Huntelaar and Afellay out.

September 7th, 2007 | by: Jan |

Team managers Van Basten and Van’t Schip brought thr group back to 18 players. And again, there is no room for Klaas Jan Huntelaar. Van Basten reinforces his stance, that with Ruud van Nistelrooy, Dirk Kuyt and Vennegoor the group has enough skilled and experienced center strikers.

The other drop offs are Afellay, Emanuelson, Kew Jaliens, Henk Timmer and Rafael van der Vaart. The latter is injured of course. These players will need to stay on call for the Albania match.

Emanuelson was a starter against Switzerland while Afellay is in great form at PSV. “It wasn’t easy to chose. The differences are very small. I know they won’t like this message, but then again, we did enjoy some good training sessions.”

Based on the training sessions, it seems John Heijtinga will start.

Presumed Line up:

Goal: Van der Sar

Defense: Melchiot, Heitinga, Mathijsen, Bouma

Midfield: De Zeeuw, Van Bronckhorst, Sneijder

Attack: Van Persie, Van Nistelrooy, Babel

Netherlands World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Comments

By Bob | September 7th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

I hope the team plays well tomorrow–already Saturday in the Netherlands when I am sending this email–but I believe this lineup to be one of the weakest in Dutch football history. The defensive line is just short of scary, the midfield is weak without van de Vaart and the front line is typically Holland–potentially strong but who will get them the ball? I have no knowledge of the Bulgarian team, and the match is in Amsterdam, so perhaps the team will win and move positively forward toward the EC next year. However, I do not see this lineup and formation able to advance very far against the elite of Europe and the British Isles.

I am also aggravated with UEFA, in that their live coverage for electronic viewing of matches tomorrow does not include Netherlands v. Bulgaria for viewing here in the US. Also, the Fox Soccer Channel is showing several of the qualifying matches, none with the potential quality of “our” match. Why, considering their current FIFA ranking, do the Dutch not receive more coverage world wide?

HUP HOLLAND!

Posted from United States

By ferenc | September 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Bob: try here:

http://myp2p.eu/Matches/Match4.htm

Posted from Hungary

By tjeerd | September 7th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

Hear hear Bob, I have 3 soccer channels, fox, goltv, and setanta. Fox has a couple of qualifying games as well as goltv, none of them in our group.

On the lineup, MVB may sub in Kyut if the team needs a spark.

By Jan | September 8th, 2007 at 12:41 am

I don’t understand why Afellay had to go. If Vaart is out, I’d keep Afellay coz he’s a similar player. It; fear based, coz De Jong is still there, U guess. If Gio, our holding midfielder, falls away, Heijtinga can take that position and Boulah can take Heijtinga’s. Or Sneijder moves back and Persie takes over from Sneijder. Or Seedorf. But, who am I?

Posted from Australia

By tiju thomas | September 8th, 2007 at 8:13 am

Good veiw bob,
Droping afaleey is pitty
Kuyt i hate him after the WC2006 portugal match.
Venna goor is useful if we r playing long balls
my chice
rb-heitinga
cb-ooiger
cb-mathjenson
lb-gio
lm-Znider
rm- ze dorf
holding mid-dek saaw
babel
nestel
vanpersie
Our mid is not enough tell tat znider to shoot from near the central line if haiselink is there then lucky we may get one goal.
ze dorf poor man he wont score but he can assist goal
My sure bet for manof the match
(babel nad van persie)