Power struggle commences at Oranje?

@ tiju, I must say Vlaar and Luirink teamed up quite impressivaly in the U-21 EC in portugal and looked an unbeatable pair to me, with an air like Pepe or Vidic, gave wingbacks Emanuelson and Tiendalli all the freedom and opportunity to join upfront and roam across field. It’s no coincidence Tiendalli and Emanuelson were named in the best UEFA team of the tournament. I really am dissapointed their careers took such unlucky turns with injuries. Vlaar paired up equally impressive with Donk in the second U-21 EC win, but Vlaar got injured , and Donk not exactly on top of his game right now, although he did very well then.

I think we have great potential not only upfront but also in the back, it’s up to Bert to form a proper defence/team. I think he’ll manage, with De Boer around, maybe Bert should ask Japie Stam to give some defending courses as well.

Posted from  Netherlands

Emanuelson I think is doing pretty well for Ajax and is on the verge of national team is he not?

Sneijder mustn’t complain! Robben is faster and he can beat his man. Van Persie is on approxamately the same level as Sneijder is. And Kuijt deserves to be in the squad because of his good stamina and good form. Sneijder and Van der Vaart are also very talented players. Van Marwijk had to choose, because you can’t play with 5 players behind Huntelaar. And he has chosen the right formation!

Posted from  Netherlands

vPersie should be benched

——————-Stekelenburg————

—Zuiverloon —- vanBommel—–Mathijsen —-vdWiel—-

———Schaars————deJong————

—-Robben——Sneijder———Kuijt——-

————-Huntelaar——————

Posted from  Netherlands

P.S. While the choice for the offensive midfield is a luxe problem, the striker choice is a lot difficulter. It’s clear that Huntelaar is the first choice in his current form. But when Van Persie and Kuijt ply in midfield we have only Babel on the bench as a striker.

Posted from  Netherlands

Sneijder should play against Macedonia from the start. Bert should try a team with only one holding midfielder.

Emanuelson is doing great, I’d like to see him instead of Gio even if he doesn’t like the left back position because he has no chance in midfield.

P.S. While the choice for the offensive midfield is a luxe problem, the striker choice is a lot difficulter. It’s clear that Huntelaar is the first choice in his current form. But when Van Persie and Kuijt ply in midfield we have only Babel on the bench as a striker.

Posted from  Netherlands

@wob: don’t worry Ruud will get back from injury.

theres nothing to stop babel from coming on as a winger and van persie being pushed to the top. plus, if im not mistaken, striker is babel’s preferred position.
i must say ive seen a lot of negativity surrounding the scotland game. i dont see a problem at all. sure, scotland didnt really bring much competition, but clinically beating them 3-0 is more than good enough for qualifying. i saw plenty of moments of very good football. and sure, there were also lesser moments, but you cant forget that scotlands tactic was to stop us from playing our fancy game. If you were negative about this game, I recommend you don’t even bother watching the next one, because in all likelihood Macedonia will shut down our game even more physically than the scottish (something around the lines of the Tunisia game…).
there is nothing wrong with dropping van bommel to the back line. Sure, he’s never played there before, but you do know he used to be an attacking center midfielder. When asked a while back how he felt about his more defensive holding role he responded “well, it took me a while to get used to it, but I’m enjoying it” (along those lines-not a direct quote). It’s not unheard of for players to drop back to more defensive positions as they get older. They lose speed, so attackwise they drop in value, but defensively experience and good positioning are much more important. Plus, it would give us a defender who can actually build up the play from the back. Because Ooijer and Mathijsen sure as hell won’t. If he makes the change now, mark would have more than a year to get adjusted. whether he is in the back line or right in front of it, is really nothing more then a technicality, since the formation will adopt according to how much pressure they receive from the other end’s offense.
By placing van bommel back and popping Sneijder in his place, that will give us one central player in all 3 lines (defense-van bommel, holding-sneijder/vdv, attacking-van persie) that can build up the play. obviously i leave out the striker position…since they dont build up play, they finish it. Coupled with this, we then have players on the wings in the defense and midfield that are either fast (robben, v.d.wiel, braafheid) or have stamina (kuyt), which are the most ideal attributes for these positions. you want your central players controlling the direction of the ball, distributing it, giving the sharp through passes. the wingers are the ones who create and run into space (especially for through passes), can take their man 1v1, and can give good crosses.
The only thing that is really left to decide is who will be our second central back. It needs to be a real defending defender, one that can just tackle and head above all. Who will that be? Mathijsen? Boulahrouz? Marcellis? Ooijer is too old, Bouma has never impressed (me in any case..). Others, while promising, are too young and not ready for Oranje. Mathijsen has definitely improved but he still lacks reliability (he was responsible for scotland getting that chance in the 6th minute or so…good thing he recovered at least). Boulahrouz is so on and off I don’t know anymore. When he plays well, he is indoubtably the best for the position. He instills fear into the opposition only like Jaap Stam can. But he needs to be consistent in his performances! Marcellis, still young, still unproven, but I think this guy can make it. I hope he really rockets this last year and that we see him in the position.
I know Bert says he wants to work with a standard formation. But in the interest of our players and their development, he really should let Sneijder, and especially van der Vaart, play against Macedonia. Let VDV do his thing for 70 mins in our game, so that Real can get their heads out of their asses and realize what a talent they’re wasting. I think it’s good Sneijder is upset and handling it professionally. The burning desire for a starting position will motivate him to get that original form back. Because when he’s like that, he is absolutely irresistible.

Posted from  Netherlands

wow didn’t realize my post was that long. maybe i should have found a publisher, included a title and some chapters etc etc..

Posted from  Netherlands

If v Marwijk wasn’t so set on pleasing his daughter by playing v Bommel every game and benching players like Sneijder and vd Vaart because of that (who could definitely play on v Bommel’s position), I think we would definitely have a chance for the titel.

As it is now, we have our new Seedorf, yayyy. Let’s just hope he can keep up with the rest of the team, so far, I’m not impressed (he’s never impressed me much), but at least we’re still winning (sounds like the Seedorf period again).

What I don’t understand is, why can v Marwijk and Bommel get away with this shit, why isn’t the press all over them complaining about unfair teamselections. It’s so obvious v Bommel never was good enough for the dutch team, and he still isn’t if you compare him to Sneijder or vd Vaart.

I think there should be some rules about family bonds between trainer and players in the team. I’m not exactly sure what, but this just isn’t right and I can perfectly understand Sneijder’s reaction. This isn’t good for teambuilding either (they all might remain quiet about it, but trust me, it’s on their minds regardless).

Posted from  Netherlands

@Jeroen,

lol, not too long at all; good, interesting comments about whats involved with moving Van Bommel back; I’d be worried about his picking up an early yellow and having to play 70-80 minutes with it (he was lucky not to have gotten an early one against Scotland), and its one thing for him to be in a freer defensive role now, as opposed to a last line of defense as a central defender; still with all the potential you (and others here have cited) its certainly worth the experiment in the run up games. But here is a question, if he plays the rest of this year and all of next in his traditional midfield role with Bayern, won’t it be difficult for him to play back a line?

When all is said and done, it sounds like a formation with VB playing in front of the back three, and I think you’d want three defensive minded players back there—you wouldn’t necessarily want Gio in that kind of a backline. And wouldn’t such a formation inhibit both the fullbacks from moving forward? Thats the tradeoff I guess for trying to fit an extra creative player into the team. Me, I like the idea—didn’t seem right to have both VDV and Sneijder on the bench on Sat.

Posted from  United States

I always liked the idea of van der vaart and sneijder for holding role. When we came back 4-3 against austria we played 3-3-3-1 and we had van der vaart and sneijder in the holding role dictating the game to van persie and babel on te wings with huntelaar as striker. That worked quite well and we recuperated the ball fast with these lads. Imagine playing 3-3-3-1 with van der vaart sneijder and van bommel with robben on the wing with affelay on the right. Van persie in the center shadow striking position and huntelaar foreward.

Posted from  Switzerland

Sol not making any sense. Van Bommel is captain of Bayern Munich. You are comparing him to players who dont play in his position. I agree sneijder and Van der Vaart are more skilled but…

there is a reason teams dont play this formation

afellay–emanueslon–drenthe–robben
—–sneijder—-vaart
–kuyt–van persie–babel
——-huntelaar

You need balance and there is little doupt in my mind a man who played for Barcelona and Bayern isn’t good enough to provide balance to our team.
Remember he played under van basten until he quit the team.

(is) good enough to play in our team

http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/sport-news/scottish-football/international-football/2009/03/29/mark-van-bommel-gave-a-midfield-masterclass-says-jimmy-calderwood-78057-21237045/

Here’s some extra news. Foppe de Haan retires as a coach, according to uefa.com.

van der Vaart is apparently going to Chelsea, and if Real Madrid gets a new president, it looks like Sneijder and Drenthe will be on the way out too.

van Persie is not going to play against Macedonia on Wednesday.

Posted from  Canada

sonneveld: You might be right about that when you’re talking about matches against strong offensive teams like Spain or Brazil, but certainly not Scotland?! Especially when it’s obvious they won’t come out of their shell/fortress (which they didn’t until the very end).

As pointed out by Marc, it worked against Austria when we were behind (I gues that might be v Marwijk’s criteria as well, he’ll only bring them when we’re behind, I think that might be too risky against very defensive teams if you bring them too late).

And I think we played something similar against Russia when we were behind in the EC and got the 1-1 because of it (then v Basten made some more changes and it all turned sour again).

Posted from  Netherlands

And isn’t v Bommel benched at Bayern? Or is he playing again?

Posted from  Netherlands

I have to admit that I can’t complain about his game against Scotland though in regards to how he played.

I just don’t think he’s as good as some of our other options (including Schaars). But who cares, we’ll just see (I always loved it when Seedorf scored right after I was complaining about his play during the game, best way to shut me up, hilarious).

Posted from  Netherlands

@Andrew,

I share your concerns. My problem with van Bommel is that he is ALWAYS a risk factor, you have a 50% chance of ending the game with 10 men when he’s in the field. The guy makes stupid fouls and gets stupid cards for doing things like giving the ref the finger. If he could just tone down his attitude and be a bit more careful, he would be an excellent player I think. The reason I would prefer to see van Bommel left in the field is because 1) he can build up, 2) he is an experienced player. It’s good to have a team full of fresh 21-27 year olds, but at the end of the day, you want at least one or two in there in their early 30’s who can give some guidance. Remember we had van der Sar before, he was the leader of the team. I would say put van Bommel all the way in the back line (maybe even something like a sweeper) so that our quick wing defenders can go up with the attack. But yes, the problem with this is that van Bommel doesn’t play this position. Of course, players in Oranje don’t always play their usual positions they’re used to at clubs, but van Marwijk has made it clear he wants them to in his team. So I don’t see this van Bommel move happening realistically. In any case, the fact that he was made the first ever foreign captain at Bayern says something about his leadership skills (which I find a bit strange, because his attitude I would imagine would make him a horrible leader….but apparently he’s good at it?).
I have high expectations of Schaars, but let’s not forget that van Bommel has proven himself in Spain and Germany. That is something that Schaars cannot yet claim.
As for a supposed striker problem, Huntelaar is young. We have at least another 6 years before we need a new first spot striker unless something dramatic happens. In that time, someone will rise. Let’s not forget that while we are not great producers of defenders, we always have good strikers .

Posted from  Netherlands

@Jeroen, I’ve enjoyed your comments. Just to be clear, I like Van Bommel as a player. I was just thinking about potential issues with moving him back a line. I agree with you in comparing him and Schaars. I think (hope) Schaars will be terrific, but VB has played effectively at the highest level, he is true hard man in midfield (I don’t think it was any coincidence that he went in hard and nasty on a couple of challenges shortly after one of the Oranje players had been taken out.) But he has skills as on display in the Scotland match and some of the earlier qualifiers. A missing piece from the Euro squad.

Posted from  United States

haha yeah I noticed that. Someone was taken down (Robben I think?) and I told my friend who was sitting next to me “watch, van Bommel is going to get vengeance”. Sure enough, 30 seconds later…I was surprised he didn’t get one or two yellows against Scotland.

Posted from  Netherlands

In terms of Strikers Ajax has Geoffrey Castilion coming up, much in the a Patrick Kluivert/van Nistelrooij role. Can’t dribble much, but finds good positions, and can finish well.

Posted from  Canada