van Basten explains…

Marco van Basten has explained some of his choices after picking his 23 man squad.

He was sympathetic towards Huntelaar and he realizes that he might end up looking foolish for not picking him if Huntelaar goes on to score a boat-load for the U-21s:

“He (Huntelaar) has bad luck with us as technical staff. We just select players in this way. I have said this from the start…He is a cheerful, funny, balanced guy who did well during the training camp,” said Van Basten. “But four strikers is too much and that is his bad luck. But he can focus now on playing the EC in Portugal with Jong Oranje and he can show us there that we did not do the right thing.”

He also realized that Opdam and Boateng were very disappointed, especially Opdam having played a large role in the qualifying.

“I called Barry to tell him the news…but in our opinion he has not done too well in the last months and (Ajax defender) John Heitinga was doing better and better in that same period.”
“George [Boateng] played a good season but Wesley Sneijder made a good impression on us and we decided to select him instead.”

van Basten also said that he didn’t like that Jan Kromkamp has had such a mediocre season but his performances with the Dutch were enough to make up for that.