NED – ARG 0-0 FT

I watched the game @ Bettys in Toronto (on king). There where more dutchmen there then i have ever seen outside of a church or a family reunion. THe atmosphere was intense and everyone had a great time(other than the fact that we tied)
I saw holland as a 1/3 b-squad playing cautiously. Vdsaar was rock solid, and the defence looked good. The midfield left a bit to be desired.
@ joel, I like your ideas about Robben but I frankly dont know enough about his capabilities as a midfielder to offer much more.
Hup Holland!
Edit: i only saw the 2nd half

I hope De Cler and Boulahrouz keep thier places in the starting eleven. I think Gio is very slow compared to De Cler.

Posted from  Lebanon

we clearly saw that sneijder and van der vaart do not work out together, so for the match against portugal i think only one of them would play. landzart made good impression, but van bommel should hold his place. cocu as a holding midfield wont be better?? y is he on the left?

then add robben to this it should work out against portugal.

Love to read all those comments. Joel, your 3-5-2 idea sounds good. I think our midfield is faltering, coz vd Vaart is not match fit and our 2 remaining midfielders are not confident enough to support our attack coz of the weak defensive play of the last weeks. The balance is gone. Ruud is indeed easily marked, our midfield is lingering between supporting attack and defense… We only rock when our two wide strikers are in form. If not, we’re a lame bunch . So, yeah, I’d say changing the concept to 4-4-2 or even 3-5-2 could work, but I am not sure MvB will move to a concept like that. I think in reality, MvB wants a 3-3-4 when we possess the ball, and 1-5-4 when we lost the ball. But that takes a lot of confidence and smarts…

Posted from  Australia

Babel should start or come in at some stage in the next match. I think the kid can change a game and has great skills.

Posted from  United States

Just another thing… The 3 strikers is in my view the most important reason why we get our opponent into trouble. Most countries/teams are not used playing against wide wingers. Take that away from Oranje – by converting to 4-4-2 – and we’re just another – and somewhat mediocre – team. And, the presence of our wide wingers, keeps the full backs and midfielders of the opponent at bay. Which takes pressure from our defense. But, this only works well with a physically fit, intelligent and well-oiled midfield. So, either MvB is convinced the likes of vdVaart/Sneijder/Cocu/Bommel will soon rise to the occasion, or he will need to find a way to patch things up. By letting Robben play more like at Chelsea – half winger, half midfielder – this may work out…

Posted from  Australia

Jan and Joel interesting suggestions..

Against portugal.. again we’re gonna be playing against a very strong midfield with maniche and figo as orchestrators. So a strong midfield on our side is imperative again. I’m not sure portugal are that effective on the wings like we are, so i’d prefer to see mvb throw in another midfielder on the field as well, like Joel suggested and take off one of the defenders. So when we’d possess the ball we’d be on a 3-4-3 formation and when we lose the ball we’re on a 4-5-1 formation with our holding defensive midfielder becoming strictly part of the last line of defence.

Furthermore, the 4 players up midfield when we possess the ball, should be condensed in the middle with maduro/landzaat and cocu behind and vdv and sneijder/van bommel in front of them. The two striker wingers should help the 4 from the side and move forward like an army that we know they are ..

Akh I really don’t want to see scolari start jumping and screaming like a demented dog on sunday everytime his side scores a mediocre goal. He deserves to go down, go back to portugal on monday, then a one way ticket to brazil on tuesday.

I say 3-1 for holland. After they open score in the first half, We bombard them with three in the second.. Sigh.

Posted from  Russian Federation

About last days match, I know it sounds weird but i really wanted to see the Argentinians score a first goal in the first half, in order to see how things would change and progress for our team. If they would be able to get their act together, control the ball more, create more scoring chances, so on and so forth, or no. All we’ve see so far is the Dutch holding the opponent team from scoring whether with Arg yesterday or with IC when we scored first then stagnated for the rest of the match or even with S&M.

what do u guys think?

Posted from  Russian Federation

Rami, interesting post. It takes a lot of skill to perform like you suggest. Could work, certainly. I’m not sure how selfsupporting the guys are in taking their own decisions during the match. Do they just do what MvB says, or do they change things themselves? I don’t think so. In my view, AC Milan played very demanding and dominating football and they did that with 4-4-2! Why couldn’t Oranje? Ruud and Robin up front, Robben in midfield. The central defender (i keep stressing for Cocu) could play in midfield if we have possession and the midfielders would be Robben – Vaart – Sneijder – Bommel. So it’s 3-3-4 in possession and 4-4-2 if they have possession. I’m not a Jan VoH fan. Too predictable. Only against smaller defenders AND if we need to break the defenses down, you can use him. As someone said, Ruud may not play well, but he’ll always keep at least 2 defenders busy. Our midfield should take advantage of that. But hey, if players like Ruud and Rafael miss the right form, it’s hard to win the WC. They all need to be at the height of their game to make a real chance…

Posted from  Australia

theres no point in trying out new formations now! it is the knockout stages next and it would be suicide 2 try something different. personally we do not have enough speed in the team, the only player with speed and who can take players on is robben. van der vaart is 2 slow and just a passer same goes 4 sneider which means we need another source of speed. which is why van basten should have taken castelen. i fink the best possible line up 4 next match againest portugal (considering they are a very quick team who are good on the counterattack)

van der sar

jaliens
boularouz
oijer
van bronkurst

cocu
lanzaat( both dfensive minded 2 stop the counter threat)

van der vaart( attacking midfielder stays up there and shouldnt be defensive minded)

van persie
van nisterooy
robben

see the problem is yesterday all the central midfielders were 2 bunched and defensive. let van der vaart sit behind van nisterooy and give us more attcking options! 4 there was absolutly no link up play between the midfield and attckers yest!

Posted from  United Kingdom

i think we should stick to 4-3-3 but with cocu,landzaat & RVV in midfield. van bommel is OK defensively but with him & sneijder our creativity is virtually zero.
Other option might be to play with 3-1-3-3 with a midfield diamond. cocu can sit in front of the back 3, & vanbommel & landzaat on either side with RVV in the hole. Its imperative that we show some better posession play in the final 3rd the next match(win or loose). somehow players seemed to static yesterday(atleast for most part) & some of the passes were too slow. it seemed so easy for gauchos to close us down. although in second half with babel, & decler running, it definitely improved a bit.

Posted from  India

Basten will need a special game plan against Scholary, who knows very well about the strengths and weaknesses of Dutch and 433 system.
They will surely try to seize the mid-field(the weakest point)and foil the Dutch attack with two defensive blocks.That’s the way Big Phil beated Advocaat in 2004.DA tried to pass the blocks with long balls and never susceed.
Vaart provided effective longspasses from deep mid-field for Humberg.Kyut and Del Cler can take few defenders yesterday. Effective use on Robben, Persie, kyut and Vaart is the only solution.

Posted from  Germany

Basten will need a special game plan against Scholary, who knows very well about the strengths and weaknesses of Dutch and 433 system.
They will surely try to seize the mid-field(the weakest point)and foil the Dutch attack with two defensive blocks.That’s the way Big Phil beated Advocaat in 2004.DA tried to pass the blocks with long balls and never susceed.
Vaart provided effective longspasses from deep mid-field for Humberg.Kyut and Del Cler can take few defenders yesterday. Effective use on Robben, Persie, kyut and Vaart is the only solution.

Posted from  Germany

@Lars
But it’s not a new system! Ruud and v Persie play like this during the year! So does Robben. And vd Vaart. They can easily shift back to that system (the 4-4-2 in possession; 3-3-4 in attack). We always played with a libero who’d come on to midfield. Why not now? That’s the missing link. Most opponents play with 1or 2 strikers. No more. So you need 3 defenders. Period. So Cocu – my choice for the role – should support midfield and Vaart can support Ruud. That’s what is wrong with our midfield. Every one finds our midfield to weak. Well, it’s because we play with one less than the opponent. Coz we add a player upfront. So we need to balance it out from defense in the right moments. Mathijsen and Ooijer are not the right guys for that. In this system, Basten choses two offensive fullbacks. But it doesn’t work, because Robben and Robin are in the channel. So use penetration from center defense and you can use the width of the park, left and right or center, to attack.

Posted from  Australia

In no way I’m missing your game against portugal. You are going to trash them.
Greetings from an Argie.

Everybody was worried about the Dutch D (defense)–but they’ve been effective in the back, partly because the team seems to have played conservatively. As the experts here say, it’s clear that the Dutch are not getting enuf attack support from the midfield. That said, this is a quality team with strong upside potential. If the midfield can come on, the Dutch will be a very tough out. We’d all rather be playing mexico–but a win over portugal will give this side a huge confidence boost.

Posted from  United States

Ur Def Right abt the confidence boost richard..

I cant wait guys. I hope vdv shines.. Hes the key i guess to the success of the midfield..

Posted from  Russian Federation

Strongest defence ever seen in this WC. Maybe not such a beautiful game (we all prefer to see goals) to watch but you did really good. Both teams were brilliant defending. I am sure you will defeat Portugal.

Cheers from another Argentinien

Posted from  Spain

What is the deal with Ruud v Nistelroy? It seems his form of the first 2 seasons he played for Manchester is long behind him. I was encouraged by his desire to fight for the ball and position in the first half; but, with seemingly no success? I remember him routinely beating defenders one on one and imposing his will with full speed runs that started well outside the box. Service or not, he just seems to give up on runs too easily, and against Argentina he consistently-one touch passed-the ball back into the midfield where he had just received it from. Why does he not ever try to turn on one side or the other and run the ball right into the box losing the defender thats playing on his back, like he used to do? True his strike from the box was clinical and although it looked easy there was no room for error, and he did not make one. But you cant expect the kind of service Robben provided to leave Ruud wide open and on side regularly. If these are the conditions Ruud requires to suceed, then maybe MvB is better off starting Dirk Kuyt in the center instead of Ruud, or even better, move van Persie into the middle. Because personally, i am not conviced of Kuyts ability either; he reminds me of van de meyde when ran up and down the right side for advocaat in the euro’s , with absolutely no effect; ultimetly costing us the game against Portugal when he was subbed on in place of Robben who was playing great, and should have stayed on. But that is why we don’t have advocaat anymore, and if we lose to Portugal on sunday, van Bastens future with the national team may be in serious jeapordy. So lets win, decisively, and show the improvment we have been waiting for 3 games now. Hup Holland!

I like Kuyt because he works like a dog, however, against Argentina he consistenly lost the ball in posession or due to a stray pass.

He did very well controlling the long balls out to the left but 9/10 times he just trapped the ball, ran backwards and the ball ended up where it began… still like him though!

It was a rather scrappy game by both sides but you can’t expect perfect ball retention when each team is so compact and well-oiled soi guess that it’s not all that bad.

Posted from  Australia

As for the problems in the mid-field, I read a comment from the former Ajax manger who brought up both snjieder and van der Vaart, say that, it is useless to play both of them in the mid-field together because they are essentialy the same player in the same position. This makes sense to me after watching them trip over each other all game long. After all, they are both dead ball specialists with a threatening shot from the top of the box, and are basically trying to do the same thing instead of complimenting and supporting each others efforts. Obviously they are both good but may be more effective if you sub one in for the other. I was impressed with the efforts of de Cler on the left side and wonder if he could have a similar effect up the middle? Because giovanni von Bronkhorst and Robben are already the brightest spot of our attack, up that left side. Van Bommel has been spuratic at best and has not impressed down the right side where van Persie seems to get lost and shows a desire to want to move into the center where he can be effective with his deadly strikes from distance. The defence looked more effective-defensively speaking- without gio in the line up, but lacked any of the attacking push that he so regularly provides. Van Basten does not have long to solve the mid field dellema, somebody better straighten out this mess by sunday, or we may be ruined. Hup Holland

@Micha
Interesting comments. It seems there’s a lot of confusion about Ruud’s strengths as a striker. One of his biggest strengths is making runs from center to either left or right, and thus running the defense amok, sort of. That works in a 4-4-2 system, where he gets space for that. Remember, at PSV and ManU he played in a 4-4-2 system. Secondly, Ruud is strongest when coming into the box, facing the goal. In this team, he is the static target man, back to the goal. I think MvB wants him as the major distraction to the defense, at least keeping 2 defenders busy, so Robben, Robin and Rafael can penetrate and take on individual defenders. So, let’s say we win the WC, but Ruud keeps on playing poorly and doesn’t score. Would you care? He could have his function in the team as the main distractor. As long as others make use of his work. In the last games, Ruud wasn’t great, but what did he receive from the wide strikers and midfield to play with? Not a lot. If Robben gets to be a bit more social, if Persie is involved more, if Vaart dares to play more dominant, then you’ll see a good Ruud. It’s too easy in my book to blame the striker when we don’t score enough, you know.
As for that former Ajax coach, Ronald Koeman, it is common knlowedge in Holland that 1) he had to leave ajax 2) he had a lousy relationship with vd Vaart and Sneijder and 3) he played un-Ajax like defensive. He worked in Portugal, at Benfica, and is now replacing Guus at PSV. God knows why they picked him. I’ve seen Rafael and Wesley play together. Raf as offensive midfielder on the left, Wesley as controlling midfielder central. No problem. But these systems can’t be compared, coz Ajax would then play with a number 10 shadow striker, behind the number 9. So, you’d have 4 offensive players AND van der Vaart left on midfield and Sneijder supporting the back. No comparison with the current Oranje. It’s hard to compare apples and pears, but fact is that both can play together in midfield. I think – I posted that before – that the key is in the center defense. We don’t have real football there, only excellent marksmen like Boulah and Ooijer. Great defenders, but lousy build-up passers. There’s our dilemma. I’d say: one wide defender needs to mark the opponents forward and Cocu needs to fall back to center defense.

Posted from  Australia

Jan, thanks for the feedback, still think it may be worth trying Robben on the left, V. Persie in the center, and Kuyt or Venagoor of H. on right. Seeing what V. Persie can do from that more central position 442 for Arsenal leads me to believe he is out of place on the wing isolated, the same way as Henri has become, on the left wing of France (quel catastrophe)
It just seems like Kuyt maybe more comfortable over there and we know Robben’s ability on the left side, I say put Persie in the middle and put Ruud on the bench, maybe he will play more inspired off the bench? After all, he is 29, is definately rumourerd to be leaving Man U.; Bayern Munich have openly confirmed interest, and it seems to me that the willingness of a top club to pay the pricetag sir Alex will attach to Ruuds transfer is very much balanced on his performance at the world cup? I can’t see Ruud signing with a medicre club; but i don’t know how much Munich will pay if he can’t perform now when he needs to most, for Holland, for himself, and for Sir Alex, who hopes to earn a sizable transfer fee on behalf of Man U. In contrast Kuyt, as our British friend points out, is playing for his Priemiership debute, there is alot of interest and Feynoord need the money! Given a chance to produce he could substantially jack his value. He seems to want to step up to the occastion, Ruud seems a little non-chalant. Maybe starting on the bench will light his fire. Hup Holland!

That would be honestly heartbreaking for me to see but u might be right Micha.. Van Nis used to be much more, no one can contest that.. Jan you’re right when u say its so easy to blame the striker if he doesnt score the goals. But van Nis on several occasions used to get the goals himself. Don’t know man.. But then again, Kuyt is not a convincing replacement in my opinion at all. Against argentina he was the one who got the chances and he missed them flagrantly… Had you had Huntelaar on the bench, hehe, then i think your talk micha would have been constructive and effective.. Now im sorry but i feel benching van Nis would be just useless.

Same thing goes for our midfield were there was a possibility to have davids providing the Oranje with the crucial link between defense and midfield..

Jan.. isn’t landzaat 31 ?? I never knew that. I was shocked when i read this last night. Doesn’t really fit the criteria of a young experience team that Van Basten is opting for.. Furthermore, I definitely didnt see his effectiveness on the field.. He could have been easily replaced by davids, who maybe could have given us something exceptional.. All this for team spirit.. In the end at what cost did it come ??

Its pointless bringing all this now.. But im reminded about these points again and again in every time i see them play.. And with Micha’s open criticism, i could not but mention them..
-Davids for Landzaat
-Huntelaar for ineffective Hesselink..

Oranje should create a miracle on sunday, really, if they want to rise to the occasion and convincingly beat portugal as all dutch fans are hoping they would do.. I feel everyone is still 150% behind van basten so far but if he loses against Scolari the dog then hes gonna inevitably find himself in a very very tight spot.. Unfortunately the same spot Advocaat found himself in two years ago. I can see it coming, if we lose..

Well, hope not.. All of my friends are coming over for a barbecue/holland cheering and some criticizing lol.. We shouldn’t lose again.. Not to portugal at least. (sigh).

Posted from  Russian Federation

PS: I still firmly believe that davids (alone and not the whole 2004 crew) for landzaat for example would not have affected the team spirit we have..

Posted from  Russian Federation