Kesler brings the KNVB back to the 19th century…

@Jan: don’t even get my started on this character.

Kesler is a disgrace, have no idea or experience in the subject area of football which would probably been a very good idea to hold his position.

This idiot needs to go. He is acting like the KNVB is the reincarnation of everything that was bad about the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC ).

in the EPL ooijer scored a 89 minute tap in to win the game for blackburn

nigel de jong looked very good against arsenal

please please get rid of Henk. he also shot down the Beneliga idea, which I think is crucial for the development of dutch football. Plus, it will only help our world cup bids if we can show FIFA that we can run one competition.

Jan, You continue to provide terrific information on your blog, with a balance that is much appreciated. The Dutch have improved, and credit must go, in part, to van Marwyck. The athletes are essentially the same as when van Basten managed, yet the team performances have been far superior. I also believe that, due to van Marwyck’s style of coaching, several players have improved their match performances and everyone seems to now understand the concept of “TEAM”. Considering the current talent pool of the Dutch, including the depth of talent at almost every position, the World Cup in South Africa should be very interesting. How ironic it would be for the Netherlands to prevail in a country which they helped settle and whose cultural influences remain there to this day. Let’s hope we all can celebrate that moment!

As to the KNVB and Kesler, there is nothing new there. It amazes me that such a boneheaded organization is the national organization of the team currently ranked 3rd in the world! The Dutch succeed on the pitch in spite of the KNVB, rather than because of it. By the way, have you seen the “English version” of the KNVB website? Very pathetic. finnster01 nails it well with his recent comment.

Posted from  United States

sneijder benching was essential for the team/ work ethic. previously the stars wouldn’t have to work hard to stay in the squad.

@BOB… i disagree with you strongly on your point about ”credit must go, in part, to van Marwyck” and your point about the fact that ”The athletes are essentially the same as when van Basten managed, yet the team performances have been far superior”. Granted, van marwijk has provided team spirit, but van basten was a great coach. His view of football and his tactics made holland destroy Itlay and france in two consecutive games. It was van basten that provided the ”click” for this team, and it all happened the day holland went to beat croatia 3-0 after having talked with his players to disxuss a new system. It was van bastens work that made this talented team ooz in confidence and have such an attacking spirit. He just had one bad match against russia and i wished he had stayed on.. All van marwijk did was inherit of a team that was was already performing great, was full of talent and confidence and felt that they can beat anyone. He is just taking credit for what van basten left for him. Frankly, the group we re in is far from being great or tough as most would call it and i feel as though the reason why were performing so well is because most of these teams are in fact doing quite badly. Scotland barely played football against us and neither did macedonia, norway or iceland. They tried to counter us and prevent us from playing our game. The only thing that van marwijk has brought to the team which i admire, is this warm atmosphere where everyone has a chance to make it in the starting 11 and where there are no guarantees. He also is trying to create a good team spirit which oranje has never had due to in fighting. I say lets wait and see wc 2010..

Posted from  Switzerland

Interesting discussion, this… . Been pondering that myself.

Allow me to open up the debate even more in a seperate post. I personally agree with Bob, but Marc has a point there… Let’s assess that a bit more, shall we?

Well for a start, under Marco we never beat Macedonia with the same team in the Euro qualifiers. This time under Bert we beat them TWICE.

Posted from  Singapore

I have to agree with Marc

Posted from  United States

at least we are beating the little teams that just defend against us comfortably now under van marwijk

Van Basten laid much of the groundwork (especially during the difficult transition of getting rid of the 98 oldies and experimenting with young fresh faces…which France and Italy have to do now), and van Basten had always said from the very beginning that he had his sights set on EC2008, not WC2006. I feel the NL did really well at 2008, barring one bad game. Van Marwijk is just extending van Basten’s original work and refining it. I hope he can fix the last major kink this team has: inconsistency.
I think both coaches had the right mentality for their time. Van Basten is more willing to give everyone a chance, which is crucial when you’re basically forming a new team. Van Marwijk is all about building a solid 11, which is excellent for when you already have a very good selection as we have now.
The only disadvantage of such an approach is that you don’t have new, highly potential players joining in much. Just look at v.d.Wiel, the only reason he got a shot was because Heitinga was injured. I hope now that we have pretty much qualified, Bert will allow players like Braafheid to have a go a couple of more times.
I think van Marwijk might be a bit better of a people person though. This Sneijder affair went much cooler than the van Basten- van Bommel affair. Then again, van Bommel is also a lot more difficult to deal with than Sneijder. But all in all, Bert is more cool and composed. He brings more rest to the team. On the other hand, I think van Basten is more intelligent tactically and football-wise in general. However, for a team like Holland where the players are already of such a high level, I think it might be more useful to have someone like van Marwijk that can just keep them cohesive as a team and put them in their positions. Players of this high caliber will do the rest themselves (given general guidelines).

Good post by Jeroen (who seems to have talent for good posts…).

I do want to offer my view, which is a bit more critical towards San Marco.

I’ll do it in a separate post, ok lads?

Yep – good analysis by Jeroen.
Question for Alex our defence expert.
We have had ONE goal scored against us (a penalty at Macedonia ??), yet everyone here and outside too incl foreign press keeps slamming our defence as the weakest link. In your view is our record (and it is a new record) so good because of opposing team being constantly attacked or are the 4-6 guys we use really a lot better than we give them credit for ? Or is it de Jong/Bommel ?

Posted from  Singapore

Marco van Basten:

1) Fight with Ruud van Nistelrooy.
2) Fight with Mark van Bommel.
3) Gives Davids the captain role but then he says Davids is almost as old as Wouters so he won’t call him again.
4) NEVER gave Huntelaar a chance. “I hope Huntelaar shows me wrong”. Well, he did.
5) We never knew what team he’d play.
6) Against Portugal he takes off Mathijsen in the 2nd half when it was Boulahrouz who had a yellow card. Some minutes later he got his 2nd yellow and we all know the story.

But Marco will never lose my respect he’s a legend and I will always admire him very very much.

I don’t know if Bert will do better than him but as far as I am concerned Marco’s time in the national team wasn’t so good. We have world class players and having only won 2 group stages is below what we can achieve.

@Carlos

I really think the reason we have had so little goals against is for several reasons:

1) We have great defensive midfielders
2) Our offense produces a lot of pressure, which forces our opponents to play defensively
3) Our qualification opponents are weak
4) The lack of our defense is also slightly overexaggerated. It is not a worldclass defense, but hopefully this is compensated for by our offense.

I wouldnt worry too much about the defense, with v.d.Wiel, Marcellis, and Braafheid, the future is looking ok.

@Rosado

1) yes, this was perhaps his worst move as coach. but they resolved it later and admitted the conflict was from both sides. van basten was unhappy with ruud’s performance in 2006 (which was pretty bad) and he let him know it (rudely I guess) and Ruud couldnt handle that. Id say for both marco as coach and ruud as international team player this was their low point.

2) van bommel isnt exactly an easy guy to get along with. i think marco and van bommel are both quite stubborn. in that case though, the coach is always the authority.

3) Davids performance after 2004 went way downhill. I have great respect for the guy (a legend in my opinion) but he was just getting old.

4) he introduced huntelaar into the national team in the first place! friendly against ireland if i remember correctly (and huntelaar scored like three times didnt he?). Huntelaar was always first sub for Ruud. Let’s be fair, up until maybe the last couple of weeks, Ruud was better than Klaas.

5) He was always experimenting. The only time he shouldnt have been was the couple of months before the EC, thats when he should have been building on a solid 11. But most coaches dont give away their formation till 2 minutes before the game anyways .

6) Not a smart sub in terms of cards, but hey, Mathijsen wasnt playing well and Boulahrouz took out Ronaldo. There can be only one choice as to who you keep in .

I agree that Marco’s time was riddled with conflicts, but I think he wasn’t to blame for all of it. He did really well to snap the arrogance out of a lot of players, like van Persie (along with Wenger’s help). Thats what makes them so easy to work with now. In a way, Marco made the job much easier for anyone who would follow him. But yeah, I do think he has a problem with people skills.

@About San mark my opinions
1)Ruud incident was bad but ruud deserved such kind of a punishment and marco was right,but his choice was absolutly wrong(KUYT)it should have been hunter(that man was in terrific form at that time and dropping hunter from the squad was itself a blunter.)
2)Van bommel issue occured because of his poor people management.
3)San mark actions was quick and he never afraid to take any kind of risk.
4)he made drastic chages to the team.he sticked with his veiws always.
5)Gave lots of chances to young players and avoided Maccay,Davids,Zeadorf etc and that was his mastertstroke we are getting the results now.
5)All his actions was with lonnnnggggvision.we are harvesting from his investments now.
6)he never gave respect to the talented players of the opposite team like,Deco,Arshavin,Crying baby etc.these mercurial talents made him piss off.he never made special tactics to lock these talents.
7)whenever he selected team he gave first priority to recent performance of the players.he never belived in talents,Now he diid to Stekelnburg.
8)Under him he never worked on players stamina-i mean lack of training.
Over all i rate him as a good coach with some luck and slight silly mistakes.
Before the world cup2006 he told ITALY as most balenced team and ec2008 he tipped SPain.Both of them won the cups respectivly.This itself proves that he can forsee the winning team ,and this is not easy to predict the winner correctly in two times.

Posted from  India

Off topic but interesting
In case you want to know the timing for most of the games at the world cup in South Africa, click on below link so you’ll have some idea.
I think by UK time they mean the actual summer (daylight saving) time, not GMT. Start planning your holidays and shift work .

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/fixtures?league=fifa.world&cc=4716

Posted from  Singapore

I think V.Basten never learned from his mistakes against Portugal, his first few years were filled with confusing line-ups, ever changing selections and bad relations with players. listening to the players was the first clever thing he did, remember that was only a few months before the EC. And it worked out for him, had he not done that, we would have struggled even more in 4-3-3 and he would have become the most hated man in the counrty, i have no more time so part 2 coming up later

Posted from  Netherlands