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The Future is Orange…

January 13th, 2008 | By: Jan | 16 Comments »

Sometimes the “day-to-day” shenanigans take up a lot of our energy and attention… Who needs to play holding midfielder, Marco needs to go, who needs to succeed him, etc etc… We will keep on debating and discussing the items of today as we always did… Another item that deserves our attention is the decreasing impact of Dutch club football in Europe. See earlier posts…

Ajax Chairman John Jaakke had an astonishing newsfact in his new years speech: the amount of money the “number last” in the EPL gets from the tv-broadcast rights is more (!) than the whole budget of Ajax (!)… Now, that gives you some perspective of where Dutch football is. So, his conclusion was, in order to compete we need to keep our unique angle: youth development.

In all this, it is always good to also look beyond the horizon… Can we detect new young talent? Can we extrapolate what we see towards the WC2010, the EC2012 and the WC2014?

Foppe de Haan’s U21 team gives us a good view on great wanna-be’s and can-be’s…

Look at the goalies: Stekelenburg (rumoured to move to the EPL soon!) is only in his mid-20s… We have Kenneth Vermeer, Boy Waterman, the young and very talented Vitesse and FC Utrecht goalies (Goose, help me out with their names, please…) and don’t we have a young goalie in England somewhere, at Newcastle Utd?

Defensively, we can still have some fun with Boulah, Heijtinga and Emanuelson. New giants will be Heerenveen’s Gianni Zuiverloon (ex-Feyenoord), Gregory van der Wiel (Ajax), the young PSV defender I mentioned earlier (sorry, can’t remember his name) and we have the likes of Vlaar (now injured), Ryan Donk (AZ), Gijs Leurink (AZ) and Maduro.

For midfield, we’ve got Demy de Zeeuw, Stijn Schaars, the afore-mentioned Maduro, Afellay, Sneijder, Vaart, Jonathan de Guzman (maybe, he might pick Canada to play for), Julian Jenner (AZ), Otman Bakal (PSV), AZ’s Medunjahin and Luigi Bruins (Feyenoord).

In attack, we can’t forget Huntelaar, Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie, Slory, Daniel de Ridder, Ryan Babel, Ajax’ Leonardo and who knows…Maceo Rigter. Luigi Bruins can play in attack and I’m sure I’m forgetting one or more AZ talents…

And all these players are either with big European teams or play in the top 4 in Holland. I haven’t even mentioned the young talents that play at FC Twente, NEC, Sparta, Excelsior, Vitesse and Heerenveen….

The Future looks bright and Orange, my friends….

Please, add your picks….

Tags: Group C, Huntelaar, Maduro, Oranje, The Netherlands, van Persie

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Comments

By goose | January 13th, 2008 at 7:00 am

Vitesse goalie; Piet Velthuizen
Fc Utrecht goalie; Michel Vorm

Velthuizen has been one of the revelations of this season in Holland, very good mentality, very sure of himself (wich is a great quality to have as a goalie)

Leonardo???? hes brasilian! (and not that good and as injury prone as Robben is) Huntelaar has been out form for a while know, he needs to step it up

the one to watch; Bruins from Feyenoord.. saw him play yesterday and the guy is a great skilled player with great vision…hell be a big one , mark my words!

Posted from Netherlands

By dirk v.d berg | January 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am

Geoffrey Castillion is a 16 year old dutch player who scored 5 goals in the three u-17 games our team played. Also Wesley Sneijder’s brother is around 16 and will be talented as well.

Posted from Canada

By Miguel Rosado | January 13th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

@goose:
Is Huntelaar out of form?, because the Dutch league is not broadcasted here in Mexico but I always read the news and I see he’s scoring and if I’m not wrong I think he’s the leading scorer in the tournament, right?.

By goose | January 13th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

@Miquel; well, you didnt know this weekend scores when i wrote that!! haha.. yes he scored twice today and yes hes topscorer with 18 goals but in the big games he wasnt great this year (Champ. Leq.) and i think that any striker with Ajax should at least have 25 goals, he just not as good as he was last season.

maybe hes back in form now!

Posted from Netherlands

By Ramy | January 13th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

AZ in self destruction mode?

By Ramy | January 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

And Waterman.. oh boy, hes probably responsible for conceding 3-4 of their goals.. ridiculous. that guy is no where near being a hot prospect for the future.

By Miguel Rosado | January 14th, 2008 at 3:30 am

@goose: I see your point and I agree with it. A center forward has to play good in the big games and contribute with goals.

By sandesh | January 14th, 2008 at 5:49 am

i watched ajax vs az last night
ajax wa outstandin
lepnardo a dutchman?? sounds like a brazilian name
ok he looked good n gre8 to see davids back

Posted from United States

By goose | January 14th, 2008 at 6:13 am

@sandesh; Leonarda is actually quit a nice story; he was picked up in Brasil by Feyenoord at age 12 (? not sure…Jan?), he never quit made it in the 1st team, was injured a lot … great skilles but an awful player;…diving, whining…a player who really needs a sholder to cry on .. he has been injured almost the whole of last season but now is fit again … nice little player but nothing special, think with Perze and Davids back Ajax is a lot stronger at midfield so i expect Huntelaar to pick up the pace aswell ..

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | January 14th, 2008 at 6:37 am

Yeah, he came to Feyenoord a youngster. Very young. Was hailed the new Romario. Feyenoord cuddled him to death and he became a spoiled brat. Was hired out or sold to NAC Breda, where he learned to work. Then Ajax snapped him up. Very creative little leftwinger, who needs a lot of coaching. But because he “works” in Holland for +5 years (see De Guzman) he could choose the Dutch team over Brazil, right?

Posted from Australia

By goose | January 14th, 2008 at 6:45 am

@Jan; not sure..is that a rule??? only thing i know (or think i know) is that if you play for a national representing team you cant play for another national team .. but it doenst really matter .. Leonardo is no Oranje material, maybe deGuzman is??

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | January 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

And he surely isn’t Brazilian national team material :-))….

Posted from Australia

By Jan | January 14th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

Ok, here’s Oranje 2010:

Stekelenburg

Heijtinga Vlaar Donk Emanuelson

De Zeeuw Schaars

Sneijder Persie Vaart

Huntelaar

Posted from Australia

By goose | January 15th, 2008 at 2:52 am

i hear that their interest for Stekelenburg in England .. its already been said but ill say it again; we have some great, young goalies coming up …the start of the future; Piet Velthuizen (Vitesse Arnhem goalie), this guy could be the best goalie we ever had, i kd you not!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Mario Rosado (Dutch admirer) | January 16th, 2008 at 12:35 am

Holland has great talents but they need a leader as a coach to guide them. When the KNVB finds him the future will be great!

By goose | January 16th, 2008 at 2:57 am

@miquel; dont get your hopes up… i have this nasty feeling that the KNVB is gonna pull another rabbit out of their big hat .. my guess is theyre gonna go with a young, big name footballer from the past …. hope not btw!!

grtz

Posted from Netherlands

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