Oranje B crushes Germany 4-0

Ricky van Wolfswinkel celebrates his goal…

Oops… I owe Johan an apology. And Dennis. And Arthur…

I sort neglected and ignored Nederland B here… Not purposely. It’s just that the Dutch media didn’t give them too much positive attention, neither did the KNVB website (duh!) and neither did some of the players… And I went along… Too much stuff on the real Orange to publish anyway.

And yes, Neeskens and Bergkamp together… That IS exciting. And of course, we do have tremendous players at this level too…and yes, playing Germany and Italy does sound serious….

But still…

And then you wake up and Goose comments on the 4-0 lead… And you think… Hmmm… .

So here we go. A review of the game.

The last signs of life of the experimental Nederland B were very watchable last Friday night. Very watchable. It doesn’t happen often when Oranje beats Germany 4-0. Without a care…

So, a team that didn’t qualify for the Youth EC beats a team of very talented Germans easily. So maybe the Eredivisie isn’t as bad as we think.

And who knows, with Braafheid and Schaars being promoted to the big guns, who knows who could follow? And this time, the wingers made the difference. Twente winger Elia scored twice, while PSV player Nordin Amrabat had two assists and one goal. Rick van Wolfswinkel (followed by Ajax) scored the fourth goal.

And again, it seemed that Nederland B is a good team with exciting players. Any team with Robbie Wielaert in defense and wingers like Elia and Amrabat would do pretty well in any competition.

But Nederland B was in the last months the subject of a lot of whining. Groningen coach Ron Jans didn’t understand the project, Louis van Gaal criticized the plan and the first match Neeskens boys played was lost: 3-0 against Sweden.

And this time, it was Groningen talent Danny Holla. Bert van Marwijk asked Nees to select the youngster and check him out. Holla declined the invite, citing that he was “too tired” to do it.

Neeskens was furious: “Too tired? When I got my first invite to wear the orange, I was ready to crawl to Zeist. I would have played with a broken leg! And to think that Van Marwijk asked me to select him… Unbelievable. I don’t think Holla will need to watch his post-box in the next months.”

Tuesday, Nederland B plays Young Italy. Most probably the last game Nederland B will play. In August, Young Oranje comes back to the party with two friendlies.