Rumania hangover still present despite lucky win

In international football, all that counts is results. And therefore, Oranje did well yesterday evening. It needed a win. Because of history, our standing, statistics and ambition. And win, we did. Even if we did win luckily, with 1-0 against the number 72 of the world. The terminal at Schiphol will not be colored orange, though. There will not be lot of fans. Our luck was too fragile for that. It was also too fragile to wash away the Rumania hangover.

And of course, one can be cynical about the fact that within four days Van Basten changed the team on 8 positions. But then again, you could be really cynical if Van Basten hadn’t changed the failing Rumania line-up at all.

And believe me, Van Basten must have had a huge hangover himself after the Rumania game. That’s the only reason I can think of why he would’ve changed the team so severely. Yesterday, we just had a totally different team! According to the philosophy he laid out some time ago in an interview. The system is holy. The only change in the system he allows is the central midfield position. It’s either a controlling role, or an offensive role. That’s the only flexibility Van Basten wants to build in. The name of the players on those positions can change per game.

“We determine our best team per week, one could say”, he said back then. And that’s exactly what he does. And he does it with a vengeance. In the past, coaches (Advocaat, Van Gaal) always had a group of fixed players who could always count on a spot in the starting line-up. That phenomenon does not exist any more under Van Basten. He benches Kuyt, then he benches Huntelaar. Let alone his actions with Seedorf, Landzaat, Jaliens and De Cler. Life at the top is tough and for our team manager, with all his experience, and that’s the way it just is.

The time, the picks of the week paid the manager back. The team started nervous against Slovenia, but the match wasn’t that bad to look at. The home team did get some opportunities to explore the space on Oranje’s half of the pitch, but within Oranje, no one played under par this time.

A bit disappointing were the number of opportunities we created and in particular the execution in the box. Kuyt, Sneijder, Robben…they all got huge chances to score and the problems upfront were further enlarged by the fact that a late lucky shot through the middle needed two deflections to reach the net.

Van Basten was also a bit more on the ball with his subs. It still intrigues me why a player like Seedorf only got a lousy 5 minutes to play, but the Koevermans – Babel change and the De Zeeuw – Heijtinga change did make the team stronger.

But then again, that’s where changes are for.

Sneijder pissed off after his missed opportunity

Source: Chris van Nijnatten, www.ad.nl