Oranje: goal-oriented

In Holland, the image exists that Oranje doesn’t play attractive enough. Oranje boring. But on the basis of statistics of the UEFA - who monitor all international games in this qualification series, Oranje is the second most goal-oriented team. After number one: Germany…

Oranje had a attempt at the opponent’s goal on average 16 times per game! The Oranje average is even higher than nations who played one or two games more. However, all those attempts did not result in a related number of goals. Oranje scored eleven times, which is a mediocre performance. The Germans cheered 31 times already!!

“Still, these figures show that it isn’t all that bad,” says Marco van Basten. “We can defend ourselves against criticism at least partially. Although I don’t want to hide behind these figures. We haven’t played good in all matches, but still, we create opportunities and get the results.”

If the number of attempts is a norm for how attractive a team plays, the Dutch team is one of the most exciting teams in Europe. Oranje had 128 goal attempts. Some criticaster will say that these attempts are undertaken against lesser opponents, such as Luxembourg, but the facts show that one of the most attempts was undertaken against rival Bulgaria.

“It’s a matter of intepretation,” according to the Dutch team manager. “We opt voor a tactics in which as many good players as possible can play. We always have 4 to 5 attacking thinking players on the pitch. And if say Sneijder has three good attempts at goal, but the goalie stops them all, than that will be neglected by the media. The press will emphasize the little counter-attacks the other guys get.”

The most interesting lesson from these stats is, that the matches with the most attempts on goal are not the Germany vs San Marino matches, but instead in matches with nations that have a similar level, such as Germany - Czech Republic, Italy - Ukraine, Wales - Cyprus and Moldavia - Bosnia.

This only confirms that international games against smaller football nations are different than matches between equal nations. The smaller nations may lack quality but they have developed physically and tactically and are very hard to beat, playing tight, with lots of players behind the ball.

Recently, Oranje experienced in Albania how tough that is. Eleven Albanias were fighting and batteling for their nation and trying to close all possible little holes on the pitch, till Van Nistelrooy’s late goal. After that match, Marco van Basten demonstrated his joy. This was regarded as hilarious, stupid, not-done and even disgraceful.

“In Albania, the final pass or deciding cross didn’t happen till the 89th minute.” Van Basten says now. “And that is annoying, but it happens. A ball bouncing of a foot is a technical mistake, but they do happen. What I think is vital and important, as team manager, is how players executed their tasks. The discipline was there, everyone worked hard and if everybody keeps on doing what they need to do, you know you will get that chance.”

“Compared with the Luxembourg match, which was chaos, we have done much better and I can see progress. And I was very happy with that. Everyone who thinks you can beat Albania with 5 goals hasn’t been outside since the WC1974.”

“A lot of people will always be critical and will always expect more. That’s fine. I sometimes select players they don’t like or people keep comparing with the past. I can’t change that so I can’t do anything with this fact.” One doesn’t need statistics to know that the period in which Oranje had world class players in every single line (1988: Koeman, Rijkaard, Wouters, Van Basten, Gullit or 1998: Cocu, Frank de Boer, Edgar Davids, Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars) is over.