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Oranje dominates but forgets to score…
Comments(35)
In three games against Australia, Oranje hasn’t been able to win.
Last Saturday, Oranje played the Socceroos away. In Australia. A unique happening, since most big nations balk at the idea of traveling 42 hours to play a 90 minute friendly.
Bert van Marwijk – and the powers that be at the KNVB – didn’t mind this outing. Instead of two games in Europe, Bert felt it would be nice to make a long and stressful trip. This way, he could do some team bonding and test the stresslevels of the pampered professionals.
The odds were not good. Oranje missed 6 regular starters, most tellingly the two wingers (Robin & Robben) and the two destroyers, Nigel & Mark.
Add to that the long journey, the jetlag and the heavy pitch and there’s your recipe for disappointment. And if all that wasn’t enough: Kuyt wasn’t too fit and Sneijder had a flu-attack.
In order to have a great game, you do need two teams that want to play. Holland-France at the EC2008… That game could have been 4-4. Or Russia-Holland at the same tournament…. We don’t like to be reminded of that game, but that game could easily have been won too, with 3-2, for instance. And we would look back at that match as a classic.
In this case, a somewhat troubled Oranje that really wanted to play against a cautious Australia, that this time around, didn’t want to play.
Pim Verbeek kept eight men behind the ball and kept the pace low, hoping to stop Clockwork Orange from destroying them. I can’t see what Verbeek and the Socceroos got out of this, really. Tim Cahill, Josh Kennedy, Harry Kewell…they were mere extras in the Oranje show. Only Brett Emerton, goalie Schwarzer and Luke Wilkshire looked the business.
Oranje did what Oranje likes to do: dominate, use the wings and create pressure.
Led by a tireless De Zeeuw/Sneijder/Schaars midfield, Oranje looked for goals. A rusty Huntelaar had his chances but missed. The come-back kid Boulahrouz even had a go, while Babel in the second half tried to do what he could…. All in all, Oranje tried to deliver but simply forgot to express their dominance in goals.
Van Marwijk can rest assured, though. Schaars and De Zeeuw demonstrated potential, Heitinga and Boulahrouz were never in trouble, Babel appears to want to work for it while Rafael van der Vaart might not have played for months, his command over the ball will always be breathtaking.
The only dissonant in the game, in the first half, was Eljero Elia. The new wonderboy needed quite some time to settle on the heavy pitch.
Skipper Gio van Bronckhorst thought the Dutch team did reasonably well. “We just didn’t score,” the Feyenoord captain said. “We were really tired. That journey and the jetlag do get to you. You could tell late in the game, we just missed the energy. But we took this game highly serious. We played very well at times and we did create opportunities.”
Gio wasn’t too impressed with Australia. “I expected much more. The other two games we played against them were different. They were highly aggressive then.”
Van Bronckhorst is happy to have made the journey Down Under. “Of course! Let’s be honest, you normally don’t get to play here. We trained well, we had fun, did site-seeing… I loved this trip. It was tiring, but worth every minute of it.”
Bert van Marwijk embraced this whole experience. “I thought it was interesting. The circumstances were a bit against us. We missed players, the jetlag, the heavy pitch, Sneijder and Kuyt’s light injuries… It’s was good to see how the team worked with all that. We could have played two games against a lesser opponent ( all big nations in Europe were still playing for a WC ticket) and won with lots of goals, but this was much more educational for me.”
“The main thing for me was, that despite the circumstances we still played recognizable in our own style of football. I thought our midfield played a tremendous game and our defense didn’t give anything away. Holman got one opportunity but I think he was off side even. I can’t be unhappy with this. The only negative is that we didn’t score. If you play a game like this at the WC, you need to kill the game off and take the three points. But the lads know this too.”
Van Marwijk is therefore satisfied with this “experiment”. “I’m happy we did this. The boys were sharp and fit, despite their fatigue. They showed character and we had a good time here.”
Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 35 comments.
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Our performance wasn’t bad at all , if we scored only one goal , i would say that we were perfect ( considering the all bad circumstances ) , i liked the back four a lot , solid experienced defenders . De zeeuw was the man of the match in my opinion . Elia wasn’t in his day ( no problem ) . Vdv was very good i think .
@ tiju ,
agree with you tiju , but i think that we can win portugal now with a great score , may be 4-0 . And even spain , we can get over them . May be they have better names , but i think we have a better team . The only team i will get worried if we are going to play with is brazil !!!
No fear of argentina if maradona stays as a coach ( they won peru (the 10th) in the last sec , with messi , aimar , higuain ) , though the match was played in argentina .
we really can go so far in the WC . Especially if vdv , ruud and huntelaar find good teams in the winter , v d sar return , we will have a miracle team 
The highlight for me was to see Babel actually tracking back. At one point i was in shock as he dropped back with pace down the right wing to defend!! It seems that he may be changing his attitude a little for the better (i hope i’m not speaking too soon).
All in all an enjoyable match and there are lots of positives… it would have been great to see some goals though. A better pitch would have made so much of a difference. I think Elia must have been wearing Volleys because there is no way he was wearing studs haha jk. I think he slipped at least 50 times 
About Babel, I think I saw him deep back in the box in the last couple of matches for Liverpool too.
Posted from 
India
From an Australian: thank you KNVB, Oranje, and Bert for making the journey to Australia!
In Australia we do not get to see top teams play very often so this was a very special game. It was a great thing for football in Australia and for the Australian team to have Oranje here. So many people in Australia have never ever seen such a good team or so many famous players before. It was very exciting for all football fans in Sydney.
Posted from 
Australia
and Dan, Australia is my second favourite team mate !! I was floored when the Italian dived when they had 10 men and then went on to win. If I am in South Africa I’ll have both Orange and Yellow to wear. wouldnt it be great if we had Holland Italy and Oz +1 in our poole.With 2 of us going thru !
Posted from 
Singapore
“About Babel, I think I saw him deep back in the box in the last couple of matches for Liverpool too.”
Yeah he has. He’s seemed to turn a little corner i think. Hopefully he’ll begin to put in as much effort into his football career as he does with his rapping
Deleted – Daryl
Posted from 
Spain
Deleted – Daryl
Posted from Spain
Funny how you tell people to learn English when you obviously have no comprehension of the language yourself. Your comments are completely undermined by the fact that your arguments are extremely biased and unfounded in any form or fashion of truth. Making personal attacks on people only saddens the situation; it really reinforces the fact that Italy has a problem with immigrants in their country more because of discrimination rather than the immigrants themselves.
But reading your comments is quite funny. You judge our performances against Australia which were all friendlies. Friendlies also mean: “Who cares?”. And while we may have zero world cups, at least if we win one, we do it in style. The fact that Italy won the cup in 2006 is one of the biggest jokes ever played on mankind. If there is some God, he certainly has a sick sense of humor. Don’t scold the Dutch for one game of anti-football, when your team is infamous for anti-football spanning over decades of games…
I’m just wondering why you are even bothering to post here. You obviously aren’t objective about football and don’t know much about it either, since according to the FIFA regulations the first goal Holland-Italy was completely legit. Buffon shouldn’t have knocked out his own player. That the Dutch players were baffled, doesn’t make the goal any less legitimate. It’s all about what is in the rulebook, and on this point it is very clear. I’m guessing you think by posting here you can elicit some type of aggravated response, but really all you are getting is pity. Pity for your pubescent raging and pity for the fact that I now realize that the standard IQ may indeed be 100 with people like you bringing the average down.
I suggest you go post elsewhere where you and other Italy fans can stroke each other’s egos enough to convince each other of some fantasy in which Holland-Italy was a fluke and you weren’t in fact completely outplayed by a superior team: this is of course what actually happened. I don’t think any objective observer of that match would disagree. The football experts across the world certainly agree with me.
Posted from 
Netherlands
oh no the orange blog is being contaminated by h1phyletismus virus
Posted from 
United States
Hey Claudio,
I really enjoyed reading your well structured, coherent and bias free writing
Claudio is a boob. One of those saggy, ill porportined boobs.
Posted from 
Canada
Jeroen and Tiju, I support you as members of this great blog of friends, respect and passion for football. But then comes this Claudio saying the most stupidiest things I have read in years. Claudio, this blog is for sharing football ideas in an intelligent manner respecting everybody else.
You are clearly wrong about your race ideas. Because people like you the world suffer in WWII. Your comments lack context and intelligence. If Holland has a bad team and it´s a joke I can´t imagine what it´s it with Italy that was beaten by a joke 3-0 in EC2008 and then your beloved Italy went to the Confederations Cup and was outplayed by Brazil like never before. Italy will not get far in the World Cup because you have a very old team and the newcomers simply don´t have talent. Oh yes, Cassano is the star???. Haha, he is the worst player and the primadona number one there is in world soccer. A loser that was sacked from every team that has hired him. But I know all Italians like you love him.
And finally, you attack the Surinam Dutch players but the best club in Italy in all history that has won more cups and play extraordinary football was A.C. Milan when Gullit, Rijkaard and van Basten dominated the world winning Scudettos, Champions Leagues and all kinds of trophies along the way and your whole country loved those black players and still loves them. But you clearly are out of your mind. I feel kind of sorry for you. Race discrimination in 2009 just give me the idea that you are a person of the beginnings of the XX century. You are stucked in the past buddy. This blog is about soccer, not about races, fights or stuff like that. And if we meet each other again I can predict another 3-0 win by Holland. Just a fact: learn to write the names of the players before you come back here, and we are in the XXI century not in the XXth ok?.
Sometimes it is better to take the high road and not respond. Please ignore Claudio and let him enjoy his day.
Posted from United States
Deleted – Daryl
Ok Claudio, since you lack intelligence and common sense, from now on you´ll be ignored from me. Nothing personal, but you are kind of stucked with your ideas. You envy so much Holland that you have to enter to our blog to say your bullshit. Bye bye dude.
“Or Russia-Holland at the same tournament…. We don’t like to be reminded of that game, but that game could easily have been won too, with 3-2, for instance. And we would look back at that match as a classic.”
So true! You can never be reminded of that too often. People tend to only remember the endresult and call it a disaster.
Posted from Netherlands
Claudio….Is that a girls name???
Claudio, you are a moron. Spain is a joke. Italy is the worst team now, next to Argentina and France. Portugal is a baby who can’t even beat the “soft” teams in their group. England is overrated and too static.
Holland is beautiful total football. Even if they didn’t win the EC, I bet your eyes were glued to their mesmerizing football. I bet you Holland is going to win, while you Spaniards can keep drinking olive oil. You fascist racist MORON!! GO ORANJE!!!!!!!!!! Spain plays like a bunch of girls with naked lousy boobs!! Fernando Torres??? He is an idiot and knows only how to kick. Babel is equal and better, you idiot.
Posted from 
Japan
Deleted – Daryl
Posted from Spain
I was incredibly lucky to be in Sydney for a family reunion when Oranje was playing in Australia. Even more lucky that my brother in law is a member of the Sydney Cricket Ground and has free passes to all games at the Football Stadium. So this was my first ever opportunity to see Oranje live. They did not let me down, except in the scoring department. I thought that this might have been due in part to the poor condition of the ground – particularly on the wings. Despite this, they played well. According to some of the Australian newspapers, they gave the Socceroos a football lesson (I think that was an exaggeration). However they also commented that Australia now has a strong psychological advantage over the Netherlands, should they meet again in South Africa. What do others think ?
Posted from Australia
you good
Even if they didn’t win the EC, I bet your eyes were glued to their mesmerizing football
ought that this might have been due in part to the poor condition of the ground – particularly on the wings. Despite this, they played well. According to some of the Australian newspapers, they gave the Socceroos a football lesson (I think that was an exaggeration). However they also commented that Australia now has a strong psychological advantage over the Netherlands, should they meet again in South Africa. What do others think ?
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Posted from
Singapore