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Van Basten wants to attack

March 22nd, 2007 | By: Jan | 7 Comments »

A year and half ago, Marco van Basten was responsible for a unique situation against Rumania. He used 8 players that were still elligible to play for Young Oranje.

Saturday, van Basten can again be held responsible for a unique feat if he allows his team to play like they did during the training session yesterday. He used 6 offensive thinking players (Vaart, Seedorf, Sneijder, Babel, Huntelaar, De Zeeuw) vs 4 defensive thinking players.

One doesn’t see this type of ratio often in international football. Louis van Gaal at AZ Alkmaar is one of the exeptions to the rule. In top football, fear and security reign, but Van Basten already let slip to the press that he highly enjoyed AZ’s demonstration last week against Newcastle.
But, the eleven names with the orange tricots are not necessarely the ones that will start against the next opponent. Bassie and Schippie still have time to finetune the squad, but the intentions are clear, to say the least.

Robben and Heitinga trained seperately from the group, with small injuries. Normally, Robben would be the man on the left flank.
Heitinga has his eye on three positions, central defender, right back or strongholder in midfield.

Still, it seems that Demy De Zeeuw has the best chance to play on that latter position. The AZ player had a small one-on-one with van Basten right after the training.
Since the WC2006, van Basten is desperately looking for a player that can play that position with physical strength and technical skills. He would prefer Frank Rijkaard on that position, but that is wishful thinking, of course.

Op die laatste positie maakt Demy de Zeeuw de beste kans om te spelen. Het kan in de Kuip zijn interlanddebuut worden. Na de training nam Van Basten de frisse jongeling van AZ gisteren even apart voor overleg.

The team manager tried it with Maduro, Stijn Schaars, Nigel de Jong and Evander Sno (at the training sessions) but it seems De Zeeuw is the one with the best papers for the job.

Just in front of De Zeeuw we’ll see Sneijder, van der Vaart and/or Seeforf. One of the two would have to play the open right flank, which is remarkable if Seedorf turns out to be the one, since he always openly expressed his hatred for that role.

He even told Dick Advocaat during the EC2004 that he would refuse to play on that position.

Dirk Kuyt hurried back to the dressing room, after the training. Normally, he’d enjoy another 30 minutes of goal scoring, but Kuyt decided against it.

For the Liverpool striker, the decision to let Huntelaar wear the no. 9 shirt must be extremely disappointing. The former Feyenoord star has always expressed his ambition to become the new center striker for Oranje, but if Van Basten ignores him now, his conclusion will be that the former “best-striker-in-the-world” doesn’t think Kuyt has it…

Tags: Clarence Seedorf, marco van basten, The Netherlands

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Comments

By Misha | March 22nd, 2007 at 1:40 am

Yes I am excited about seeing Oranje uniforms on the pitch again! BUT, I will say in advance, that this game is even more meaningless than most of the qualifiers we play. Why? 2 reasons, the first is were playing Romania, and, as someone pointed out, their top striker is out with injury. As far as i can tell, the only thing dangerous about playing Romania is dealing with their drunken hooligan supporters, which predominantly lean to the far right.
The second reason is that injury to Van Persie means that the line-up we use against Romania is not likely to ever be repeated against serious competition. Everything about this formation will have to be adjusted once Van Persie is available. Even Van Basten realizes that he is our most important player and when he is on the pitch, the game revolves around him (or should revolve around him). @Jan, De Boer, or for me, Jap Stam are great examples of players that could dominate and initiate play from the back, but I would like to see the defense stay at home! Gio runs up as far as the opposing box, scaring the hell out of me, and leaving holes for counter, if all our defenders play like that we will pay the price. As far as I can see defenders only need to provide balls to the mid-field, then they should stay and defend. Let the mid field do their job and provide the wingers. And don’t give the ball to Seedorf we already have problems with Robben holding the ball way too long, now there are two of them. It’s a no win situation, if we win, so what? And if we don’t, well then the sh*t will fly in all directions. Van Bastens job must really suck but he really does make it harder on himself by being an idiot. Van Bommel is far more important to this team than Seedorf; but everyone has their own opinion. The fact is the team does not look good. Until it does, there will be nowhere for Van Basten to hide.

By Jan | March 22nd, 2007 at 4:42 am

In my view, the success of Dutch football started with the class at the back. Arie Haan in 74 and 78 was a midfielder, turned libero. Ronald Koeman, Danny Blind…former midfielders… Frank de Boer, former left winger! Rijkaard, former midfielder. These guys commanded the ball and were very secure in one-on-one situations. The rest of the pack in defense were “simple” defenders. Van Aerle, van Tiggelen, Bogarde, Stam…it was all business, no play for these chaps. Today, our center defenders are mediocre football players (Matijsen. Heijtinga, Boula) and our full backs are mediocre defenders. We miss that mix of class and ruthlessness. Our central defenders don’t feel happy on midfield and stay at the back, even if the opponent play 1 or 2 strikers. That’s where the disbalance comes in. I agree with the van Bommel remark. His mentality and tenacious running adds a lot to the team. Both Seedorf and Landzaat are to static in my view.

Posted from Australia

By Jan | March 22nd, 2007 at 4:45 am

I should add that Johan Cruyff was the man who “advised” Michels to put midfielder Haan at the back, with Jongbloed on goal, as playing goalkeeper. JC understood that to play total-football Iron Rinus (no matter how good he was!) was too static and didn’t add any football to the team…

Posted from Australia

By Igor | March 22nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm

Thanks for the interview translation, Jan. sorry it wasn’t more interesting eventhough the questions asked weren’t bad but marco side-stepped most of the uncomfortable issues. does anyone in north america know what channel might be showing the game on saturday? i think i’ve found almost a channel covering almost every other euro qualifier except oranje’s game.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | March 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 pm

No worries Igor. You couldn’t have known that. And it gives us something to complain about. It makes you wonder, does he hold his cards close to his chest, or is he very shallow in the way he picks and selects players…

Posted from Australia

By Misha | March 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 am

Ok, I agree with your point. There is a lack of something in defense. But the mid field is inconsistent and are things settled up front? It seems that nothing with this team is in good enough form to leave alone and move on. We have to address allot of issues and perhaps the defense is the most critical but i really find it difficult to say that this is the main problem. Is the team really any better than in wc06? Again I can’t really tell. Maybe things will be more apparent after the game with Romania, but I don’t see how anything short of total domination will prove anything. Hope I am wrong and the team is far better than they were. Hup Holland.

By goose | March 23rd, 2007 at 8:07 am

The interview shows vanBasten is an opportunist..he makes the rules as he goes along…dont care what he says..vanBommel and vanNistelrooy should play in Oranje and he f3cked it up..

read today in the paper that vanderSar told the press that he expect certain players in Oranje to step up their game and have a greater impact in Oranje..vanderVaart told the press he felt vanderSar meant him and that vanderSar was rigth..vanderVaart told the paper that he was going to try to have the same impact as he has with HSV, he not the little talented boy anymore..hope will see some of that tomorrow

guess we have to agree that everywhere we could or should be stronger but i my opinion things always start at the back..im really worried that Boula and Mathijssen both have terrible seasons, vanbronckhorst isnt playing at all..and in a year or so we need a new goalie wich is gonna make a great difference.

very eager to finally see them play again, its been a very long wait my Oranje friends lets see what they will show us

btw. read that Chivu is not playing

grtz

Posted from Netherlands