PWCT in Holland

Post World Cup Trauma… In the build up to Dennis the Menace’ farewell before 1000s of English and Dutch football fans later today, the Dutch nation is tired of football. Particularly national team football. Sure, Zidane’s swan song, the louse refereeing, the poor quality of the WC…that all contributed, but it’s fair to say that Oranje’s performance is at the core of that drowsy feeling.

Johan Derksen, in Voetbal International, and Hugo Borst, in the AD newspaper, seem to be fed up with it all and in need of a break. Derksen: “The Dutch coaches expressed their worries about van Basten (at the recent pre-season coaching seminar); he failed to mould a firm team in three weeks of prepping, he came up with a lame midfield and didn’t succeed in turning matches around with subs (as some other coaches did)… Still, he deserves credit. We knew he was inexperienced, he had to learn a lot, he knew that himself too. And let’s face it, he will become a great coach, I have no doubt whatsoever. But he will face criticism whenever he makes mistakes and he’ll need to live with that.”

Cruyff expressed his ongoing support for his protégé and friend: “People say I’m mild for Marco, but that’s nonsense. Since 2000 we only played one big tournament and that was not a great success. If you now look at the material at hand and the way Oranje performed I do think we did the best we could. There is and was a lot of discussion about player X and player Y (to be added to the group – Jan) but there is no way in telling that would’ve gotten us further in the WC. There’s only one player I could think of who would have made our team better and that is Kalou. But he couldn’t participate for Oranje, so end of story. I think we got the best result feasible. I understand Marco’s doubts on van Bommel. His primary task is supporting defense and trying to come up in the opponents box. At this WC, Bommel had 12 to 14 shooting opportunities, with one really good one against Portugal. He didn’t score once, so his effectiveness is not that good. He is also not a guy to track and mark his direct opponent for 90 minutes, so in that aspect, he is also not top. If you score three times during a WC as a midfielder – like Neeskens did in 74 or Cocu in 98 – then you can let your man slip every now and then, but with Bommel, you always get the mistakes, but not the added value.
The Davids discussion is not relevant either. He was a super player, but his strength was pressing from midfield. He doesn’t have the pace and stamina anymore to do that.”

There’s not a lot of time left to evaluate this WC. On the 16th of August, Oranje is set to play Ireland. New rounds, new chances (lousy translation of that irritating Dutch expression )