Qualifications… A new set-up

Pondering Oranje’s result and quality of play….pondering our reactions….our history…

The NOS TV program with Jack van Gelder for instance was pretty positive. Not just on the result, but also because Oranje was patient enough to wait for the opportunities and the “pressing and hunting” for the ball…They were delighted about De Zeeuw’s development, about the threats Babel and Persie posed (without playing great)…

So, I took a look at where the other Big Teams in Europe are at… Finland is number 2 in Group A and Portugal is no. 3. Okay…

Italy is number 3 in Group B. Turkey is no 3 in Group C. England is number 3 in Group E. And Spain is ex aequo number 2 in Group F.

And most of these nations do NOT play great football in these stages, believe you me…

Anyway, do we maybe expect too much? All our qualifications were troublesome, right. Best example being the qualification toward 1974. Or 1988. Did we forget our qualifications towards the WC2002 :-)? Man, I still wake up screaming if I had a bit too much to eat…

So, what does this tell us? That playing qualifiers is hard. That good football is nice, but that results are needed to get to the tournament, where the coaches/players have ample prep time to mould a great team.

The reasons are obvious. Players are focused on their clubs. They play with other players, with other coaches in other systems… (I’m not talking the stigma between 4-4-2 and 4-3-3… It’s not that easy… Chelsea’s 4-4-2 is different to Liverpool’s 4-4-2 etc etc).

They get to prepare for a match for 5 days max and need to 1) win and 2) play great football… Let’s look around us in Europe, apparently it doesn’t work like that…

Having said all that, maybe we shouldn’t be to worried about the lack of magic. Huub Stevens (HSV Hamburg coach and former Oranje defender) said last Sunday: “If this was Germany playing the press and fans would be cheering their asses off for the team! Winning 2-0 against a rival nation in the group. What more do you want?”)

So, with all that pressure on players these days, why not change the set-up. UEFA??

How’bout this:

Summer 2007: a qualification tournament. The Group’s play a little tournament and the two best teams at the end of the tournament qualify for the Summer 2008 big EC.

Summer 2009: WC qualification tournament. The Group’s play a little tournament and the two best teams at the end of the tournament qualify for the Summer 2010 big WC.

The fans will have something to look forward to every summer. The clubs won’t have to let player go during the season and hope for them to come back unscathed… (see Sneijder now…). This set-up could bring lots of money to the UEFA (as if they need more, but that seems to be the only motivator for them)… I only see advantages.

Plus, during those summers, the team managers will have more chance of crafting a well-oiled team together.

The downside is, that big clubs (Real Madrid, Man Utd, AC Milan) will have to do their lucrative trips to Japan, China, Singapore, Antarctica and Atlantis without the internationals…

Let’s take football away from the marketing creeps and let’s give it back to the fans…