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Holland - Slovenia 2-0; Van Persie & Sneijder make the difference.

October 17th, 2007 | By: Jan | 24 Comments »

The two that was heavily missed in the rain in Romania confirmed their value in Eindhoven against Slovenia yesterday.
A joint venture that lasted less than an hour. After 55 minutes, Robin van Persie left the pitch injured and directly after that Oranje’s gameplay suffered, with audible reactions from the fans.

Van Persie ended the match with a knee-injury after an opponent pulled him down after a Sneijder cornerkick. It’s as yet unclear how serious the damage is.
During the 55 minutes, it was fascinating to see how the two played together. They constantly were looking out for each other, like the two best dribblers in a playground team who always pass the ball to each other.

Till Van Persie left, Oranje didn’t play brilliant but at least acceptable, with three good opportunities before half time. And Sneijder was the final destination. The first one was a greatly anticipated ball back on the goalie by a Slovenian defender. Sneijder took on the goalie and scored with his left: 1-0.

Ten minutes later, Sneijder hit the post and in the 36th minute the ball missed the goal by a pigs-hair, after a stylistic pass by Van Persie.

It was part of Van Basten’s game-tactics that Sneijder would be the man with the most opportunities in the box. He picked Sneijder and Van Persie as the two “free men”. Van Persie had a free role next to Huntelaar - who replaced the suspended Van Nistelrooy - and Sneijder played the role of shadow-striker or number 10.

The Ajax striker Huntelaar was a sort of deflector upfront but was too invisible to really be able to set Sneijder and Van Persie up in his passing game.
.
Seedorf had a similar role on the left. Van Basten didn’t want Clarence to fill up the space that was there for Sneijder to explore but after Van der Vaart’s injury - Rafael played on the right wing - Seedorf had to move to the right, where his effectiveness was less.

Shortly before the break Van Persie knew to curve the ball with a vengeance passed the wall in a set-piece situation, and Huntelaar’s rebound attempt was blocked by a defender.

Arjen Robben replaced Van der Vaart (hamstring) and went to play on the left. He had trouble finding his game and also got injured soon after. With Van Persie, Robben and Van der Vaart out of the game, the finesse left the team. It was Sneijder who could at least do something in that phase with a classic through-pass on Babel who allowed Huntelaar to score: 2-0.

The best news yesterday had to come from Tirana, where Bulgaria wasn’t able to beat Albania, 1-1. This means, that the EC qualification for Oranje is really really close. One victory against Luxembourg will cling it, so Marco van Basten can start prepare his second major tournament.

“The team will almost tumble forwards,” Van Basten predicted before the 10th international in this EC-series. And that was an understatement. Van Basten created the most offensive line-up since yonks. Where do you see that in international football?

Van Persie, Van der Vaart, Sneijder and Seedorf in the same line-up with striker Huntelaar upfront. The fans looked up in anticipation. And most fans needed some time to realize that apart from this fact, Van Basten made his players play in the 4-4-2 system.

So, at last Van Basten gave in to the demands and wishes of the fans: 4-4-2 and Seedorf and Sneijder and Vaart and Persie…wow… Every now and then we saw 4 offensive players charging into the Slovenian box, but after 20 minutes it died away a bit and after the break it was almost non-existent. After an hour the first booing was heared, with chants for Foppe de Haan… The only cheers came after Huntelaar - who played a lame match- scored the 2-0.

Van Basten had changed his defense-line up as well. All players had a different position yesterday.

Remarkable was the change of the captain’s role. After Van der Vaart’s replacement the captaincy went to Sneijder. Again, Seedorf was ignored, while before the match Van Basten had said that his criteria for captaincy would be the number of international games for Oranje. Apparently, Seedorf’s number of games don’t count.

sources: several (www.nu.nl, www.ad.nl, www.vi.nl)

Tags: Babel, Group C, Robben, Sneijder, The Netherlands, van Persie

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Comments

By Bruce | October 17th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

In my opinion, Oranje played very nice football before VanderVaart left. Once he left, the dominance subsided. And when Van Persie left, the game became stupidly boring and unattractive. I couldn’t imagine being there for that. I would’ve gone nuts. I was anxious just watching it on tele.

But the first 30 minutes was something to look forward to! Just imagine a lineup with VanderVaart, Seedorf, Sneijder, Van Persie, and Van Nistelrooij!

Posted from Republic Of Korea

By Rami | October 17th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

yea .. would be really looking forward to that too.. VB is bending, slowly haha, but hopefully surely..

how bad are the injuries?

Posted from Canada

By Mario | October 18th, 2007 at 12:23 am

Is van Basten reading our posts?. Hehe.

By Mario | October 18th, 2007 at 12:55 am

I think van Basten is trying new stuff and that is what he has to do in order to become a top coach. It is like in life….if one method is not working for you then you have to try a new one and a new and as many times as you can until you get the results you want. van Basten was very stubborn but after recalling Seedorf, now Ruud and trying a 4-4-2 system show that he can try new stuff and that is good for Holland because perhaps like that he will find the right formula. A team with Sneijder, van der Vaar, van Persie, Seedorf and Ruud on the pitch is great for the future but you have to make them play together many games so they can click on the pitch.

I still believe San Marco is not the best man to guide the Netherlands
to european glory but now that he is changing and using new tactics and methods perhaps he will prove us wrong. Anyway, at least we will go to Euro 2008 for sure because Bulgaria is lost and we have two easy games and just with 3 points Holland will be in and that is good news. I think in the first half the team had some good spells and Sneijder and van Persie clicked pretty well and Emmanuelson and Seedorf too when Clarence was on the left. I thought he changed Robben because Marco didn´t like what Robben produced but I read in the news and Jan corrected me that he got injured (again), pitty!

We have a great team but we have to improve our defence. This guy Jaliens is useless. Bouma and Heitinga have plenty of experiencie and although they are not Frank de Boer nor Stam they seem to be comfortable playing together. I don´t trust Mathijsen, I´d rather play Bouma. On the left back Emmanuelson seems a decent option and I like him now better than Gio who is pretty slow to play at the top level nowadays. Gio is a guy that can help the youngsters but I think his role will be more important behind courtains than on the pitch because he doesn´t add anything to the team. After saying this I think the best line up for Holland would be in my opinion:

1-van der Sar

2-Kromkamp (Right back, but Marco doesn´t like him so then we have to go with Melchiot)
3-Heitinga (Sweeper)
4-Bouma (Stopper)
5-Emmanuelson (Left back)

6-De Zeeuw (Holding mid, I´d rather see van Bommel on this role)
7-Seedorf (left midfielder)
8-van der Vaart or Robben, I think Robben is a better player when he is 100% fit but that is one month per year so perhaps Raf will get this place (Right mid switching positions with the left mid, no static)
10-Sneijder (Offensive mid)

9-van Nistelrooy (Central striker)
11-van Persie (Shadow striker)

I think this line up would work pretty good although Kromkamp will not be considered for Marco but Melchiot can do a good job. Apart from that this last game van Basten fielded a team with this 4-4-2 and that is a good sign but with one game playing like that you can´t dominate the system. he has to try it many times until the team clicks.

By netherlandfanboy | October 18th, 2007 at 3:23 am

I think the first half is ok and we can’t judge the coach by second half because he didn’t have VP, VDV, Ruud, Robben

Posted from United States

By goose | October 18th, 2007 at 4:00 am

well here we go;

Stekelburg; 7; no mistakes, happy the way he has played the last couple of games..good for his development, good for the future

Jaliens; 5; just not good enough at this level

Heitinga; 5,5; is ok at defensive duties…no use in the built up…not a good long ball

Bouma; 5,5; same as with the rest of the defense…not much worries when it comes to defending but no use in bringing the ball to midfield or attack

Emmanualeson; 5; not good enough, didnt get passed the half way line all game long…never attacked

Sneijder; 6; played ok first 20 minutes, invisable the rest of the game…not good enough

deZeeuw; 4; WHY Marco??? how come this mediocre player is the central midfielder?? the player who is the link between the different lines….this guy is ok for the dutch leguea…he should not be the central figure in Oranje

Seedorf; 7; best player we had yesterday…started great on the left(!) side but had to move after vdVaart got injured and had a tough time on the right side…played pretty decent (and yes im a bit biased)

vanPersie; 6; couldnt make the difference….think its because he is used to play with good football players at Arsenal, haha

Huntelaar: 4,5; did nothing right, i even cant give him a decent grade for scoring….tought he would have developed more by now….what he waste

subs:

vdVaart; to bad he got injured….hes loss showed
Robben; totally useless…cant even walk with the ball on his feet without loosing it….looks like hes getting worse each year….Marco should not select him anymore
Babel; dont like Babel, did nothing, brought nothing extra
Ooijer; ok, nothing special (ofcourse!)

it was pretty amazing to see how thing changed for the worse when vdvaart had to go and Seedorf was moved to the right side….this team cant handle a simple change without the whole system getting f up

first time (ever) i can remember that the dutch crowd start singing names of other managers…people are really fed up

after the game was over they were bood form the pitch

but eh my friends; at least were not british!!! hahaha

grtz

Posted from Netherlands

By Mario | October 18th, 2007 at 11:06 am

Goose:

It seems that the Dutch public and fans don´t tolerate that van Basten is still coaching the team. I have the feeling that now it doesn´t matter if they win or lose, they just want him out. I don´t live in the Netherlands but you that do live there can confirm me that. Is that the feeling in the Netherlands?. To sack him even if we top the group?. I mean, I have never saw or heard the Dutch fans whistle so much against their own team in their own land. But it has happened quite a few times in the last games and I think the public is right.

Why are they gonna be happy with a manager that has been so disrespecful to Davids, Seedorf, Kromkamp,van Bommel, Makaay, Zenden, van Nistelrooy and a few more players. And he did promised spectacular football almost saying that under the previous coach the level of the game was awful. Well, at least with Advocaat we smashed the smaller nations and were pretty competitive with the best teams in Europe and the world. But with van Basten we do struggle to beat low countries and with strongest teams we have a hard time. Under van Basten we haven´t been able to beat Italy, Germany, England, Portugal…ok, they are top football nations that can beat us and we can beat them too. But right now we are not able to beat the Swiss, Romanians and yesterday Slovenia showed how bad they are and we still had trouble to find the second goal and the public should be pretty mad about that. But I reckon van Basten is having good intentions testing new things like the 4-4-2 formation and recalling players to the team. But perhaps he managed to be in a situation where the fans are fed up with him and want him out regardless of what he does now because of all his bad and stupid decisions that has taken with his staff and thay he was the main responsible for those decisions.

What can you tell me about my doubts Goose, or any one of you guys that have a good source?. It seems to me that de Haan is making campaign to be the national coach hehe. And I really would like him to coach us in Euro 2008 better than van Basten and although if van Basten is the coach I will support Holland too because what matters is Oranje anyway.

By robben | October 18th, 2007 at 11:42 am

How can you say Babel did nothing when he set up huntelaar’s goal. But anyways it should be

v. d. sar (stekelenburg)

melchiot(rb)
heitinga and oojier (cb)
emanuelson (lb)
seedorf (r mid)
v. d. vaart (l mid)
sneijder (attack mid)
v. persie (rw)
v. nistelrooij (huntelaar) (striker)
babel or robben (depending on robben’s status)

Posted from Canada

By ferenc | October 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm

@goose: i think emmanuelson good in attacking too,actually he’s a very talented guy. as wll as babel who i like a lot. dezeeuw? don’t know,sometimes he seems good enough for his role,sometimes not. not a genious, an artist but a hardworker. on robben we are completely agree - i really hope that he will improve and won’t alwasy get injured but at the moment he’s totally useless for oranje. robin is out for at least one month.

sometimes clubs are really unhappy with their internationals coming back injured from their national team… uefa and fifa should find a solution. at the moment only laporta (who i respect a lot and think he’s one of the best clubpresident in the world)is strongly against international games but i wouldn’t be surprised if wenger were too. very sensible questions with opposite interests… let’s see: i wouldn’t be very angry if after a friendly international game messi came back injured for at least one month… don’t know what’s the ideal solution. what do you think about it?

mario: i’m confused with marco. at the beginning - when almost everyone backed him in his surprising decisions - i was completely against him and didn’t accept his reasons. his bad decisions culminated in may-july 2006… but in the last couple of months he seems more mature: clarence and ruud are back,tried to play 442,etc. i understand the public but he’s not the only one responaible for the second half performance yesterday.

Posted from Hungary

By ferenc | October 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm

a correction: i would be very angry…

Posted from Hungary

By goose | October 19th, 2007 at 4:11 am

@Mario; its true, i can second your worries and so do the rest of dutch people …people here are so fed up with vanBasten that we all were almost dissapointed that they scored the second goal…. the problem is that we all know that if we keep on playing like this theres no hope of any glory at a big tournament….we qualify if you cant win the championship??

its also true that this is the first time ever (since ive been following Oranje say 88) that i have heared the fans scant the name of a different manager

the biggest problem still is; NO PROGRESS…. in 3 years with vanBasen as Bondscoach… youre assessment is correct…no results against the top teams…very poor results against the lesser ones

the only good things he has done is making right his own mistakes (vNistelrooij)

another thing i need to adress; vanBasten is still treating Seedorf like a little schoolboy…vdSar is captain, when he gets injured its vanBronckhorst, against Slovenia vdSar was out, Gio was out and who got to be captain?? was it the man who won 4 major trophies??? nooooo .. vdVaart became captain and when he got injured it was Sneijder!!!
shame on vanBasten!! the worst people manager since the Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge!

@ferenc; interesting problem that is…. there is still a power struggle going on between FIFA/UEFA and the Clubs…
Clubs pay the salary to the players, national teams cant take all the risks (you see what happened with vPersie, vdVaart and Robben) and then just walk away
i think well see more and more that the big players play only in the big, qualification matches
my solution would be to have a qualification group with only 4 ‘big’football counrties…have an A and a B group…..why play against Lux. Albania etc.? its just a nuisance…they will NEVER qualify so why not put all these kind of counrties in a seperate poule and let them fight it out among themselfs….the winner of this B poule could then qualify for a dessision game against a loser from the A poule…. idea??

whats that ferenc?? you starting to like vanBasten?? haha

grtz

Posted from Netherlands

By Luxembourg » Blog Archives » Holland - Slovenia 2-0; Van Persie & Sneijder make the difference. | October 19th, 2007 at 7:04 am

[…] Holland - Slovenia 2-0; Van Persie & Sneijder make the difference. qualification for Oranje is really really close. One victory against Luxembourg will cling it, so […]

By Luxembourg » Blog Archives » Revealing AdSense Secrets | October 19th, 2007 at 7:05 am

[…] Holland - Slovenia 2-0; Van Persie & Sneijder make the difference. qualification for Oranje is really really close. One victory against Luxembourg will cling it, so […]

By ferenc | October 20th, 2007 at 11:49 am

@goose: i wouldn’t say that i start to like van basten because i’ve always liked him in a way… not agree with him, considering him as a bad people manager, etc,etc,but still, i don’t know why… maybe because he is so human… i would obviously prefer hiddink,van gaal,rijkaard,foppe,etc to him,but at the moment we have marco.
agree with your A and B leagues. but there is one problem: why the hell these small football nations should play in this case between each other if there is no any hope to get results? ten years age would you have put greece in the A group?

Posted from Hungary

By dirk v.d berg | October 20th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Want to know an interesting fact about Greece. Out of the world cups and euro cups, they’ve only managed to score 8 goals, and 7 of them came in euro 2004. So i hate when people say greece is a good footballing nation. But i agree with goose in a sense that we should have A and B groups. We can avoid situations like Germany 13-0 san marino, where all of a sudden Lukas Podolski’s the best striker on earth. And if you ever compare country top scorers it’s unequal, because Player A could have 40 goals against real teams, and Player B could have 50 against San Marino.

Posted from Canada

By dirk v.d berg | October 20th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

Anyone know how long v.d. vaart is going to be out, I was gonna pick him as a player of the year contender for next year the way he started out until he got injured. No one seems to know who he is (in canada) because he plays for hamburg. Sneijder and Drenthe got famous this summer because they play in Madrid now, but v.d. vaart is still an unknown.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | October 20th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

I like the A and B plan. And like with tennis and vollyball, the top 4 (or 2) of the B-group could promote into the A-group and vice versa…

If people want to know about Rafael, there must be wonderful youtube clips on him. I do feel raf needs to move to Spain or Italy (preferably Spain) to be seen as one of the the truly big boys. It’s either that, or Bayern Munich I guess…

Posted from Australia

By Jan | October 20th, 2007 at 7:20 pm

PSV coach Koeman allowed the 19 year old Dirk Marcellis to make his debut. The young central defender played like a God. Long passes (assist to the first goal), confidence and “Ajax-like skills”…

YES!

Posted from Australia

By goose | October 21st, 2007 at 4:21 am

@vdBerg; vdVaart will be out for 3 to 4 weeks

hear that Chelsea is also interested in taking on vdvaart
i like the fact that he still plays for HSV…like the way the club held him in Hamburg, it was a shameful act by vdvaart to try and force a leave

@jan; it shows me how deperate we are for a good central defender who can play….

Posted from Netherlands

By Mario | October 21st, 2007 at 3:03 pm

Wow guys…if nobody wants Marco then the KNVB should take a decision right after the qualifiers!.

I love when Holland plays in a big tournament and all the fans are happy and supporting the team with orange colors. But I wouldn´t like to hear people booing the team in a big tournament and I think there are periods for a coach and I think his time is full as our national coach. He has had his chance and he did win many games but so far he has not delivered his dominant and attractive style of play and Marco has taken so many wrong decisions, we all know his bad decisions.

I think the Dutch fans are willing to see a person like de Haan in command and it would be great that he will become the coach before the groups draw for the Euro 2008. I think that will de Haan we can make it big at the tournament and with San Marco it will be a disaster again.

By ferenc | October 21st, 2007 at 3:22 pm

Mario, i’m 100% sure that the knvb won’t take this decision. we can say it as a mantra 100 or 1million times but it wouldn’t change anything. Marco,himself has to change the tactics. he will have more than a half a year for this.

Posted from Hungary

By dirk v.d berg | October 21st, 2007 at 3:38 pm

Is stam retired, or is he just not being called up, because in my opinion he is still a great defender.

Posted from Canada

By ferenc | October 21st, 2007 at 4:57 pm

he retired from international football after the ec 04. he’s an ajax player now. before the wc06 marco called him up - at least sumours said this - but he didn’t want to change his mind. he’s great but at the age of 35 (born in 72) no more the worldclass defender as he used to be. at the eredivisie level he performs well but he definitely won’t be the solution for the coming ec.

Posted from Hungary

By jan | October 22nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm

Jaap has become vulnerable too. Not that sharp anymore and injured a lot!

Posted from Australia

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