Oranje: Engelaar in, Vaart is a maybe…

October 2nd, 2009 | by: Jan |

Orlando Engelaar is back in Oranje’s definite selection for the Down Under Trip. Van Marwijk announced this at Zeist last Friday.

Raf van der Vaart and Mark van Bommel aren’t part of the excursion…eh…holiday…friendly. Vaart simply lacks match rhythm while Van Bommel is still recovering from injury. The big destroyer down due to a toe… Next week, the Bayern skipper will resume training in Munich.

Arjen Robben is injured as well and might even have to have an operation on his knee.

Robin van Persie and Andre Ooijer might be out too. Both are close to becoming a father again (with different wives ). If Van Persie decides to stay home, Van Marwijk will come back on his Rafael-decision and invite the Madrid midfielder to tag along. To carry the bags.

Van Marwijk won’t call up another center back if Ooijer decides to take a break. He’s got more than enough center backs in the group to cover for Ooijer.

Van Marwijk: “Van der Vaart is a unique player and normally he’d be one of the first on my list. But, he hasn’t played for four months, really. I’d rather have him concentrate on getting up in the hierarchy at Madrid. But if Robin stays home, I will call up Raf.”

Engelaar became a regular under Van Basten at the EC2008, but he was left out of the group for a year. He had a tough time at Schalke and couldn’t impress in the orange jersey either. With his move to PSV and his recent form, it’s no surprise the tall ex-Feyenoord talent is back.

Oranje travels to Australia on Monday. Nigel de Jong has to play one more game with Man City that day and will follow a day later. Wesley Sneijder is 100% fit after his hip injury. Van Marwijk doesn’t expect any more surprises.

Van Marwijk selected the trip to Australia on purpose. “It’s good to spend a long week together, traveling and all. We’ll be together for four weeks in South Africa, I hope at least, and we need to see the group dynamics. With these trips, some stuff will come up and I want to see how the players deal with it.” He doesn’t see any negatives. “In today’s world, travel is not that tough anymore. The planes are like hotels and players are used to fly. Sometimes, players arrive back on Friday and have to play on Sunday. In our case, we’ll be back on Monday again and I don’t think players will need to be tired from sitting in a plane. All the players were enthusiastic when we discussed the option to play in Sydney. Most players – or all, I guess- have never been there and that’s always a draw card.”

Goal: Maarten Stekelenburg (Ajax), Piet Velthuizen (Vitesse), Michel Vorm (FC Utrecht),

Defense: Edson Braafheid (Bayern München), Giovanni van Bronckhorst (Feyenoord), John Heitinga (Everton), Gregory van der Wiel (Ajax), Glenn Loovens (Celtic), Joris Mathijsen (HSV), André Ooijer (PSV),

midfield: Ibrahim Afellay (PSV), Orlando Engelaar (PSV), Nigel de Jong (Manchester City), Demy de Zeeuw (Ajax), Stijn Schaars (AZ), Wesley Sneijder (Inter), David Mendes da Silva (AZ),

Attack: Ryan Babel (Liverpool), Eljero Elia (HSV), Klaas Jan Huntelaar (AC Milan), Dirk Kuijt (Liverpool), Robin van Persie (Arsenal).

Tags: de Jong, Engelaar, Group C, Ooijer, Oranje, van der Vaart, Van Marwijk, van Persie

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 49 comments.

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By Jan | October 3rd, 2009 at 7:22 pm

Not bad this weekend…. Feyenoord wins 3-0, Berbatov’s supergoal, Sneijder…

By Jeroen | October 4th, 2009 at 1:39 am

now just huntelaar.

good game by sneijder overall, except for the dive. looks like he’s finally finding his groove, and conveniently right before the australia game!

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | October 4th, 2009 at 4:11 am

Feyenoord’s real test will come up once they have to face the strong teams. Their position in the ranking might be a bit high right now, wonder if they can hold on to that position once they have to face:

Ajax – 1 nov.
AZ – 8 nov.
FC Utrecht – 22 nov.

Their best result was a 1-1 draw against Twente, but other than that, they lost to PSV and they haven’t yet had to face the other strong teams.

I am saying this because I want people to stop overestimating the Feyenoord youngsters, they still need to be tested in the eredivisie, let alone internationally.

I have to admit, Feyenoord is doing a lot better against the weaker teams than last year, so there’s definitely improvement. But we’ll know a bit more about Feyenoord’s strength (and a little more about whether these youngsters can make it to Oranje) after november.

Damn, missed the Sneijder game and he scores his first goal for Inter, damn, damn.

Posted from Netherlands

By ferenc | October 4th, 2009 at 4:44 am

sneijder will be great under mourinho

Posted from Hungary

By Sol | October 4th, 2009 at 5:36 am

Does anyone btw know a site with good streams for the eredivisie? I have http://www.myp2p.eu and http://www.atdhe.net but the links for eredivisie games either are not there or don’t work.

I prefer sopcast, TVU and streamtorrent links.

All links to justin.tv don’t work for me (every 30 seconds you lose the link and have to refresh the page getting that viewer limit message).

Freedocast also doesn’t work most of the time, or it stalls too often. The same for those USTREAM links that have banners in them, sometimes when an addbanner shows up, the videostream stalls, or stops completely and it’s quite hard to get it going again sometimes.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | October 4th, 2009 at 5:42 am

Allthough, I’d still prefer a Ustream link over nothing (cause some of them work fine).

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | October 4th, 2009 at 5:57 am

Sopcast channel 74174 has got the Ajax-Roda game in case someone is interested. Just found it myself, but still like to hear about good sites.

I found it here:

http://www.mightyfootball.com/

Posted from Netherlands

By fares | October 4th, 2009 at 8:11 am

robin robin rooobinnnnnnnnnnnnn

By fares | October 4th, 2009 at 8:18 am

boula will stat for stuttgart against werder in place of captain tasci (german international)who is either suspended or injured) great news.

By fares | October 4th, 2009 at 8:30 am

heitinga will play in center of defence as yobo is absent (for those who want johnny as a cb for oranje )

By Miguel Rosado | October 4th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Good for persie and wesley!!!.

Babel has to get out of Liverpool. He could be a star but he is not developing under Benitez.

By sonneveld | October 4th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

too bad for you guys going to the game that van persie and robben are not playing against australia

By Jan | October 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

Ah well, now we get to see Elia and Sneijder, and maybe Raf. And Loovens .

By Michel-Olivier | October 4th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

dutch team of the week
—————vorm————–
heitinga-vlaar-mathijsen-braafheid
———brama——schaars——-
v.persie——sneijder——-elia
—————lens————-

Posted from United States

By Peter vdL | October 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

vdv played last 15 minutes or so for real, looked ok but needed a lot more time to make any kinda of impact.
real’s defense is still really bad.

By sonneveld | October 4th, 2009 at 4:56 pm

@ MO only thing missing is jan vennegor of hessilink!
@ Jan Always good to look on the bright side

By sonneveld | October 4th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

btw i feel bad for Italy who has to watch cassano and totti (and sneijder light up their league but they cant pick them

By Michel-Olivier | October 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

hessilink is not good enough

Posted from United States

By goose | October 5th, 2009 at 7:33 am

What sad news; Engelaar back in Oranje…really cant believe what all these managers see in him…yesterdag he was again very poor for PSV; he not even good enough for Eredivisie level!!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Tiju | October 5th, 2009 at 8:23 am

@goose true man.that is called dutch team selection..you cannt help that…

Posted from India

By Miguel Rosado | October 5th, 2009 at 9:59 am

@goose: who would you pick engelaar or da silva?. I haven’t seen da silva that much but the very little I’ve seen him play I didn’t like his style.

By Jeroen | October 5th, 2009 at 10:06 am

I would pick Engelaar over da silva, but frankly I don’t find either impressive. It’s a shame Enoh isn’t dutch, I’ve been really impressed by his performances for Ajax lately. Just tears apart attacks, like de Jong and like Davids used to.

Frankly, I don’t see the need to bring 3 subs for 2 holding midfielder positions.

Van Bommel, de Jong, Schaars, and de Zeeuw should be enough to cover those positions. Hell, I think even Sneijder could play there if we really needed him to.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jeroen | October 5th, 2009 at 10:10 am

and Kuyt for that matter. I would liek to see him try the position once. I think this would look nice:

—————–Steks/VDS—————-
v.d. Wiel——Loovens/Heitinga/Boulah——Mathijsen——Braafheid/Emmanuelson
———-Sneijder——–Kuyt———
Van Persie———van der Vaart———Robben/Elia—-
———————Huntelaar/RVN————-

I wonder if that might actually work. I have no doubt Kuyt would be strong enough defensively for the holding midfield position, Sneijder is another question. Depends on his mood a lot, sometimes he’s ferocious and wins everything, sometimes the opposite. But man, that would be a killer lineup.

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | October 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

is vMarwijk actually taking Schaars?? was really disapointed in Schaars when he played in Oranje; had high hopes..looks like hes getting better with AZ so he might be on the way back

@MR; agree with Jeroen; no need for Engelaar, we have enough defensive midfielders…and i was always a fan of the idea to play Kuijt in midfield..hes actually playing almost as a midfielder much of the time, covering the whole right flank and doing great defensive duties

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | October 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

btw; (looking at Jeroen’s line-up) ; im still not sure if we should take vdSar as goalie for the WC;

1. vdSar is past his prime
2. (and for me most important) we cant have players quiting the national team for 2 years, let another play qualification, and then let the quiter have the nice tournament..thats not fair
3. we need to give the goalie, who prop. will play for us the next 6-10 years the confidence he deserves

Posted from Netherlands

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