Van Basten regrets criticism on Ruud (and line-ups)

After Saturday’s training session, Marco van Basten declared he was sorry that he criticized Van Nistelrooy during Thursday’s press conference. “I hadn’t had time for a personal chat with Ruud beforehand. It’s a lame excuse, I know, but we finished training and I went directly to the press afterwards. I should have talked to Ruud before I said anything about his performance. You can understand he heard about it 10 minutes later, and he was not amused to say the least.”

Van Basten decided to keep the starting line up a secret. “My players don’t know if they’ll play either. I’ll tell ‘m Sunday late. The ones that won’t play will hear it some minutes before the group session.”
Van Basten repeated that he isn’t happy with the lack of power up front. “We need more against Portugal. I am pleased with our defense. If you see that we didn’t give away a lot against our opponents in the Group of Death, you just have to be satisfied. That’s hopeful.”
Oranje only won 1 game against Portugal of nine matches. “That’s logical. We used to play offensive, they’d counter. We won’t do that this time around,” explained Van Basten, ,who only lost 1 match (friendly against Italy) out of 24 matches.

Both van Basten as Portugal coach Scolari expect to see a lot from the wingers.
In the last game between both nations, at the EC2004, Figo was named Man of the Match. His direct opponent was van Bronckhorst, who had a hard time stopping the Inter Milan player. And although van Basten was tightlipped, he did confirm that Gio van Bronckhorst will start the match today: “ Giovanni will play.”

Expected Line up Holland: Van der Sar; Heitinga, Ooijer, Mathijsen and Van Bronckhorst; Van der Vaart, Sneijder and Cocu; Van Persie, Kuijt and Robben.

Expected line-up Portugal: Ricardo; Miguelo, Meira, Carvalho and Valente; Costinha, Deco and Maniche; Figo, Pauleta and Ronaldo. (source: ANP)