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True heroes are the penalty shooters: Borst

March 16th, 2008 | By: Jan | 16 Comments »

Sometimes Hugo Borst has it right. His column in www.ad.nl

“Two things I don’t get:

1. Why is it always the goalie who is the hero after penalty series?

If Jenas would have scored the fifth penalty, Tottenham would have gone through. But he missed.

Gomez’ save seemed great. But it was a piece of cake. Jan van Beveren would have caught the ball. I mean it. Analyze those five penalty kicks. It was about time Gomez saved one! Two were easy to stop. Stoppable balls. Gomez made two mistakes, in other words. But no one says that.

The big mistake with penalty series is always that the goalies are the heroes. Bullshit! They can’t lose! If it goes in, no one blames the goalie. And therefore, there is no real risk for a goalie and thus should a goalie never be called “the hero”. If you can’t lose or fail, it’s impossible to be the hero.

The true heroes are the players. Glenn Hoddle once said: nine out of ten times missing a penalty happens when you walk from the middle circle to the spot. It’s in the mind. “What if I miss”, “that goalie is big”… You put the ball down, the goalie starts nagging, you put the ball down again, fans boo, you feel the eyes of the coach in your back, you know your mates and family are watching you on tv. The honor, the money… It takes a minute before you can kick and that is a long time. The pressure is enormous.

The papers should have read: Bakkal and Marcellis are the heroes. They took the 6th and 7th penalty. They said to their coach: I’ll do it. Brave. And they did it perfectly.

2. Why didn’t Van Basten call upon Dirk Marcellis for Oranje?

I saw Dirk play for the first time when he was 15 or 16 years old. He played with Oranje U16 and beat Turkey.
He was a big boy, tough as nails and pretty skilled. He resembled Mark van Bommel. In looks and in skill. Marcellis played central in defense but also centrally in midfield. We said to eachother: that boy will make it… If he is fast enough.

And that’s a question I still have. There are quicker defenders. But he is smart, aloof, tough, fit. He can break down and build up. He reminds me of Ronald Spelbos in his Ajax days. And, he is only 19 years old, but it doesn’t show. It looks as if he plays in PSV for five years now.

And his team mates agree with me. Therefore, it surprises me that our team manager couldn’t find a spot for him in the Oranje pre-selection.

Tags: Dirk Marcellis, Group C, Oranje, PSV, The Netherlands

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Comments

By ayl | March 16th, 2008 at 6:51 am

Ha ha, i like the comment about the goalies not being the heroes. However, i do think that they deserve the attention. Like, for example, in the 2004 Euro’s against Sweden i really felt that Van der Sar was the hero in at least a sense. He was the one who ultimately stopped the shots, therebye allowing his teamates to be in the position to win.

Also, I don’t think that because there is no real ‘risk’ for a keeper they can’t be heroes. What if he pulled off 5 of the greatest penalty saves ever seen?? Saves that any other man (or keeper) would have missed?? Would he still play second fiddle to some guy who had to convert a spotkick, knowing that if he missed, the next man in line could have a dig??? Plus, the scorer of the final penalty is quite often labelled a hero too (think Aloisi, Stuart Pearce etc).

Sure, goalies very well may save the ‘easy’ shots while letting in the rest during a shoot-out and still be labelled a hero, but i don’t see much difference between that and an outfield player scoring a sitter in the final minutes of normal time and being labelled a hero while the goalie had saved sitters all night.

Just so that you know, i’m not a keeper, but i have great respect for every player on the field, and i think that keepers quite often get the short end of the stick. So, i think that they deserve to be heroes once in a while haha. But i understand exactly what you mean.

Posted from Australia

By ayl | March 16th, 2008 at 6:52 am

………by ‘you’ i mean you and Borst.

Posted from Australia

By True heroes are the penalty shooters: Borst | March 16th, 2008 at 6:57 am

[...] Deval Patrick Watch wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptTrue heroes are the penalty shooters: Borst By: Jan | March 16th, 2008 | No Comments » Sometimes Hugo Borst has it right. His column in http://www.ad.nl “Two things I don’t get: 1. Why is it always the goalie who is the hero after penalty series? If Jenas would have scored the fifth penalty, Tottenham would have gone through. But he missed. Gomez’ save seemed great. But it was a piece of cake. Jan van Beveren would have caught the ball. I mean it. Analyze those five penalty kicks. It was about tim [...]

By tiju | March 16th, 2008 at 7:17 am

A superb analytical post jan
with reality(these news papers they want to increase their circulation only)
bakkal and marcelis are the real heros coz they asked coach to give the oppertunity and they reverted apresent to the coach.
remm
zedorf and penaltys?
ha ha ha

By kervin | March 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am

Grosso was hero for italy in final where were no saves, Shevchenko was the hero in the champions league final (3 years back?). I think it’s more who scored or saved the last penalty that makes him the hero… and i think it’s much more difficult to save a penalty than scoring one. In training on 10 penalties Bakkal and Marcellis would probably score all 10.

They have good mental qualities to do it in the champions league. But I think they did nothing special in scoring those penalties… (I underestimate mental qualities??)

By simon | March 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Yeah Grosso was a real hero. I watched this movie called Australia – Italy. Man, did he perform well. Like a real movie star.

By Marc | March 17th, 2008 at 9:31 am

hey i know that this is off topic but is De Guzman more of a defencive midfielder or offensive? bcuz i thnk that holland is currently lacking one superstar in the defensive midfielder position to play in the holding role (like van bommel). And u guys shuld check the uefa site out cuz there is a game u can play to predict the scores of games that lets u win tickets to the euro.

Posted from Switzerland

By Caleb | March 17th, 2008 at 9:51 am

Kervin – If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Scheva miss his penalty in the Champions league final three years ago, and thus Liverpool were able to win it?

Posted from Japan

By dirk v.d berg | March 17th, 2008 at 8:46 pm

@Caleb, I think he was implying that Shevchenko was the hero for Liverpool, I could be wrong though.

Posted from Canada

By Bruce | March 17th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

I think Kervin was referring to Andriy’s goal against Juventus which won them the trophy in 2003, and not his miss against Liverpool a few years later…

Posted from Republic Of Korea

By Jan | March 17th, 2008 at 10:40 pm

Thanks Marc! Cool idea… De Guzman is a creative midfielder if I’m not mistaken. So, Seedorf, Persie, Sneijder, Vaart, Afellay and now also De Guzman… It’s a bit much…

Posted from Australia

By simon | March 18th, 2008 at 5:01 am

As I see it, De Guzman is a little bit different than those guys, he’s a bit more of a scorer and a bit less of a playmaker. Could be a useful sub in that way.

By bobby | March 18th, 2008 at 7:59 am

I do not think it is a good idea for Basten to choose De Guzman at this time. The Canadian made a little progress during the last two seasons. He will have his opportunity after this summer.

By goose | March 18th, 2008 at 10:08 am

DeGuzman is too ‘light’at the moment to play in Oranjes midfield…the player on his position for the future is Affelay (altough deGuzman is a better finisher)

deGuzman should go to the Olympics with Foppe…much more for him to learn

Posted from Netherlands

By Kervin | March 18th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Sorry, i was referring to his goal against juventus; against liverpool, the show certainly was the dancing Dudek show!!

De guzman can play for netherlands!! His brother plays for Canada isn’t it?? The deportivo player? Watched Drenthe play for real against depor, in the 1-0 lost. He was the best player for real… He is quite a talent this guy!

By Alexovic | April 13th, 2008 at 9:27 am

if youre looking for a strong defensive midfielder, your best options are Stijn Schaars and Demy de Zeeuw, both playing for AZ Alkmaar, although Schaars is just coming back from serious injury.
But there are a few others who i think have less potential:
Nigel de Jong(HSV), David Mendes da Silva(AZ Alkmaar) and possibly Orlando Engelaar from FC Twente(quite old,28 i believe)
Besides that we have some defensive midfield talents like Wout Brama(FC Twente), Geert-Arend Roorda(SC Heerenveen), and Kees Luijckx(was loaned to Excelsior Rotterdam by AZ Alkmaar)

Posted from Netherlands

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