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South Africa: here we come!!

June 7th, 2009 | By: Jan | 54 Comments »

Van Marwijk and Mathijsen… On the right Frank de Boer and Phillip Cocu…

The Orange Legion will be heading South next summer! Holland qualified as the first European nation for the big one in South Africa against Iceland with a flattering 1-2 win. Flattering for Iceland, that is…

A record breakin’ run continues, with a very focused starting Dutch team scoring twice in the first 15 minutes. Within the first minute, the spectators were clinched on their seats when Ooijer picked out surprise starter Raf van der Vaart, running unmarked into the box. His arm handled the ball and he was whistled back by the ref, but it was a sign of things to come. In the first half, Oranje played tremendous foreward pressure against the very weak Icelanders. De Jong scored his first Oranje goal ever on a Vaart assist and some ten minutes later the other “holding” midfielder Van Bommel scored the second. His ninth goal in 50 matches.

Nigel de Jong: Who’s your daddy?

From that moment onwards, demonstration football ensued, with some tremendous fluid pass and move play, cutting through the Iceland defense like a hot knife through…well…ice…

But Oranje did the only thing one could blame them for in that first half. Not scoring. Van Persie hit the post after the attack of the night, Robben hit the outside post and the Icelandic goalie stopped Kuyt, again Robben and a distance strike from Man of the Match (for me at least) Rafael van der Vaart.

With the score halting and the Icelanders playing rougher and rougher, Oranje kept control in the second half but wasn’t able to impress too much. A few good runs by Robben and some attempts from Van Bommel and Van Persie but the mark wasn’t found. Slowly but surely, the momentum left the game, only to allow Iceland to believe they had a chance, when Oranje (Ooijer) had a shonky moment in defense in the last minute of the game.

Substitute Huntelaar hit the bar with a free-kick and Van Persie was illegally obstructed in the box, but that was all our lads had to show for in the remainder of the game.

1-2, a minimal score. But an impressive demonstration all the same, the three points in the bag with that ticket for the WC.

Van Marwijk started the game with the eager Van der Vaart as a starter and Kuyt on the number 9 position. Van Persie started on the right, with Robben on the left wing. Huntelaar started on the bench. Kuyt had a good first half, but drifted out of the game a bit, while Robben and Van Persie were ever threatening, with Van der Vaart weaving his magic all over the pitch.

Two other remarkable players were our holding midfielders. Both on the score-sheet too. Van Bommel and De Jong didn’t give the Icelanders a chance and our defense did the rest.

The only player who looked a bit out of place to me was John Heitinga. Defensively, there was not a lot he did wrong, but in possession he oozed lack of confidence and other than Gio on the left, Heitinga never committed himself up front. I’d love to see Greg van der Wiel there again.

Skipper van Bronckhorst: “We can be proud. We played very well in the first half, but should have finished it earlier. You could notice that some players got tired in the second half. It was a long season for most, and when you’re up 2-0 you can’t help but become a bit complacent. Still, this team is capable of a lot and we are eager to show it against the big nations now.”

Coach Bert van Marwijk enjoyed the first half. “We played fantastic football in the first half. I was more a spectator enjoying than a coach. Still, we missed maybe three sitters. We should have scored more and that was something I didn’t like. We told the boys in the break to kill the game properly but we played too slow in the second half. Still, we can’t rest on our laurels now. I want to win the remaining games too. That’s good for our momentum but also to show the world we’re serious this time. I don’t feel any pressure from the KNVB. I don’t need too. I put that pressure on myself. I always said, if we make it to the WC, we’ll go for gold. Period.”

Rafael van der Vaart: “The joy is massive. To be qualified like this, so early is an example of how serious we all take this qualification. I was happy with my game and very pleased with my starting position. I didn’t play a lot this season, but the last weeks I got back into the Madrid squad and tried to give Van Marwijk a hard time on training. It was still a surprise that I started of course, the coach has so many options. But I’m happy and I’m hungry for more.”

Nigel de Jong is suspended for the Norway match, to be played this Wednesday in De Kuip in Rotterdam.

Tags: de Jong, Gio, Group C, Huntelaar, Iceland, Orange, Oranje, Robben, Van Bommel, van der Vaart, Van Marwijk, van Persie

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 54 comments.

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By Miguel | June 8th, 2009 at 6:36 am

Great to see the Orange as the first European team to qualify. A clear signal to all teams what style of play gets the best results. Van Marwijk clearly knows his sh$t and his attitude as to what the team objective should be for the WC2010 is admirable. Go Holland!

Posted from Portugal

By finnster01 | June 8th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Just out of curiosity, how pompous do you think Henk Kesler is feeling now?

I am sure right now he is strutting around the halls Sepp Blatter style taking all the credit for hiring BVM and qualifying.

Why is it in the sport we all love, we have great athletes and terrible top executives? I mean, when was the last time we did not have a corrupt head of FIFA? (Hint: Never). Kesler is probably not corrupt, but he is clearly protecting his own job and hiring and firing accordingly. Not allowing that physio that everybody wanted is a classic example. Very old school Dutch East Indian behaviour.

By Sol | June 8th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

I think we should forget about playing Babel for a while as well. He does indeed need to get his act back together cause he’s currently not impressing at all at Oranje and usually when he’s brought in all chances dissapear for Holland because better players (Robben in most cases) are taken out and we see much less fast combinations.

The last couple of times I’ve seen Bouma play for Oranje I was really impressed with his defensive skill. Not too much with his build-up though. Still, I’d like to see him again, see if he’s improved that part.

I think Heitinga needs/deserves another game, he might have had an off-day like Robben. I can’t really say how good vdWiel is cause he hasn’t been tested well enough as a defender and his build-up/passing wasn’t spectacular, it was just average, no pressure, no perfect passes, decent enough against Scotland and Macedonia, but not reason enough to blindly expect him to outplay the topteams/attackers.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

I found vdWiel actually a bit slow the second match (that was against Macedonia right?).

Posted from Netherlands

By dirk v.d.Berg | June 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Apparently Tottenham put in a 1.7m euro bid for van Nistelrooij, quoting that Real Madrid would prefer the money.

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | June 8th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

@Carlos – if you are still looking to download the match, here’s some links to the game that a great bloke named wigan88 from fbtz.com created:

First half part 1:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=lz0nyl7xfwf

First half part 2:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=1ffnlob7xoc

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | June 8th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

And here’s the second half:
http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=yzcv30ytyod

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | June 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

My thoughts on the game:

The first half was some of the best football I’ve seen this group play. We created tons of really good chances – not just chances, but really good chances – and we really should have been up like 5-0 at half time. Hitting the post a few times, Robben failing to score when one on one with the keeper, we should have done better. I’m actually surprised because I remember Robben used to do quite well one on one with the keeper, back in his Chelsea days. Hopefully he’ll get that touch back.

Second half was disappointing. I’d like to see more aggression and the mentality to put the game away, even when you are dominating the game. We should have scored a few more in the second half to seal the game beyond all hope, but unfortunately we looked kind of stale.

Van der Vaart did fantastic in the midfield, showing his artistry like we haven’t seen for a while. Other than that De Jong and Van Bommel were great as well. I wasn’t a big fan of Kuyt up front; he really does better on the wing, and we need a natural finisher up front to finish the chances we create, like Sol said in a previous post.

Posted from Canada

By Caleb | June 8th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

I agree with Sol again – we should forget about Babel for a while and I’d like to see Bouma again in Oranje. Babel has lost something while sitting on the bench at Liverpool, and he needs to move somewhere where he’ll play regularly to get it back. Until that time, don’t bother playing him in Oranje – he really looks poor whenever he comes on.

Posted from Canada

By Carlos | June 8th, 2009 at 5:28 pm

Jan have some good news for you !!!
October 10 – Australia v Holland n Sydney !! Well thats the news altho I find it strange as it takes 2 days to recover from a flight to Oz and most of the players would be playing in Europe anyway. Ths could be another one of those “No one thot about the logistics” issue and the game is played back in Europe after some serious common sense issues. But if it is played in Sydney I may come down.

Posted from Singapore

By Sol | June 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

I just found out all our upcoming friendlies:

England
Paraguay
Japan
Australia

I think these are good choices, the first 3 will really test our defenses, and Australia hasn’t had a goal against them in qualifying so far and it looks like they’re the best team Asia has to offer (probably closely followed by South-Korea and Japan).

Damn, I can’t wait till wednesday, why are there always so many clubmatches and so few nationmatches, you have to wait so long (kinda makes it more exciting on the other hand).

Posted from Netherlands

By Carlos | June 8th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

I dont think Japan and Paraguay will test our defences. Paraguay is a lame duck outside of Paraguay. But they do play Latino style which always helps.
It’s a good mix and more will follow – Hope they arrange either Brazil or Argentina since our next Queen is Argentinian, maybe she can pull some strings .

Posted from Singapore

By Karan | June 9th, 2009 at 2:26 am

@ Tiju..I dont know wtf is wrong wid u bro…do u actually watch soccer or r u one of those FIFA addicts , i actually read ur posts n IMO u seem to hve got all da wrong facts my friend not to forget the spelling mistakes!!!
I saw da match against iceland , we got complacent after da two goals nevertheless great performances from vaart n de jong..my line up would be :-
………………………Stek…………………..
…V.D.Weil……..Heitinga……..Mathijsen……Gio..
.
……………………..De Jong………………….
.
…….Kuyt…………….VDV/Sneijder…….Robben….
.
………………RVP……………..Huntelaar………
i would drop da bayern captain cos dirk kuyt is more of a defensive player and comes in handy during counter attacks n even the gr8 cryuff said during da euro’s when we beat france dat two defensive mid-fielders can look ugly
against opponents who play differently n hiddink proved him right!!

Posted from India

By Jan | June 9th, 2009 at 3:16 am

Yo Carlos, cool news!! If it happens I’ll meet you down in Sydney man!

By Tiju | June 9th, 2009 at 5:06 am

@karan Welcome man. Where u from in india.Spelling mistake is my co-brother,i cannt help that.but i belive i am not an infant in dutchfootball.Please dont compare my comments with the wizards here.My life is always simillar to abrham lincoln’s childhood days.dont be a lurker in this blog.this blog is heart of a hardcore dutch fan.hope u will join with us.Your analysis and plans are good.we all hope BVM will read this blog regularly and will accept our humble ideas.

Posted from India

By Tiju | June 9th, 2009 at 5:08 am

@karan my logics are enterly different that may be the reason.

Posted from India

By Miguel Rosado | June 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am

Do you guys think Bert will play Sneijder and van der Vaart at the same time when Sneijder gets back from injury?

By Miguel Rosado | June 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am

Do you guys think Bert will play Sneijder and van der Vaart at the same time when Sneijder gets back from injury?

By Alex | June 9th, 2009 at 9:58 am

He might, it all depends on who does better at practises i guess, otherwise you could hardly make a choice between the forwards.
V.d.Vaart-Sneijder did work well in the EC. And V.d.Vaart-V.Persie have a natural click as well.
BTW Edson Braafheid signed a 4 year contract with Bayern Munchen, according to dutch NOS.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 9th, 2009 at 10:00 am

I just watched the match against Russia in the EC 2008 again. I noticed a couple of things about the Dutch team:

- De Jong was awesome until the very last SECOND of the game, without him it would have been so much worse
- Bouhlarouz was doing fine until for some reason he went nuts and made a completely unnecessary and risky sliding/foul which got him a yellow, and vBasten took him out for Heitinga who was the cause of the first goal by Russia, from that point on Heitinga never really looked secure on his side and caused many chances for Russia together with Ooijer (who made a huge mistake the first half by the way), De Jong solved almost all problems on that side or it could have been even worse
- Sneijder was way too selfish in the first and second half all the way up to when he was finally FORCED to use his excellent passing skills instead of going for goal (this was when he got a freekick too far from the goal to go for goal, he finally passed, something he hadn’t done for a very long time by then, and RvN scores with a header, quite telling what he was doing wrong all match long). I think Sneijder forgot the main reason he was there because of his earlier long distance goal against France and that’s why he tried shooting instead of passing on so many occasions. That changed the game.
- Engelaar was the cause for most of the Russian chances in the first half (not counting the Ooijer mistake I mentioned earlier), he was just way too slow
- I have mixed feelings about the vPersie for Kuyt substitute, when vPersie started he caused many chances for Russia with his mistakes which affected the rest of the Dutch team and made them afraid/play worse as well. Later vPersie picked up his game but by then vdVaart had sort of run out of steam, and Sneijder and Affelay were only thinking about shooting at goal from distance, especially Sneijder wasted a lot of balls like that
- vBronckhorst and Mathijssen did fine, Affelay wasn’t special at all, RvN had no breath left at the end, couldn’t do much anymore
- vdVaart had some brilliant passes the first half from free kicks, but later he got affected by the Sneijder attitude of wasting good chances for a pass, on shooting at goal and not even coming close to a goal

But again, the thing that struck me the most was how well de Jong played and how he was the ONLY one to stuck in there till the last second, even after the 3-1 fell (he prevented a 4-1 in the last 10 seconds or so). The rest sort of already started to drift of after the 0-0 first half, then it got worse after the 1-0 when they really started to rush things and not pay attention to what they were doing, only de Jong kept awake and preventing things from getting worse.

Posted from Netherlands

By Miguel Rosado | June 9th, 2009 at 11:39 am

Sol, you are completely right about Nigel. He was the only one who had balls that game.

The biggest mistake was that we waited for them to come beacuse Marco was scared of their counter attacks. We waited until they came to our side of the pitch and then we started trying to get the ball back, that killed us we needed to make them lose the ball up in their pitch and we all know we are one of the best nations at keeping ball posession. Spain did that and look at the result 3-0.

By Tiju | June 9th, 2009 at 10:51 pm

@sol you are absolutly right in all over the areas not only about dejong-everybody know dejong played an excellent game.but didnt noticed how badly some players played thank you verymuch man.,Znijedr is selfish he did same against protugalWC2006.

Posted from India

By Sol | June 10th, 2009 at 9:09 am

Some of the shots on goal by Sneijder were justified and logical, but most of them in the first half (especially a free-kick) could have been better handled with a pass or some dribbling/fast-comboniation. Sneijder also had one huge chance at goal in the first half when Holland was still creating chances and not playing that bad. He was through the defence close to the side of the goal while I believe RvN was completely free next to him and he went for goal himself and shot into the keeper (that last part could have been a shot on the post, can’t remember exactly, it didn’t go in, while RvN was standing 1-2 meter next to him away from the keeper). That could have been the 1-0 lead and things would have been a lot different.

I think these are the players that should be taking on the following type of shots/playstyle:

1. Long distance-shots
- vPersie
- de Jong
- vBommel (should be looking for long-distance pass first)
2. Medium distance-shots (edge of the penalty area, within 18m of goal max.)
- Sneijder (should be looking for medium-distance pass or dribble/fast combo first, but if he’s got a GOOD clear path, I trust him enough to make another one like he did against France)
- vdVaart (should be looking for dribble/fast combo primarily, or in his particular case, his “judo-wrestling” with the ball and his opponents to keep the ball or create “weird” situations -no words for it-, medium-distance pass secundary, shooting as a third and final option)
- vPersie (should be looking for dribble/fast combo but I trust him the most for making this type of shot, so if the path is clear…go for it)
- Huntelaar apparently

I probably forgot to mention a few of the subs, but these are just of the top of my head, Kuyt would suprise me if he makes a long-distance goal with a power-shot or curling shot.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 11th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

@Carlos: about Japan, you said they weren’t much of a threat to our defence, but it seems that they like to attack a lot on friendlies. These are their friendly results of 2009 (allthough I haven’t really seen them play myself):

Japan – Finland (5-1)
Japan – Chile (4-0)
Japan – Belgium (4-0)

Chile by the way are now second ranked in the South American qualifying for the WC, only 1 point behind Brazil. They won against Argentina with 1-0 in oct.08 and against Paraguay (our other friendly, who are now 3rd ranked in S.A.qual.) just a couple of days ago with 2-0. I think Chile and Paraguay are heavily underrated, and that would mean Japan is as well.

Either that, or Argentina is heavily OVERrated. And Brazil as well, since Paraguay beat them 2-0 last year and was leading yesterday with 1-0 (they sadly didn’t press on though, giving the game back to Brazil again).

Posted from Netherlands

By Karan | June 12th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

@ tiju..sorry for being harsh , i was kind of pissed of a bit da day ..newayz @ SOL ive seen japan play quite a lot…dey mostly depend infact dey only depend on nakamura to create (& he’s truly amazing at it..) & also da new Jap from Wolfsburg he too plays well…but dey should not be a prob..