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Oranje B loses first match

November 21st, 2008 | By: Jan | 20 Comments »

The best of the rest of the Eredivisie and Royston Drenthe proved to be a “nice team” but couldn’t avoid losing 0-3 against Young Sweden…

Fresh and energetic, the Dutch B-team attacked, supported by fans, some scouts and a couple of club coaches. A couple of huge opps were missed by Oranje B and the team had to pay dearly for that. Totally unexpected, Sweden took the lead in the first half when everyone expected Holland to score. After the break, Sweden even scored 0-2 with Toivonen (followed by PSV) scored the 0-3 from a free kick.

Nederland B, the most criticized team of Holland tied with PSV, wasn’t able to get back in the game after the 0-1. Schaars did hit the cross bar and Royston Drenthe tried to break open the Swedish defense as a left winger, but the physically imposing Swedes wouldn’t bulge.

Coach Johan Neeskens thought the 0-3 didn’t do justice to the game. “We had much more possession, we tried to create something here, but we were too jittery, too jumpy. I can’t understand why the players didn’t use Siem de Jong in the center of the pitch more. It was too much heart, not enough brains. But the result…well…the team deserved a better result.”

Neeskens confurmed that the players enjoyed being away from their everyday shenanigans. He didn’t pressure them too much and hoped they all enjoyed their little break. Feyenoord coach Verbeek was worried about the pressures for his injury plagued team, Van Gaal didn’t understand why older players were invited and Groningen coach Ron Jans criticized the KNVB for not consulting with the clubs on their plan.

Neeskens repeated that he was very aware of the risks the players would run if they were over-utilized and had said already to take the club interests to heart. “The players have told me they’d love to play for this team. It’s a short route to the big Oranje and they also get to work with and talk to Dennis Bergkamp. I think this is a great initiative but new ideas always find opposition at first.”

Dennis Bergkamp seemed to be a bit lost right before the game against Sweden. The former Arsenal star was ambushed by a dozen photographers, competing for the best picture.

After the game, Bergkamp was the last to leave the changing room. When asked how he enjoyed his first official game as assistant coach: “That was very nice! At Ajax I do most of my job in the background. The decisions are made by Marco and Johnny. Here, I can co-decide on the line up, the subs and I can actively coach during the game.”

Two years ago, after a wonderful career for Ajax, Inter Milan, Arsenal and Oranje, the non-flying Dutchman seemed to disappear in anonymity. He never pondered becoming a coach. “A lot of my mates were actively considering a career as coach or even studying for it. I never had that. But when I got asked to coach my little son’s team, it started to jitter… I wanted more.”

Tony Adams, his former team mate at Arsenal, asked Dennis the Menace to come and assist him at Portsmouth. Dennis declined. ” A wonderful honor, of course. But too soon, really. I want to finish my course first and we’ll see what we’ll do next…”

Tags: Ajax, Bergkamp, Drenthe. Hofland, Group C, Holland, Neeskens, Oranje, Verbeek

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Comments

By ian | November 21st, 2008 at 8:57 am

can anyone tell me the oranje line up

By Andrew | November 21st, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Ian, you beat me to the question. Anyone?

Posted from United States

By Felipe | November 21st, 2008 at 4:11 pm

@Ian, Andrew and anyone who want to know about the lineup Neeskens put in field:

—-Velthuizen—-
Zuiverloon—-Donk—-Hofland(Wielaert, 46′)( Van Eijden, 61′)—-Braafheid
Brama (Meeuwis, 46′)—-Elia (Beerens, 46′)—-Schaars
Van Volfswinkel(Nijland, 72′)—-De Jong—-Drenthe

By ian wilkie | November 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm

drenthe is probably going to be the teams best player, i personally cant see why babel is better than drenthe esxcept for maybe drenthes work ethic

they both are super subs for big teams, babel played lots of our euro qualifyers when we barely scored then he missed the euro were we scored alot

By ian wilkie | November 21st, 2008 at 4:31 pm

what about maduro and de guzman,why werent they in their?

By 3ric | November 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pm

@ian wilkie: Wtf?!? Babel is miles better than Drenthe. Babel was a proven player in Eredivisie before moving out to Liverpool. He’s been doing well this season despite coming as subs in most games. Drenthe on the other hand is a not-so-smart fella. He had one decent season with Feyenoord and opt for big money move to Real Madrid. He now ends up warming the bench and becoming Robben’s cameo. Drenthe has a giant ego, although I give credit for his kindness in advising Wijnaldum (who is btw Holland’s next star) not to move abroad and repeat his stupid mistake. Let’s face it, there is a reason why Babel started in A-team and Drenthe stuck in B-team.

Who is Maduro? Ooo I remember .. that’s another idiot who chases money rather than career. He has played as many minutes as I have in the Spanish League this season, and that number fyi is ZERO. Btw, De Guzman is injured.

By Jan | November 21st, 2008 at 5:59 pm

Sorry for not mentioning the line up guys…

By Andrew | November 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Jan, relax, no worries. Great thing about this blog that you’ve built is that there are always people on here who are more than helpful and happy to provide answers. By the way, for anyone who watched the game, who looked good? Since watching the Twente-Man City game, I’m kind of interested in knowing how Braafheid and Elia played.

Posted from United States

By ghost of steve finnan | November 21st, 2008 at 6:35 pm

Maduro was garbage his last season at Ajax anyway.

Posted from United States

By Carlos | November 21st, 2008 at 7:09 pm

Maduro was dreadful at the Olympics as I said many times – ran out of steam within 30 minutes and then was just hding in the middle never making himself available to be passed to. What a let down for someone so promising once. Sure hope Schaars develops ,Zuiverloon already has and Donk should get there if he gets one more season EPL.
Does anyone think MvB would make a good sweeper in the back 4 ?

Posted from Singapore

By Felipe | November 21st, 2008 at 7:50 pm

@Andrew: I didn’t watched the match, but, from what I’ve read, Schaars and Siem de Jong were the best players. The flops were Royston and, mainly, Wielaert.

By Mario | November 21st, 2008 at 9:47 pm

Man, Bergkamp looks great as a coach! He will be a good coach for sure, he has a good eye for football!

By tiju | November 21st, 2008 at 10:58 pm

@mario
once wenger said that bergkamp is a scinetist in football.he should be good as a coach yaar.

Posted from India

By Mario | November 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 am

Yes Tiju, nice comments from u buddy.

By tiju | November 22nd, 2008 at 2:32 am

out of topic
gallas lost captaincy and going to loss the contract with arsenal.he insisted that a 25 year old player is disrupting the team is it vanpersie/sagna or ebuye?
anyways he faced lots of cricism after birmingham match in last season.
After seeing the rematch nobody can blame on him it was an unpardonable lousy and lazy,careless mistake from clichy only.any captain will cry after seeing clichy performance to stop that player.
clichy went to the opposite direction of the movement of the ball and the player.he could have cleared that very very very very easily.
unpardonable mistake,that lead them into their collapse

Posted from India

By goose | November 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 am

@Tiju; my guess is Gallas was talking about vPersie… he did say it was a player 6 years his junior.. vPersie is a bit of a whiner and he is a bit of a handbag, scared of tackles and making them

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | November 22nd, 2008 at 6:34 am

off topic; any of you dutch-canadians know about some player called deJong (think heplays for Roda JC) who plays for the canadian national team??

Posted from Netherlands

By 3ric | November 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 am

@goose: Marcel De Jong, a left back sometimes a convert central defender or left midfielder. He is of Dutch descent, was born in Canada. Thus, he was eligible to represent both. He recently decided to go with his birth country. (I think) he was called up on few occasions for the Jong Oranje, but never looked convincing. I couldn’t care less quite frankly- he was, is and will never be Oranje material. In fact, it wise for him to choose Canada, that way he gives himself a chance to play in the World Cup.

By Igor | November 22nd, 2008 at 2:18 pm

@Goose, I recently saw Marcel de Jong play for team Canada, as a left midfielder. Unfortunately he was injured 30 minutes into the first half so it wasnt a very long look, but my impression of him was that he is a hard working, tough tackling team-player but that he isn’t the most comfortable on the ball in tight spaces. still in that game he was matched up against giovani dos santos and it wasnt until his injury that giovani started to have an impact on the game.

Posted from Canada