Holland advance in this group?
Are you understimating Mexico and Portugal?

Posted from  United States

No, but by advancing from such a strong group the young team will gain a huge amount of confidence and experience. In that light games against Mexico and Portugal take on a whole new light. I would say that both teams are definately beatable once the Dutch progress through the group.

Posted from  United States

I would never underestimate Portugal, not since seeing what they did to the Dutch on their home turf. So frankly it’s one of the few teams I wouldn’t want to play coming out of the first round. The other team is Brazil, simply because both teams play the similar Dutch style, which is open free flowing game.

The Mexicans on the other hand, should never be expected to be easy, but traveling to Europe will make them have an early exit this year.

Posted from  Canada

The Dutch didn’t have a good tournament in Euro 2000 period. I would say that team is not as strong as this one. The Dutch actually only won one game in open play out of five. Their only other win came from a penalty shoot-out.

I don’t think either Portugal nor Mexico will be “easy” but they are most definately beatable. It would be nice if we could play Andorra 7 times but that just doesn’t happen.

Posted from  United States

Sure playing Andorra would be nice, but at the same time you have to look at the fact that we played the Czech’s well twice. Yes I know they had some key injuries, but in the same frame of mind, we finally got the goat off our back and beat the Czechs.

Van Basten seems to have something special going, sure the loss to the Italians was bad, but it was a good learning experience and we needed a good beating to bring us down to earth from the qualication campaign.

As for the younger defense, in the end as long as you have one experienced goalkeeper, and one experience mentor/player (Cocu), the defense will hold up just fine. I always rather have a young defense and a veteran prolific striker, rather than the other way around.

Posted from  Canada

Well put, I agree with you. My point was there is no such thing as an easy game at the World Cup BUT should the Dutch have a good group experience all the teams that come afterwards will definately beatable.

Just out of curiousity which bit of Canada are you from, Kyle?

Posted from  United States

Henceforth Mike why I’m actually happy that hey have such a challanging group, at one hand I would have loved an easy challange, but then when I look at this group is has everything the Dutch need to do to beat the big teams later on. The offense power of Argentina, the Defensive stubborness of S&M and at the unusual and unknown in the Ivory Coast. It’s a tough, but a perfect group to go far in the tournament.

I hail from the nation’s capital Mike, noticed in your intro you said you lived in Canada, I’ll have to ask you where now.

Posted from  Canada

That’s a good observation. The group really does have a bit of everything.

Good stuff, I’m from different parts of southern Ontario; two year in Toronto, 19 closer to Lake Erie and now I’m heading towards Hamilton.

Posted from  United States

Serbia and Montenegro is the best team and will finish first.

Posted from  United States

That’s funny Lyle; you keep saying that but you’ve got nothing to back it up. If you did an honest comparison between them and the Dutch I know you see who is superior(Hint: It’s not Serbia and Montenegro).

Posted from  United States

lyle, come on:), do you just want to be against the orange. plz look well at the other teams, you’ll see that we are the best.

Posted from  United States

mikey,

i have nothing to back it up? we topped spain in qualifying. on paper, spain is better than you guys… and we stomped on those bullfighters. so that means we’re better than you.

you guys are good, duh… i mean you’re the dutch. but you’ll find out how good we are soon.

you’re not going to score on us… so it is just going to be impossible to beat us. the best you can hope for will 0-0, but we’ll probably find the back of the net since van der sar is a aged sieve.

plus your lord and savior salomon kalou isn’t dutch, he’s ivorian.

plavi! plavi! plavi!

Posted from  United States

Sure thing Lyle. You keep reaching for that dream.

Posted from  United States

I half agree with Lyle, if there is one team I had hoped wasn’t in our group it was S&M, simply for the reason they stack 10 guys in the box and with there big defense it’s almost impossible to score on, Hence how S&M ended up on top over Spain. But then again Lyle you guys won’t have any home field advantage like you did in qualifying and at the same time, 3 draws is not going to get you out of this pool. If you can somehow spring Kaxman and get him to score, but with your lack of quality midfielders I don’t see that being done either.

Posted from  Canada

oh Kyle,

after turks, serbians and montenegrins are the second largest immigrant group in Germany (like nearly 800,000 people). slav power baby!

so, there both the dutch and us will have lots of hometown support.

it’s going to be grand.

Posted from  United States