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Once in Oranje: Wim Meutstege

March 3rd, 2009 | By: Jan | 44 Comments »

They were ready to sing the National Anthem. Only once… In this chapter, Wim Meutstege, the former player of Excelsior, Sparta and Ajax.

The Dutch team at a 1976 trainings camp: standing from left to right: Piet Schrijvers, Ruud Krol, Wim Meutstege, George Knobel, Wim Suurbier, Johan Neeskens, Johan Cruijff, Wim van Hanegem and Jan Ruiter. sitting left to right: Adri van Kraay, Wim Rijsbergen, Johnny Rep, Rob Rensenbrink, Willy van de Kerkhof, Jan Peters, René van de Kerkhof and Ruud Geels.

Defenders are qualified for their toughness and razorsharp tackles… Not Wim Meutstege. The full back was against violence. His nickname was “the professor” because he always looked for the footballing-option. And he had his reasons. “I never liked serving up knocks. I’ve had too much respect for my fellow men, and opponents are also human beings. I wanted to beat them within the rules of the games. I hated to make a foul. I was fast and I saw the game well. I tried to foresee what the opponent would do and act on that. I did work hard. And I’d repossess the ball and pass it to a better player. Fans never paid a ticked to see me play, but I had added value for the team.”

Team manager George Knobel discovered that value in 1976. “I played great game with Young Oranje against Scotland, in the semi finals of the youth EC. He invited me to the trainings camp of the big boys for the Yugoslavia EC in 1976. I was doing my exams at the sports academy and I told Knobel I couldn’t make the flight. I said I could fly in the next day, but Knobel decided not to select me. I was on stand-by, as they called it.”

Only four teams played the EC in those days. Oranje disappointed infamously at that tournament and Van Hanegem, Neeskens and Cruyff were suspended for the match for the third spot. “Kees Kist and myself were told to fly in to play that game. When we arrived, we noticed a very depressed vibe. They all counted on playing for the title and many couldn’t be bothered to play the consolation finals. Some lads really wanted to play for it, the young players, and we convinced the experienced players to give it their all.”

Meutstege started on the bench, but came on in the second half. “Ruud Krol had had an elbow against his head and was dizzy. I was told to get ready and was very excited. I knew there were many people watching the game on telly. I missed the first ball and that resulted in a good chance for Yugoslavia. I started to settle a bit and played a good second half. I even cleared a ball from the line. We did win this game, 3-2 after extra time. It was weird…none of us were really happy. We did win, but we wanted to play the finals…”

Meutstege would receive 6 more invites for Oranje but never played again. Due to injuries, he missed the WC1978. When he was signed for Ajax, he got injured again and that last injury resulted in a long revalidation process and eventually Meutstege was told he couldn’t play top football anymore.

Nowadays, Meutstege works at the Dutch Embassy in Sudan. His match jersey is one his prize possessions, along with the team poster. “Everytime I show this to people they’re sincerely surprised. I tell them who I played with and they all know those names. That was the top of world football… That’s still remarkable and pretty special to me.”

Statistics.

19 juni 1976

Joegoslavië – Nederland 2-3

Score: 27. Ruud Geels 0-1, 35. Willy van de Kerkhof 0-2, 43. Josip Katalinski, 1-2, 83. Dzajic Dragan 2-2, 112. Ruud Geels 2-3.

Referee: Josef Hungerbühler

Nederland: Piet Schrijvers; Wim Suurbier, Adri van Kraay, Wim Jansen, Ruud Krol (46. Wim Meutstege); Peter Arntz (70. Kees Kist), Willy van de Kerkhof, Jan Peters; René van de Kerkhof, Ruud Geels and Rob Rensenbrink.

Tags: Cruyff, Group C, Holland, Kist, Krol, Meutstege, Neeskens, Oranje

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 44 comments.

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By Caleb | March 4th, 2009 at 10:41 am

^That should be: “Anyone else think“

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | March 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am

About West Brom’s defence – basically the team’s defence is hopeless so you can’t expect much from individual players. I did think Zuiverloon played reasonably well though. Donk wasn’t great, and I thought Meite actually played quite bad. Other than that the rest of the team doesn’t play team defence very well, so that makes things even harder for the defenders.

Posted from Canada

By goose | March 4th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

@Carlos ; well spotted about the stripes .. its a pretty famous story here in Holland …. Cruijff had a personal contract with puma and Oranje was sponsored by Adidas, Cruijff made some problem prior to the WC74 but puma didnt want to be blamed for Cruijff not playing at the WC in Germany (that would have been some very bad pr!! haha) , so they decided that Cruijff would play with 2 stripes and the rest of the team with 3

somehow this story is very dutch…

@Caleb ; you mean the Neanderthal quality???

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | March 4th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

@Goose – haha, neanderthal quality?? I guess that’s one way you could think of their ‘prominent’ foreheads.. makes for good headers though!

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | March 4th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

@caleb: You know Neandertal is in Germany…Hmmmmmm….

By goose | March 4th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

just saw Leverkusen – Bayern ; quater final of the german cup. Bayern lost 4-2 but what was interesting was that vBommel (who was a real basterd again) played the last 20 minutes , after Bayern were 2-0 down, as a sort of last defender (together with Lucio) and he did great
i reckon with deJong and Schaars (and deZeeuw whos getting better each week) we need to put vBommel as a sort of libero in Oranje…hes getting too slow for midfield anyway

Fc Twente and Heerenveen are in the semis of the KNVB Beker ; Twente again went in a penalty shoot out but this time they did better; Heerenveen beat NEC 4-2

vdSar lost his change of a record today v Newcastle

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | March 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

I take your word for it. I’d like to have VM try that as well, but it sounds strange that V.Bommel did great in the back when appartently he let in 2 goals, but hey i didn’t see the match.
Too bad for VDS, unlucky goal. There’s only one thing that can make it better, a world cup title .
I read that V.d.Wiel has set 2 goals for himself
1-make the national team for 2010 WC
2-get to the top, no matter how

I’d say those are some good goals to set, and both perfectly possible, considering his development.

Also read in an old magazine that Donk would like to play for the national squad before he is 25, that might be possible, we’ll see.

Posted from Netherlands

By Mario | March 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm

Goose, I agree with you very much on van Bommel´s issue. And what the hech, do Bayern Munich have some bloggers here or any of the coaching staff read our thoughts about Mark van Bommel??? Hehe.

Yeah, he is getting slow and he can add more value at the back because Oijer is done for me and Schaars and de Jong are very fast, young and tough and besides with Schaars you will have a left footed player…with van Bommel and de Jong you don´t have that.

By goose | March 5th, 2009 at 4:45 am

@Alex ;vBommel started playing defener the last 20 minutes .. he did great but ofcourse Bayern was playing 1 against 1 at the back and 2 individual mistakes ‘made ‘the Leverkusen goals …but Mark did great
it was one of the best german games ive seen in ages

Posted from Netherlands

By finnster01 | March 5th, 2009 at 6:19 am

@Goose: Any big headers by some hairy and very dodgy looking players by any chance?

By goose | March 5th, 2009 at 9:18 am

@finn ; haha .. you KNOW it!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | March 5th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

@Finn, haha! And maybe some adds for Geico??

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | March 5th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

@Caleb: That’s funny. Geico should set up their German headquarters in Neandertal. Would make for some interesting commercials…

By finnster01 | March 5th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Geico: “We may not have invented the wheel, but we have been here a very long time and can save you a lot of Euros on your car insurance”

It has a nice ring to it…

By Jan | March 5th, 2009 at 6:07 pm

Hi lads, my computer is in repair, with lots of cool articles waiting. It’ll be another day or two. But stay tuned. Lots of cool stuff in the wings: a Seedorf/Beckham article, The Specialist, Where are they Now and all you want to know about football in Orange…

By Carlos | March 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Welcome to the world of internet cafes Jan

Posted from Singapore

By goose | March 6th, 2009 at 5:42 am

off topic ; AZ lost to NAC in the quater final of the KNVB Beker ; 1-2

Posted from Netherlands

By Jeroen | March 6th, 2009 at 11:04 am

More importantly, Romero (AZ goalie) broke his hand in a rage after the game. This might just threaten AZ’s comfortable position. Their goalie has certainly played a big role in maintaining the clean sheets. How unprofessional as a professional do you have to be to do something stupid like this

Posted from Netherlands

By finnster01 | March 6th, 2009 at 11:14 am

@jeroen: That is unbelieveable!! You would think in this day and age professionals with the wages they earn would not do something as stupid as that. It’s bizarre.

It reminds me a bit of a Norwegian International many moons ago called Svein Grondalen who had to retire from football after he ran straight into a moose while out jogging…Maybe not his fault, but bizarre none the less…

By Jeroen | March 6th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

haha that’s pretty funny actually .

update on Romero: he’s going to be out a minimum of six weeks. More than enough time for Ajax to close the gap a little .

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | March 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

I read an interesting article in VI this afternoon and i was bit surprised when i read that Oranje under V.Marwijk, really hardly gives anything away, and only conceeded goals from 2 penalties and two distant shots where our keeper missed horribly. Apparently the duo Ooijer-Mathijsen do better now statistically, they are accurate in passing, but only win about 67% of their duels, surprisingly, they do a better job at making sure that doesn’t lead to goals than before. They used the example of Oranje-Russia, we lost terribly 3-1 in the EC, but the next match(1-1) after that, they hardly got through, especially Arshavin drowned in between De Jong-V.Bommel-Mathijsen-Ooijer.
The conclusion was, despite winning spectacularly at the EC, we gave our opponents lots and lots of chances, oranje’s defence, especially Ooijer-Mathijsen completely depended on V.d.Sar’s quality and class, and we were lucky not to have conceeded 2/3 goals against Italy. VI made the obvious observation that Ooijer was never a highly rated CB, nor was Mathijsen ever considered a real topdefender. But oranje’s backline!!Without V.d.Sar!!. is as tightly locked as ever. And even currently, one of the least passed(don’t know if it’s the right word) national defences in europe.
Now they gave credit to V.Marwijk for achieving more stability and that security in the back, but is suspect, Cocu and De Boer might have had a pretty good influence.

Nevertheless, Ooijer still at the end of his footballing days, at least at international level.

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | March 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

It’s just like V.Gaal said recently , “Experts say defending is an art, but there’s noting to it.” and then he went on saying that any “hillbilly” can defend.

I’m on fire so i’ll just blurt out everything in one go.

According to research-bureau Sports+market Ajax still has 6.5 million fans in europe, that lands them a 19 place. with Real madrid(41 million) and Barcelona(44 million) leading the tables. Feyenoord come 52nd with 1.6 million and PSV as 61st with 1.3 million. I think It’s clear which dutch club would have the best chance of a commercial take-over in the future. I hope it’ll be me buying it someday .

Plus Real madrid really gets “MORE” points with Robben than without him, that’s what the numbers say.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jess | March 6th, 2009 at 4:06 pm

Alex- It funny that you would be talking about how Oranje relied on Van der Sar’s class and not their defensive players as now in England they are saying the only reason Van der Sar looks so good on paper is because he is surrounded by excellent defenders. It’s odd how people see players and situations so differently. I personally think v.d Sar is world class and don’t see the logic of their argument really esp with Man U having so many injured defenders and Gary Neville as a starting regular.

By Carlos | March 6th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

Gary Neville is more likely to score against vdSar than protecting him !

Posted from Singapore

By Carlos | March 6th, 2009 at 4:57 pm

Here’s the video on how Romero broke his hand.
Amazing if he had been hurt like this in a game he would be writhing in pain a la Hollywood actor……

http://www.telegraaf.nl/video/telesport/article3409116.ece

Posted from Singapore

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