Separated at birth??

Ha Ha Ha. That made me laugh. Excellent topic for a series. Let me give that some thought as I am sure I can identify some surprising set of brothers as well…

wow – Robben played 90 min for Bayern who are momentarily top !

Posted from  Singapore

Sorry jan , it’s out of topic .. But what arjen robben did today was unbelievable .. especially In the 2nd half ! i can simply say he’s the best dribbler in the globe ! I’d rate this game as one of the best games robben have ever played . Neither messi nor c.ronaldo can do better than him today .. If he keeps this form and if bayern win the CL , robben will win the ballon d’or .

haha Mohamed lets slow down a little. I am a huge fan and I but I don’t think we should talk about Robben winning the Cl for Bayern and Ballon d’or cause of one performance! I do think he is the best dribbler but Ronaldo has heading, free kicks, finishing on Robben and Messi has passing and finishing (and both have better teams)

Happy for Robben but lets not get ahead of ourselves!

and for the topic maybe Robben and Sneijder and De Zeeuw

gifted footballers that have bald genes

I think De Zeeuw and Sneijder especially look alike and play alike

*yes i watched the game and he was absolutely outstanding in the second half.
*he played right winger, van marwijk should without any doubt forget of playing him on the left ( and playing the rubbish kuyt on the right)
*he must play on the right for holland so we can have a place for elia on the left
*sneijder should play ahead of vaart (his free-kicks are better and that is very important)
*heitinga is doing really good with everton as a center back and is a real option for that position with mathijsen
*vlaar and pieters should be selected for the world cup
*braafheid don’t play a single minute with bayern and should not be considered anymore
*van bommel was outstanding also today and for me -no doubt – dejong and mark are the choice for defensive mid
*boulahrouz must find a new club ; that is better than staying in the stands
*bruma will never be selected for the world cup
*fer deserves a call more than the poor mendes da silva and schaars

If Robben wasn’t be so injury prone, he will be the best player in the world. Because he is so ip, he isn’t;/

@sonneveld ,
you know .. you’re right man , i’ve just read my comment again , i think i was exaggerating (a little )
Great passion , haha

@fares ,
i think eredivisie is the best option for boulahrouz right now . Same with brafhied , drenthe , babel , zuiverloon , emnes , huntelaar and even ruud .
also french league with teams like lyon , and marseille is a good option .

@ Mohamed
At least Zuiverloon isa regular for WBA, and they have hopes of going up to PL again so he’s not really going anywhere I guess. For the rest I agree, they should put away their wage demands and get back to earth. Better to excell in Eredivisie than never play at all.

Arthur Numan said he thinks Pieters will be our LB in the near future, but still has some steps to take before he’s ready for Oranje.
He also said he knows that V.Marwijk is keeping tabs on Pieters.

BTW speaking of defenders.
I’m gonna put a comparison/analysis between Portugal and us on this in my next post.

Posted from  Netherlands

Man utd supposedly interested in Rolando from FC Porto, another Portuguese defender.
Also in the interest of many topclub, Bruno Alves.
Other Portuguese that have been highly rated and gone to topclubs in the last decade are Ricardo Carvalho, Pepe, Miguel, Bosingwa, Paulo Ferreira and Jorge Andrade pre-injuries. And besides them many more were highly rated but didn’t make the cut.

That brings up a difficult question.
Portugal is a land of rougly 10 million people, how can a nation with even less inhabitants than us, have an entire backline, plus replacements at clubs like Chelsea, Valencia, Real Madrid or in the interest of them.
Simple, most of those have one thing in common. most of them are from FC Porto, a club which puts enormous effort into developing their own talent, and especially defenders, simply because they won’t have to buy them. Something which lacks in our country, with the lame excuse it wouldn’t fit into our playing style, it’s not our culture. The portuguese have lots of creative players, just as much as we do, and according to the rest of the world, the best footballer in it. Problem is we’ve lacked the coaches and trainers to develop and guide Dutch defenders at a high standard. They might have be capable, but they were not doing it. the other thing is that the portuguese players are strong, fast, tough. Something which lacks especially in Ajax’ wimp academy, which produces more average dwarfs, anorexia patients, hobbits and oompa loompa’s than any other youth academy. We need to look for the type of defender which is needed in today’s football world.
Tough, strong, commanding, preferably fast, but not necessarily. In the mould of a Stam.
This doesn’t mean we don’t have just as good talent as Portugal, but there are two other major stumbbling blocks.
One, we have ourselves, and V.Basten helped to create an urban legend that we can’t produce good defenders.
The very poor and unknown Jaliens’, Kromkamps and de Clers of the world have only reinforced that. Plus we’ve helped it ourselves in an attempt to get those out of oranje, at least I did.
Besides that and most important, FC Porto has been a steady performer in CL for years, always doing well, and almost always with a central defence or even wingbacks from Portugal, either from their own youth or scouted at a young age. Always defenders around mid 20’s, an age very interesting for topclubs, an age at which defenders start to show their best.
Since they are steady performers, their players get the opportunity to showcase themselves in CL against strong opposition, and impressing there, is a major part in a player’s image. CL football is where players are graded the most. performing good in CL gets you hard cash, which you can spend to strenthen and hold together your squad, which then whill have more chance of winning the league and returning to CL, thus you get a snowball effect, that is one of the reasons why Porto does so well. Lyon is a club that functions in some ways the same, and PSV did function that way for years, in which they spiked about 5 league titles in 6 years. During which the players where constantly in the interest of big foreign clubs. Not a coincidence. Unfortunately, they had a Brazilian on loan in the centre of defence for most of the time, which they didn’t own. But that cycle was broken, which didn’t improve the situation for us in europe. Meaning that a stable european performer and highly rated PSV lossed their ace, which was playing in CL, they lost players and went into CL with a weakened and dameged squad. They had no players ready to take over, the squad had to be rebuilt, a major flaw. Something which Porto does have. Porto scouts talents from all kind of places and buy them for a smalle fee, then put them in their academy and loan them out for a couple of years. When one of the strongholders of the squad, like a CB leaves, they always have at least one ready to step up and take over, and playing in CL will only boost his development. PSV didn’t have that and got thrashed in CL. The best Dutch defender they had, Marcellis, dissapointed, and has been restricted to the bench since.

Problem for us is that, our clubs all struggle to compete in Europa League and CL, and when our defences do look good, we put two Belgians, or Mexicans in centre. We have no steady performer where Dutch defenders can play themselves into stardom through CL, the wider title race brings more excitement to the league, but it doesn’t help our talent. Especially defensive talent.

To get back to Rolando, Man Utd, is said to be prepared to pay 20 million for him, but Porto want 30, another jumbo price, just like is being asked for Bruno Alves, was asked an paid for Pepe, Carvalho, Bosingwa etc. Porto cash in on these players and get another stable money stream through thesee transfers. Porto has become a professional breeder, allowing it to experience mild success in europe, a self-sustaining system. Take Ron Vlaar for instance, I doubt he would have done worse or develop any worse than Rolando playing in CL. y
Yet clubs are lining up for players like Bruno alves and Rolando, and who knows Vlaar besides Dutch football fans?? Eredivisie is increasingly rated very poorly, and for good reason, but the players in it aren’t having the same chance as those of Porto.
I have to say, Porto will probably eventually fail to qualify once and fall out of the cycle for a moment.

Anyway, so I wouldn’t mind to see, Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord or FC Twente win the league or at least qualify for CL 5 times in a row, one succes could bring them to steady CL football and more profitable transfers. Plus, they should really start developing their own (central) defences out of Dutch players as much as possible.
This alone could restore our reputation of a great talent producing country, and shatter the myth about Dutch defenders.
Thanks for reading, hope you didn’t fall asleep.

Posted from  Netherlands

Fares and Alex, totally agree with you on every point you made. Great analysis.

Posted from  United States

Heitinga doing well at Everton? Not so good as you think. Welike to think he is doing well, and to be fair he has some games, but the press have given him quite a bit of credit where it may not have been due.

There are only 5 teams out of 20 that have given up more goals than Everton in the entire EPL. I am not sure on Heitinga as a CB yet.

And Flares, Kuyt is anything but rubbish. You can’t compare him and Robben, it’s apple and oranges, two completely different players who serves different purposes and should be used accordingly. And Kuyt does not get injured while changing channels on the remote control in bed.

I doubt if there is a single Oranje player who is more proud of wearing the Orange shirt than him. Every team needs a rock like that. May not be pretty, but he is truly a warrior that is very hard not to like despite his Feyenoord background.

Great days for Sneijder and Robben!!
with full fighting spirit. only injury can top them from getting some where.
I am very pleased with the forms of Robben, Sneijder, Bommel, Elia and De jong!!
they are just brilliant at the right time.
than where is our weakness?
if it’s fighting spirit, we got our guys already.
I don’t think Kyut as a central striker is a remarkable drawback. All big Guns are in down trend except Spain.
real weak point is the left back i see.
Who should be there?
Elia up front will be a cure for speedy opponents for defensive measure

Posted from  Australia

Great posts all! Very good. I liked the Portugal rant a lot.

The thing with defending is: it requires mental strength, concentration and discipline and you need to keep your ego in check. Dutch youngsters always want to be Van Basten, Bergkamp or Van Persie.

In Italy, Portugal and other nations, defenders can be heroes too!

Stam and De Boer are the only two really respected defenders of the last ten years.

Bogarde, Reiziger, Konterman and before them Van Aerle, Ophof, Boeve, Wijnstekers etc were always criticized for being limited football players. In England, they don’t care about that.

Mental strength, that was that one element we lack, remember. Hence, mediocre defenders but great attackers.

We need to shift focus in our youth development.

Did you know Jaap Stam was totally neglected by the Dutch Federation ( I mean for representation in Dutch youth teams) until he was 24 years old? And he swiftly became a regular in the big Oranje.

I agree that Robben is the best dribbler in the world, maybe on par with Messi, but surely up there. How does he do it?

Yes, I think too Robben is the best dribbler, and has a run style that i didn´t see in other player.

Changing of subject I have many fears on the Van Persie´s situation. Hope he could recover in april and can play some matches before the WK. Otherwise, his possibilities of playing the worldcup would be very little. That would be terrible for Holland, would lose its better player according to me.

Don’ worry,Keko..he’ll be back in April..fingers crossed..I cudn’t catch Bayern’s game yesterday but it seems quite obvious now that Robben had yet another delightful game…He is the best..my favourite..

Posted from  India

Well guys , how about this line-up ,
________________stek_____________
________heitinga__mathijsen___
_v.d.weil___________________gio_
________bommel__de jong______
_robben______________sneijder_
______________vaart______________
______________persie_____________

sneijder impressed in EC 08 , and he played on the left , vaart is getting enough playing time to be fresh and in form and keep his rythme .
And this quatro ( wes , robin , arjen and vdv ) can definitly do amazing things if marwijk knows how to get their best .
Elia and kuyt will be our aces in the WC . Sounds cool , doesn’t it ?
Subs .
__________vorm\velthuzien_____
__________vlaar__douglas??_____
boulahrouz___________pieters__
_________de zeeuw__afellay_____
_kuyt___________________elia_____
_____________kuyt\???___________
____hunter??\ruud??\babel??_

Apparently we have a big problem in the attacking line , even if we assume that persie will be ok by the wc :/ !!!

Danish papers reports that Morten Olsen, the long time Danish coach, has signed a 2-year extension with Denmark.

Evidently the competition was to become Ajax technical director after WC2010…

Just a little on the defenders. No disrespect, but I think it’s not really that true anymore that we think of lots of defenders as limited footballers, and therefore not good. Especially in recent years, I’ve found that most of Dutch football fans seem to crave for a ruthless, hard tackling, strong and tall defender, the Stam mould as I mentioned. Not exactly what you described. It’s not coincidence that a player lik Boulahrouz is still highly popular in our country, despite having a terrible carrer since he moved from HSV, he’s always fullfilled that role for us in oranje with great determination and class.
That’s why lots of fansare screaming for Vlaar and Douglas to get a chance, and why Loovens was given one. Loovens was hesitant and not really convincing though defensively.
They’re strong, tall and worth giving a shot.
Especially, lots of the older fans seem to still talk about Vlaar giving a good long pass or not and judging by that, but more fans of my age grew up with Stam in his prime, and can enjoy that just as easily as a Frank de Boer type of player. I think mentally might be shifting in that area. Mathijsen is a limited defender, but in recent times, people are starting to appreciate him more for his other (though not topclass)qualities. The V.Basten era might have had something to do with it, so I should be thankfull of him?? Not really sure. Anyway, people care less and less about whether or not a centre back outplays 4 attackers and gives a cracking long pass, but are becoming more appreciative of a defender that recovers every ball that comes near the penalty area and give it to a midfielder, wingback or someone else who can play football. In my view we would be losing a lot of defensive talent by ignoring such players.
That’s one of the reasons as well why wingbacks get an increasingly important role in build-up.

Posted from  Netherlands

Instead of: Mathijsen is a limited defender I meant he’s a limited footballer.

Posted from  Netherlands

Q: If he keeps this form and if bayern win the CL , robben will win the ballon d’or .

A: Don’t get carried away about Robben now, he’s still got his kryptonite (and I’m not talking about the injuries). I’m not going to say what it is cause I see defenders against him making the same mistakes again and again (against Messi as well, allthough Messi’s kryptonite so to speak is slightly less damaging to him than it is when defenders figure it out against Robben because Messi’s dribbling style is slightly different in one aspect particular).

Posted from  Netherlands

But I hope everyone who saw the Bayern game (and all the other games Robben played this season) now finally sees that Robben is more dangerous and useful on the rightwing than on the leftwing (just like Messi). Another reason for vMarwijk not to start with Kuyt if Robben is fit (unless you need him as forward striker if Vpersie is injured or something).

Posted from  Netherlands