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Two out of three ain’t bad…

February 19th, 2009 | By: Jan | 53 Comments »

The ol’ Meatloaf knew a thing or two about football…

NEC tried to upset title candidate HSV Hamburg in Nijmegen, but just a little extra push on the pedal in the first half made sure Jol’s men humiliated Been’s boys, 0-3.

NEC tried hard, did what they could (etc etc) but HSV was one size too big for the mavericks from Nijmegen. Obviously, anything can still happen but hope is basically delayed disappointment, in’it?

Still, NEC did well in Europe this year and Been’s another example of a young, ballsy Dutch coach able to reach far with mediocre material and a good football vision. It’s not a disgrace to be outplayed by HSV Hamburg.

Kennedy celebrating his goal…

Ajax won their away game against Fiorentina in an Italian manner. Ban Baasten was back in his beloved Italy and showed the world that he learned a thing or two about catenaccio. With a whole midfield missing and new libero Robbie Wielaert at home, Van Basten built in “security”, as coaches say. Oleguer – not the best build up man but a focused marker – played again and so did written-off Kennedy Bakircioglu. The Swede played an uninspired game with Ajax 2 last week, after having been told – again – that he could leave. But, Van Basten needed the consistent dribbler again and he paid the confidence back with a vengeance. He was invisible for 60 minutes until he hit the ball from 20 meters in the goal, via the cross bar. Seconds long, Kennedy couldn’t believe what happened and wasn’t sure what to do next. He decided to go of his rocker a bit and started to run Tardelli-like towards his coach.

Yesterday, Ajax won in Italy for the first time in 14 years!

It never was a great game, but the fourth ranked Italian team was quite clear in their intentions from the first minute onwards. Fiorentina’s coach Prandelli spoke highly of Ajax before the match, but wouldn’t have lost any sleep for this game. Fiorentina was the boss on the pitch, but the Italians forgot to score.

Suarez, Sulejmani…they were all extras in this performance. Ajax was no match for the renaissance club from Florence.

Kennedy’s goal paralyzed the Italians and thanks to Stekelenburg and Lady Luck, nothing changed in the score line anymore.

Marco van Basten: “We were clearly prepared to work hard for the team and put the result first. In Europe, you can’t always focus on good football. We weren’t in top shape but we played it very well and focused. I’m proud. They were dangerous in the turn around, but I do think we played some good football as well.”

FC Twente surprised Europe last year with impressive results against Schalke 04, Stade Rennes and Santander. The clockwork Twente suffered a bit the last months in Holland, but against Olympique Marseille (6 times Twente’s budget??), McClaren’s lads found their mojo again. The former England coach had to improvise a bit due to some missing players, but his gambles worked out well. Theo Janssen was kept on the bench, in favour of holding midfielder Tiote, who played a tremendous game. Him and hardworking Brama enabled Danish playmaker Ken Perez to excel and his through passes resulted in lots of danger for Marseille. Austrian striker Arnautovic was able to convert one chance into a goal in the first half and N’Kufo hit the post in the second half, 0-1. A good win by Twente and it seems the Tukkers should be able to kill the beast in the second leg.

Twente put some pride back into Dutch football, beating the team that humiliated PSV earlier in the CL with 3-0.

McClaren without umbrella!!

Steve McClaren: “This was one of the best games we ever played. A great night for Twente. I’m proud of the team. We do seem to have a good position for next week, but that’s all it is. The media are trying to put us in the favorite spot, which is fine. But the players will need to be able to handle that. That’s totally new type of pressure. But whatever happens, we will try to offer our fans one great European night at our own grounds….”

Tags: Been, Group C, Holland, Jol, Kennedy, McClaren, Oranje, Perez, UEFA, Van Basten

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 53 comments.

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By ClockworkOrange | February 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Just found this article (in Dutch) on Voetbalzone in which RvN says that he would seriously consider rejoining Oranje if BvM asked him to!

Check it out:
http://www.voetbalzone.nl/doc.asp?uid=73852

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | February 20th, 2009 at 7:32 pm

next season hunter and horsey face will battle for the forward position for both orange and madrid.
who will win?
ruud

Posted from United States

By Jeroen | February 20th, 2009 at 9:22 pm

Just to clarify that I am not against foreigners playing for our team, but like Finnster said, they should have taken the time to learn the language and culture. I have also noticed that most do not sing for the anthem heartedly, but the ones I noticed did are van der Sar and Kuyt. I am not one for anthem-singing, but there is nothing more beautiful than the anthem being rung through a stadium of 50,000 people. For me, it’s not about loyalty to the country (not so much for the nationalism and such…) but rather just a way of supporting the team. For the purpose of football stadiums, it just seems some anthems work better than others. I think the Dutch one works pretty well…the French one usually does not haha.

Posted from Netherlands

By tiju | February 20th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

huraaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
RVN,RVN,RVN,RVN,RVN I am glad in two ways
1)RVN will comeback
2)Kuyt will never get a chance as central striker so we have chance

Posted from India

By tiju | February 21st, 2009 at 12:42 am

i just said we need a diffender like duglas in our national team.is tall,strong,courageous leader in the back
worldcups and euro won by courageous leaders like kaiser,mathias,cannavaro etc not by cowards,
here i am list some of the orange player who do not have courageous mind in my humble and stupid observation
1)Heitinga
2 mathjenson
3 ooiger
4 giovani
5 robin vanpersie(even though he is one of my favorite player))
6 Arjen roban (even though he is my favorite player)
7.Rafel vander vaart
8.hero edwin vandersar(not at all charismatic)(i like him but fact is fact)
9.Ruud van goal-great player but no courage wat to do its our unluck.
10.tim de cler-why he is getting place in the team?
and true courageous leaders
1)stijn schaars
2)Znijder
3)stekelenburg
4)bulahruz
5)dirk kuyt and
6)finally mad boy van bommel

but we can avoid creative players coz creativity is irrespective of courage,so we can ingnore,roban,RVP,RVN etc
so van marwijk should build the winning mentality of the players

Posted from India

By goose | February 21st, 2009 at 5:45 am

some info on our national anthem ;

its the oldest tune used as a national anthem in the world, the tune is from the 15 th C… Het Wilhelmus has been our national anthem since 1932, before that it was ‘wien nederlands bloed’( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ed_41T-07U )

national anthem at the EC08 v Italy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZMn4_c7-H8

Posted from Netherlands

By Lerkot | February 21st, 2009 at 7:09 am

Well, I understand the fellas who doesnt sing as well. If you are extremely focused, you might forget the singing and its hard to blame the player when that happens. Also, if you have a really bad anthem its okey as well

By finnster01 | February 21st, 2009 at 7:48 am

Well the Spaniards doesn’t have that problem as the anthem has no words…

By Alex | February 21st, 2009 at 12:36 pm

If i were on the pitch i’d probably be too nervous to open my mouth to say anything and i would probably feel like puking if i did. Italians have a lot of older, experienced players, I feel that can be a big reason for why they sing along more.
BTW V.d.Wiel did pretty good, but shutting Mutu down isn’t really his accomplishment, Mutu started to wander of after a while and only encountered V.d.Wiel a few times after that.
I do feel that we need a tall player (like Douglas )in our selection instead of Ooijer, only problem is that Vlaar is still injured, Loovens doesn’t get that much playing time, Luirink just making his return, Donk, Pieters, Luijckx, Kruiswijk not convincing enough, Maduro doesn’t really feel comfortable there(yet?). And I don’t think Jeffrey Bruma would be wise at only 17.

Posted from Netherlands

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | February 21st, 2009 at 2:32 pm

madrid 3(higuain 1, hunter 2) – betis 2

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | February 21st, 2009 at 2:33 pm

actually it’s 3-1

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | February 21st, 2009 at 2:35 pm

heerenveen 3 – willem 1
beerens among the scores

Posted from United States

By goose | February 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm

totally off topic;

famous, very funny incident in dutch football from some years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPqfElt4jg4

good to see Huntelaar scoring again

Posted from Netherlands

By dirk v.d.Berg | February 21st, 2009 at 3:00 pm

6-1 for Real Madrid at half. 2 Goals for Huntelaar. Looks like Ramos has found some luck with his 3 striker system, and without Robben, hopefully they can squeeze Robben in without wrecking the system.

Posted from Canada

By dirk v.d.Berg | February 21st, 2009 at 3:02 pm

Formation looks like

———–Casillas————-
Ramos—-Pepe—-Cannavaro—-Heinze
——–Gago—-Diarra——–
Higuain——————–Marcelo
——–Raul—Huntelaar

Looks like they could probably replace Marcelo with Robben, even though Robben’s been playing his best on the right.

Posted from Canada

By sonneveld | February 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm

wow an amazing performance by madrid, one without robben, sneijder, van der vaart, drenthe and van gool

By sonneveld | February 21st, 2009 at 3:09 pm

sneijder is on, is van der vaart still suspended?

By sonneveld | February 21st, 2009 at 3:11 pm

barcelona has keita sent off and they are tied 0-0 at half time

By dirk v.d.Berg | February 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm

Apparently adding Robben and Sneijder diminshed Real Madrid’s attacking power. 6 goals without them, 0 with them.

Posted from Canada

By ian | February 21st, 2009 at 7:52 pm

not really dirk, when you are winning six nill you usually just pass the ball around, highlights http://www.footytube.com/

By ian | February 21st, 2009 at 7:53 pm

http://www.footytube.com/2009/02/21/real-madrid-vs-real-betis/

By Caleb | February 21st, 2009 at 8:12 pm

Yeah, Ian is right. They really took their feet off the pedal (although they did almost score a few more – Huntelaar smacked one against the post, denying him his hat-trick). Really was a great performance by Real Madrid and Huntelaar is looking great already.

@Ferenc – you must be feeling sick with Barcelona really losing it in recent weeks and Real catching on fire!

Unfortunately my other team, Arsenal, is not doing nearly so well… their mid-week game in the FA Cup was great with Eduardo coming back and looking very hungry for goals, but their performance this week was not so great. RVP almost scored a couple, but “almost” doesn’t cut it and Arsenal got another goalless draw

By Mario | February 22nd, 2009 at 3:28 am

Well Madrid won and it´s true they played great without Dutchies but Sneijder has sealed many points for Madrid as Robben has done too. It´s easy to shine and play great when you have an opponent without courage and spirit but the great players shine in great and tough games…Robben and Sneijder obviusly have shown many times their value for Holland and Madrid winning games for the national team and Real Madrid. About Ruud, well he will be out till August so let´s better not talk about his absence because he is an idol already at Madrid and now it´s Huntelaar turn to show his great quality, his two goals today will give him even more confidence and I´m sure he will start scoring on a regular basis. The guys that worry me the most are van der Vaart and Drenthe because Madrid has many options in their positions and when thet had had the chance to play they have not done it very well. Van der Vaart started very strong but his level has decreased considerably and Drenthe needs to start forgetting about the people screaming at him because in Madrid they are very demanding and if a player doesn´t perform well the fans there use to discharge their anger to the players that are doing ok. I´m sure Robben, Sneijder and Huntelaar will make it big this 2009 with Madrid and then let´s see what happens with Ruud but I´m not sure what will happen to Drenthe and van der Vaart and I think they can leave the club this season because 6 Dutch players in the biggest club in Spain and the world is too much and of course not all of them will start the games because Juande Ramos will be judged badly by not offering to the Spanish guys the chance to shine and van Marwijk wants all of them to be in pick form so it is understandable that some of them will move to another club next season.

By Mario | February 22nd, 2009 at 3:31 am

the fans there use to discharge their anger to the players that are NOT doing ok…that´s what I meant.

By ferenc | February 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 am

@Caleb: i’m angry because of the referee last night. think real bought him. really hope that this bastard team will be eliminated by liverpool. sorry guys but i won’t write too much about this topic in the future (i don’t want to hurt anyone). first i’m 100% for barca,really hate real and all the dutch players playing for this team except rvn who had no other choice. dutch footballers should never play for them. real madrid for me is like inter or bayern munchen. even worse with their franco-fascist background, their maffia moneys,the way they influence the refereeing in spain etc. anyway barca’s players are more skilled than them. now we had 2 bad games and that’s it. betis has always been our “bete noir”,espanol was very lucky.
@Mario: i’m agree with you on drenthe and vdv. not that sure on huntelaar. 2 or 3 dutch guys would be enough for madrid.

Posted from Hungary