Last EC matches: where to start?

say what u like ferenc, i think hes a good payer.. he shines in all of the mental attributes that most of our players would fail in. i think ppl just need to have more faith in him, and not constantly putting him under pressure.

At least we qualified, look at England. I see a lot of similarities between us and the Brits, both under achievers, except we snuck in. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we are mediocre just like the rest of them. In that case the team with the most heart usually succede. I have yet to see that heart with Oranje.

I have to agree with everything that has been written (a) about this game and (b) about our prospects for Euro 08. Watching from afar the losses we had until Wednesday did not hurt too much, as we were still competitive. But that result against Belarus made me feel ill. I have also totally lost confidence in Marco van Basten’s ability to get this team playing as a team with the amount of passion that is needed. Here in Australia we saw with Guus Hiddink did last year with mediocre talent - but players who were passionate to win. Guus is obviously not available - but from what I read Foppe de Haan seems to be able to get players to play at the best of their ability and critically AS A TEAM. So reluctantly I add my voice to those who call for Marco’s resignation or sacking !

Posted from  Australia

I am having some doubts about what you guys say about our defense. Ok, I agree with all of you that our defense is not at the standards of Italy, France or Argentina. But we say we lack quality and that last Euro 2004 we had a much better defense. Well guys let´s rewind a bit.

At Euro 2004 Heitinga was the starter as right back, as stopper we had Bouma and as left back we had Gio van Bronckhorst and as sweeper there was Stam. All those players are still in the team and most of the times are in the starting line up except Stam. Stam at Euro 2004 was pretty slow already but now we have pretty much the same material. Gio is not playing as left back but Bouma is stronger, Melchiot is better right back than Heitinga and Mathijsen is not that bad compared to the Bouma that played in that position almost 4 years ago. Of course there was Stam who is such a leader, a leader that we need now but guys, the level of the defenders is equal to the one we had in the European Championship in Portugal 2004. We shouldn´t search for excuses to save Marco. If he doesn´t know how to make his defenders play better in the build up is not just the defenders fault. I mean, Brazil has always had very bad defenders and they didn´t complain because they didn´t care too much about that. All the team had one goal in mind and that was to be champions and now they have 5 world cups in their record. So guys, let´s stop bitching about our defense. Our defense is fine, not the very best but not that bad. And no, I don´t think Oleguer Presas will even make the team. Oleguer just plays at Barcelona because he is from Catalunia and Rijkaard has confidence in him so the public and press can say that Frankie supports the local boys but everybody knows that Oleguer sucks. He is years ahead of any of our defenders. I don´t think Mathijsen or Boulahrouz are top defenders but they are much better than Oleguer, I mean…Oleguer has to be one of the worst defenders I´ve seen in my life.

Let´s be serious and not so soft on our papers. All the team is hugely talented. Our defense is not our strongest point but doesn´t have to be a weakness. They are good players, they play in good teams and they have shown in the past how valuable can be be for any team. If we concentrate in the whole team rather than just defense, midfield or the forwards then we can evaluate the team better and the reality is that the talent is there but the whole team is not working. Who is responsible for that??? I´d say San Marco. If the players are not motivated, if they don´t feel the passion, if they don´t play according to the gameplan who should respond for that???.

I am very sure that we were lucky to be in such an easy group because if we had been in the group of France and Italy or in any other we would be out of this tournament. We struggle for the points in every game, there wasn´t a game where Oranje managed to beat his opponent in a convincent way and I am pissed off for that. I love the type of football the Netherlands are capable of playing and I strongly believe this set of players can play wonderful and adding a van Bommel and a Kromkamp will benefit us. But with van Basten we had had plenty of time with his experiments and nothing has worked. He has played 4-3-3 and now 4-4-2, he has choosen all the players he wants and rejected big players and nothing has worked since the last World Cup.

If I´d be president of the KNVB I will learn from what happened to England because they had a terrible coach. I would be thankful that with an amateur coach I reached a major tournament and I will thank him and tell him to stay home to watch the tournament or invite him as a guest but I will hire a top coach. Who? well, there are many…Hiddink, van Gaal, Adrianesse, de Haan, Rijkaard…but an important issue is the money.
Do you want to win trophies???? Yes??? Well, then you have to hire a top coach and pay him very very well. There is no thing as saving money when you need to win tournaments. Why invest so much money in marketing for the national team, advertisement and in the Eredivisie and its clubs and youth systems if you want a cheap coach???. I simply do not understand that stupid concept and I want firstly Mr. Kesler kicked out, he is an asshole, van Basten is not guilty of the stupidity of this man. We want to win the European Championship or at least we wanna believe and have hopes that we can but I do not about you guys but with van Basten nothing important will happen. I don´t wanna be negative but facts and reality tell me that if van Basten goes to the tournament like it seems it´s gonna be then we should pray every game for not being humilliated a rude way.

I meant that Oleguer is years BEHIND hahahaha.

And I say papers when I wanted to say players…I need to slow down a bit hehe, sorry my friends, it´s the stress.

Agree with ferenc - Kuyt sucks. No finishing quality. Horrible first touch. Should be reconverted to a holding mid role. But still, not enough class to be considered on Oranje.

I’d like to see Foppe given a try. But we all know this will not happen. KNVB is committed to Marco thru EC08.

Posted from  United States

people; dont bash Kuijt like that.. i know hes not the most gifted striker around but hes a great soldier…ferenc; its bs to say that Koevermans is a better striker than Kuijt..thats just not true…

me hope is that Huntelaar will step up the plate but he hasnt been playing great the last couple of months… we need him to replace vanNistelrooij

Posted from  Netherlands

You wanna know my opinion?

I think we’re all over-reacting…

We’re disappointed by that last match. We wanted to finish this series with a sparkling win. And we didn’t. Lack of motivation, missing four players, individual mistakes…

Our defensive line up isn’t the best we had, but isn’t really shabby either.

Our midfield might be too good even.

Our strikers are world-class.

There still a lot of work to do, agreed, but we had two great qualification series and let’s face it…England, Portugal, France, Spain…did they do so great?

Exactly.

Keep the faith guys, we may not have the coach we all want, but it’s the lads who’ll have to do it. Clarence, Wesley, Ruud, Robin, Raf, Edwin, Gio, Ryan, Joris, Mario…let’s cut them sone slack and analyse our situation in a couple of days with an objective head on our shoulders…

Posted from  Australia

to b honest i do not have ny hope that dutch will win the ec 2008
i am a true dutch fan but the way the oranje are playing doesnt give us any hope i would rather b happy to see dutch play 4.4.2 and lose than to play 4.4.3 Playing RvP as a right wing is really a horrible stuff which i would not expect Van basten will do Sneijder Vander Vaart n Seedorf all have quality no doubt they have proved themselves in their clubs but the thing that matters is how they combine in an oranje shirt playing together
everyone think the midfield trio os Sneijder RVDV n Seedy is the best n so do i but where is the combination it looks like they have ver played together before
Next thing i really want to see is the build up from the back which is lacking in our game for the past 4 years or so i watched dutch team in euro 2000 n wat a team that was they failed to qualify for WC2002 n EC 2004 was the first tournament i was watching oranje in 4 years but wat i found was a complete change in the mentality i wud say a negative mapproach to the game under advocaat ok lets leave it
but nothing changed in the van basten reign n i was really surprised to see the dutch play in last years world cup n i dint expect a gre8 game of football this time round any way thank god i wasnt a English fan.
A friend of mine who is an english fan was really disappointed that he even said he is no more an english football fan he wud rather support portugal ha ha wat a disappointment
i think we r very near to wat england play these days big names but a very ordinary display of game
i wud really love to see Van basten bering sacked bcoz the fault is all his . he has not been a good leader neither he has been a good motivator he knows football n he plays football thats it
Alot will depend on how much cross will Van nistelrooy get from the flank n how well can the back four build up the game n how rock solid is our defensive midfield otherwise with the quality of robben van persie van der vaart n seedorf n sneijder we look one of the strongest side in the tournament
Bye
Sandesh from Kathmandu, Nepal

Posted from  Nepal

I agree with Jan, I think this may be over-reacting a little.

Oranje have world class players throughout the squad (apart from the defense of course, which has already been stated) but this is all you need for a decent national side. Look at Italy when they won the World Cup, not every single player would get into the Oranje side.
Van Basten is a good manager, I have faith that he will sort it out. If he can tighten up the defence (I’m really not sure what the best back-line would be) then the side won’t fail.

It was a shabby performance against Belarus but after already qualifying they were never going to go all out for the win.

Posted from  United Kingdom

@Jan; whats this than Jan?? getting soft at your old age???haha..

how can we overreact?? you can saw about Oranje and vanBasten whatever you like but nobody can deny that the quality of play has been horrific!! really the worst qualification i ever seen (far worse than 2001-2002)

i keep wondering if i just dont expect too much from these players but than i see them play for their clubs the next week and i see them shine!! so it must be the managers fault cause he makes the team!… cant see how you would call him a good manager BettingBoy? what has he ever done to convince you??

again; i rather lose in style than win like the way we have done last few years..its embarrassing… and sure; anything can happen (Danmark 92; Greece 04) but its not gonna happen to this Oranje team

@MarioR; think Mathijssen is a total waste… really tought he would have grown more by now…. what happened with Boula.. agree on Kromkamp btw; but vanBasten has some personal problem with Kromkamp (remember him critizing Kromkamp when he left Psv to join Liverpool? he never selected him again..Kromkamp may not be the best defender in town, hes great at attacking and even has a decent cross from the rigth

my team would be (i cant pick vBommel who would have been a starting player in any Oranje team i make)
right to left:

van der Sar

Boula Bouma
Kromkamp vBronckhorst
de Zeeuw

Sneijder

Seedorf van der Vaart

van Persie

van Nistelrooij

Posted from  Netherlands

let’see our players,how many world class footballer we have.
vds - with van beveren and van breukelen the best goalkeeper of dutch football history. still world class,and getting better in penalty-killing (he should have been in 96,98 and 2000 too). wedbesday we saw the difference between him and stekelenburg.
stekelenburg - talented,but i feel less secure with him. he doesn’t make big mistakes,just small ones but we have already payed for them. if vds had been there against roumania and belarus our opponents wouldn’t had scored 3 times,only once. this is the difference between a world class and a very good goalkeeper.
defence - i have already written my opinion. just some more worlds: the problem of our right and leftbacks is that they are more attack-minded which is not bad if they were capable to fullfil their defensive duties. unfortunately this is not the case. kromkamp,melchiot,gio,emmanuelson,de cler - gio is experienced but he’s far too offensive. central defence: our weakest point. unfortunately i can’t see any light and the end of the tunnel. some of us said that ron vlaar would be great,i just would like to remember him that we shouldn’t forget vlaar’s performance in october 95 five against italy,especially luca toni. Mario: in 2004 heitinga started when reiziger was injured. anyway from a defensive pow our 2004 ec wasn’t a great achievement. conclusion: we don’t have any world class defender only average and poor players without the potential of building up from the back. it means that marco should convert a holding midfielder into central. defender probably de zeeuw who’s not a world class player neither but at least can read the game.
i don’t know what’s going on with edgar but if he’s in good form and will be next spring marco should beg his pardon a reactivate him for oranje. but unfortunately he’s no more the best edgar davids (who was my absolut football hero in the post-rijkaard durch era).
sneijder - he has the potential to become a world class player. two-footed,big sense of organization,good shots,great football intelligence. sometimes he looks selfish, pretentious.
vdv - almost the same as sneijder except that he doesn’t seem to be pretentious. more team player,great oraganization skills,good dribbler. he’s very complex.
seedorf - world class. the best dutch player at the moment. intelligence,technical and tactical skills,polyvalence,everything. clarence seedorfi is the top of the top. he can only be compared to kaka,ronaldinho,messi,c. ronaldo,deco,etc.
robben - enormous technical potential,very fast,good dribble but a typical one-dimensional player. we know the rest - he’s the eternal talent who will never achieve anything great. good for some games for 20-30 minutes and that’s it.
babel - he’s one of our greatest talent. polyvalent,technically skilled but he has to mature. he will be world class player but he’s not yet.
van persie - after clarence he’s our second best player. world class - two-footed,strong,dangerous with his head,strong kick,zhe optimal second striker. he has the potential to become the new denis bergkamp.
rvn - everyone know his strenghts. technically less gifted than van persie or kluivert was but he recompensates this with his killer instinct. world class too.
huntelaar - our big hope because he’s the heir of ruud with all the responsabillities. i’m a bit scared - for the same reason as Goose.
koevermans - nothing special. strong,etc,better for the hinchpitter role than vennegoor of hasselink.
kuijt - i don’t want to repeat myself,everyone know my opinion. total waste . strong mentality without talent is not enoug for top football.
de jong - marco shouléd forget him as well as engelaar.
maduro - he started well but hasn’t evolved too much in the last year.
drenthe - performing well at the u21 tournamnts is one thing,becoming a top player is another. hope that he will but we have to count him after the ec. anyway he doesn’t play at real,he should have stayed at feyenoord. next year he should go to another team for ex. valencia (vdv too).

we can say that oranje shouls sack marco or marco out or whatever we want but at least until the end of the ec we should accept the fact that marco will be there. the problem is that the “candidates” quoted by Miguel are not disponible. hiddink - he’s a god in russia. foppe - maybe but don’t know what he would be capable to do with “senior” players. Frankie - he’s in the best place at the moment and should stay there until the end of the laporta era (2010). Van Gaal - i remember what he achieved with a very strong group of players during the qualifications for the wc 2002. he’s perfect at the club level (except at barca where he should have won at least one cl),but less good at the international level. Adrianse - i really don’t know,it seems that he’s a little bit overestimated.

my main concern is that we were not too convincing during the qualifications. i don’t mind about the belarussia game - we lost because we thought that germany (fu**ing bastards;-)))) would win against wales,but they didn’t… the problem is that i cannot see the team-dynamism,and if something doesn’t happen at the individual level,we have no collective solution. and football is a teamgame. individual talents count but all these talents should be put together into a cohesive unit. one good sign that marco seems to flirt with the 442 which fits better to our players’ abilities.

conclusion: we have 4 worldclass player - vds,clarence,robin,ruud - and great offensive potential (potebtial doesn’t mean that this is a fact),but the squad is not balanced enough.

Posted from  Hungary

I think that the comments posted here are getting nearer to the root of the problem. It doesn’t really matter how good or bad our defence is or our mids or our strikers because those are the players that we have and they are more than capable of achieving great things. The problem is that those players are underachieving in oranje compared to what they are capable of and even worse, the team is not “gelling”, there is no sense of cohesion and teamwork, the mentality isnt there and players are not really working for each other. its true that the team is not the most balanced, but this can be overcome - think of oranje ‘74, they managed to convert a fullback and a mid into a successful central defense parternship. If somehow the team can come together before the ec08 and form a cohesive unit where the players work together, we could have a great summer. I’m sure that part of this comes down to coaching (and this has already been talked about and i don’t think things are going to change), but the players are responsible as well for contributing focus, team spirit, work ethic and PRIDE to the cause. so if the players can do that there is hope, regardless of the other factors (coaching, quality of squad, etc).

Posted from  Canada

@ferenc; wow, thats some post…ill come back to it tomorrow (when im sober!)hahaha

Posted from  Netherlands

I think the Eastern Europeans are plaing with true heart and give a shit.
ie Croatia, Romania, Czech, Poland etc.

@ferenc: I agree with goose, than is quite a post. I had to look up the word polyvalent because I’ve never seen it before.. while it is a real word in chemistry, I don’t think it’s the word you want to use.. perhaps multi-talented?

I have to agree with you about Babel and Kuijt. Babel is a talent for the future, but as of right now he is close to useless. Way to individualistic and needs to be more of a team player. He isn’t contributing anything to the team at the moment. Kuijt has great mentality, but lacks the ability to be a top class striker.

I agree with the main problem you stated - the team is not behaving like a team. There is no cohesiveness. It’s just a bunch of individuals. If we can get are team to act and feel like a team, we may have a chance of doing some good things this ec.

Posted from  Japan

polyvalent is a term used by Van Gaal and others and is aimed at players who can build up, pass, dribble, tackle, score, cross, head the ball…in other words, players who can do it all. Like Robin van Persie in ultimo form. Ruud van N is not one of those: horrible tackler. Sneijder comes close (not good with the head). Robben is definitely not. Babel could become one. Etc etc. If you have six of those boys in your team you can play total football… If not, you have to balance your midfield, your left and righ flank, etc.

Posted from  Australia

Ah, I see. Still think there are other words that are better to use.. in English polyvalent is only used for medicine and chemistry. Maybe the best is calling someone a ‘complete player’?

Posted from  Japan

Caleb, you are correct regarding the meaning of the word “polyvalent”. It is, however, a synonym for multivalent, denoting something which has many values. So, a player with many attributes such as described by Jan could be called polyvalent, more properly multivalent and, best of all by your suggestion, a complete player. In my opinion, van de Sar, Seedorf and van Persie could be called complete players. Sneijder and van der Vaart are close–nobody else appears to be.

There are 16 teams qualified for the EC. They are Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. I do not know enough about the other teams to have a definite opinion, but it appears to me that Oranje will have a challenge winning over most of them, especially based on the many comments generated from the last debacle match in which Holland played as poorly as I have ever seen them play. So, from the perspective of fielding any of the teams proposed by the bloggers, which of these teams CAN the Netherlands beat?

Posted from  United States

guys guys guys!i think u all are speakin some truth in ur comments… but dont u see it?!! van basten purposely lost to belarus expecting germany to win and end up in pot 1. i dont think he had any envi to be in a group of death with Germany itally and france and so he put on the B team without ( van nistelrooy van perise seedorf robben van der saar) alright they did play poorly but dont u see how mayn chances holland has created this whole qualifying campaign?!! holland has the highes rate of shots on goal in europe. holland doesnt lack the creating of game but the finnishing touch! holland had 90 shots on goal while germany only had 50 or so… what does that tell us?! well holland builds up the opportunity but doesnt score. germany had twice as less chances but converted twice as many goals! This is where the problem lies. I thnkthat there is lots of work for the team to do but i do not think that this group of players will go out of the tounrmanet wothout a fight. I say wait and see the friendlies comin up b4 the euro. peace guys

Posted from  Switzerland

I would like to be in a group with Italy, France and Spain. Its possible, and it would be nice.

Marc, you are exactly right about where the problem lies - we can’t finish our chances. But our figures are somewhat deceiving.. sure we had the most shots on target, but don’t forget that so many of these shots were weak, easily saved shots from like 30 yards. We aren’t scoring many goals because we aren’t taking good shots on goal, and we aren’t making the really good goal scoring opportunities. And on top of that we just aren’t finishing well when we do get the good opportunities.

Posted from  Japan

Newcastle 0-3 Liverpool (Gerrard, Kuyt, Babbel)

very decent performance by babel and kuijt at liverpool today.. gerrard was subliminal; release of frustration hehe…

Posted from  Canada