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Weekend Action, pt 2

September 14th, 2009 | By: Jan | 21 Comments »

My main man Goose took care of the stats of this weekend in Holland, thanks for that…

It seems Feyenoord still plays a bit unstable, mixing up great football with sloppy and hasty phases. Tomasson scored a wonder second goal but De Guzman demonstrated his Beckham kicking technique with the winning goal against Willem II. I read more and more positive comments by even Ajax and PSV supporters on the group of youngsters Mario Been fields, in favour of old hands Makaay, Hofland, De Cler and Landzaat.

Ajax really destroyed NAC, 6-0. Dario Cvitanich scored a hattrick, while Ishmael Aissati demonstrated his skill as playmaker. NAC came to Amsterdam to counter-attack, but Cvita scored an early one on a Kennedy cross in the eighth minute. Ten minutes later, Vertonghen scored the second from a set piece. It was interesting to see how Ajax’s center backs were pivotal in creating opportunities for Ajax, with precide long balls. Suarez and Kennedy were the other goal scorers for the elated Martin Jol.

AZ lost against ADO this weekend but goalscorer El Hamdaoui is declared fit for AZ’s first CL game ever, against Panathinaikos.

Van Gaal was under the gun in Munich, in particular when Ribery criticized the coach for being cold and insensitive. Bayern played Dortmund this weekend and won 5-1, with a true football show. This picture says it all. A euphoric Ribery jumps into the open arms of his cold and detached coach .

As I wrote in comment earlier, Sneijder looked alive for Inter, having a number of shots on target but it seems the Interisti don’t really know how to use the big little man as yet. I see them running with the ball till the cows come home and they’ll need to learn to play it of to the Dutch midfielder. Not highly impressed.

In a couple of days it’s Barca – Inter. Eto’o vs. Zlatan. Jose M against Pep G. Iniesta vs Sneijder… Intriguing…

Tags: Ajax, Been, Feyenoord, Group C, Guzman, Iniesta, Inter, Jol, Oranje, Ribery, Sneijder, van Gaal

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Comments

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 4:34 am

Its sad this energetic skilled player is out and babel and afaleey are still in orange………that’s why we loose in big stages.Heavy injustice to these players..BVM should learn from Mariobeen isnt it?

Posted from India

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 4:38 am

Messi played at the age of 16
Henry-19
Kluivert-17 babel-19,Owen-17WC1998and so many.and finally pele won the WC for Brazil when he was 17 year old.so why not Deguzman,Castaginos,Fer,Vlaar etc.At least we should see how good they are at big orange.we are just ignoring them with a word “inexperience”.this is cruel and not a good idea.

Posted from India

By Jeroen | September 14th, 2009 at 5:11 am

You’ve mentioned some players that are exceptions to the rule. And I would not call Kluivert a success story…where are the last 6 years of his career? Van Nistelrooy I would say has had a more successful career than Kluivert and he didn’t really hit the big scene till he was 23. They were both born on the same day.

Babel is also an example of what happens when a talented young player goes to the big stage too quickly. Experience is very important at major tournaments; remember portugal 06, we couldn’t keep our heads together. Too many young, testosterone driven 20 year olds in the team.

Plus, the players you mentioned I would not currently put in the starting lineup. Not just because of inexperience, but also because I just think, for example, that de Jong and van Bommel are our best holding midfielders right now. Perhaps de Zeeuw or Schaars could be displaced as sub, but that’s about as far as I see it going.

There is too much inclination these days to hail the “next greatest player of the world”, when they’re 18. 90% of these cases, the players become flops because they let it get to their head.

I would say, let them focus on getting Feyenoord to the top of the Eredivisie first, then we can see how they develop from there. No doubt they all have a lot of potential, but I would like to see that developed a bit first. We’ve worked very hard molding players like Robben, VP, Kuyt, etc for the last 8 years into a good team. Why would we toss that all away to try new youngsters which we would have to mold AGAIN. It’s basically discarding all our efforts over the last decade to renew our squad after the loss of the 1998 players.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jeroen | September 14th, 2009 at 5:12 am

Owen has also had a failed career in my eyes. He’s not even in the England squad now. That leaves Pele, Messi, and Henry; all legends in their own right. Not the norm at all.

Posted from Netherlands

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 5:47 am

@jeroan Some guys are teachable some guys are not.such guys will fail.We dont have to drop Roban,VP or kuyt for formentioned players…we have got 23 spots for our Wc team.
We have to look into their games how desaaw perfomes how Fer perfomes and how ooiger perfomes and how vlaar perfomes accroding to their performance and by keeping the balence of the team in mind,they should be called up.if ooiger perfomes better,sure he should get the call if vlaar performea well he should get the call.

Posted from India

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 5:48 am

so the mechanism is very simple……….

Posted from India

By Michel-Olivier | September 14th, 2009 at 5:51 am

messi is not a legend in the international stage, he flop like giggs when playing for argentina senior team. castaignos is not ready for orange.

Posted from United States

By Abhirup | September 14th, 2009 at 6:06 am

Come on Tiju…
Casta is too young…Fer and De guzman,though,deserve a call-up

Posted from India

By Jeroen | September 14th, 2009 at 6:18 am

I am not against Ron Vlaar getting into the national team to replace Ooijer. Obviously, he needs replacement by someone younger. I am just against displacing de Jong and van Bommel and any other established, doing well players.

Ooijer could also be replaced by Maduro or Loovens. The advantage of Maduro is that he has quite some experience with Oranje under van Basten.

With the exception of Ooijer and maybe Gio (whose replacement we have on the bench), I don’t think the starting line-up should be touched in any case. As for the subs, I wouldn’t mind competition for de Zeeuw, and others for their sub spots. Some of the subs I don’t think are the best we could do.

Posted from Netherlands

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 6:32 am

@abhirup…As a football striker ur ultimate duty is to score goals.Goals doesn’t know our age.Goal post of the Aregintina in Wc1998 was not knowing the age of owen,……Owen may be a flop now…but he played extreamly well for england in 1998Wc at 17,much better than so called super senior stars.So what else we need….In diifence and goalkeeping you need experience to clam things,but with out any doubt we can experiment in creative postions if the lad has more trickery skills than the seniors.Now Elia is proving that……….what else we need.

Posted from India

By Tiju | September 14th, 2009 at 6:34 am

@MO
Messi is flop beacuse of maradona,hope arjentina will sack him and they find a new peckerman and dont forget how they played in 2006WC.i beleive with Requleme,and mascherano ,Messi will form a dangerous combo……..Mark my words

Posted from India

By Mohamed | September 14th, 2009 at 7:04 am

Well , nice discussion between tiju and jeroen
i agree with both of you

i agree tiju that de guzman and vlaar are fit for the senior team now ,actually de guzman in the moment is better than sneijder and vaart ( in my opinion ) , and with no doubt he is better than babel and afellay
vlaar is better than ooijer and heitinga , so they must be selected by BVM

and i agree with jeroen (great post actually jereon about waiting for players to grow , as ( fer , wijnaldum , castignos , barazite , janmat )
they will be great players but we have to wait and give them their time , not to put them into a great stress that they won’t be able to do anything with it , and so they will be destroyed before they even start !!

By sonneveld | September 14th, 2009 at 7:13 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go8puo3X4MQ

de guzmans nice free kick. i would not compare de guzman to sneijder yet.
sneijder is still the man for me

against scotland
-kuyts penalty appeal was from sneijder
-kuyts post was from a sneijder backheel
-robbens cut back right foot glorious chance was you guessed it from sneijder

By Jan | September 14th, 2009 at 8:46 am

Let’s not get too excited .

I’ve said it before, but you don’t have to accept it…

Playing in the Eredivisie is not the same as playing EPL or La Liga or Oranje-level football!!!

De Guzman is not better than Sneijder . Impossible.

De Guzman is not the man who wins games for Feyenoord nor does he take Feyenoord by the hand. The main men in Rotterdam for now are Leroy Fer and Jon Dahl Tomasson. Maybe Vlaar…

De Guzman did score the winner – and a beauty it was – but he is not Oranje material yet. He has Afellay in front of him. Give De Guzman some time to really settle and impress for a season or so.

Don’t forget that Van Basten tested many young players in Oranje (Maduro, Babel, Castelen, Vlaar) and most never made it.

It’s not smart to push youngster at that level when it’s not needed. Van Marwijk will probably feel that Aissati, De Guzman, Emanuelson and you name ‘m aren’t needed yet.

The only two players who are question marks are Ooijer and Gio. For Ooijer, Vlaar and Loovens are coming up, for Gio Braafheid is the current stand in.

The others will need to wait.

Casta hasn’t even played for Feyenoord 1 yet.

I repeat: the level of Oranje is two levels up from the Eredivisie!

By Sol | September 14th, 2009 at 9:20 am

-Inter’s first goal started with Sneijder-Balotelli-Eto’o

Posted from Netherlands

By Jeff | September 14th, 2009 at 10:10 am

I totally agree with Jan and Jeroen. I know we always want to see new faces -and after all, we should not forget that some of our current players (VP, Robben, Heitinga, Wes) were given their chance on the national team when they were very young- but at the moment the new faces should be limited to players who bring something special to the team that is currently missing (Elia is but de Guzman??? much less obvious). So I agree with waiting it out this season. It is clear that the future for Fer, de Guzman, and a few others is very bright but everything is relative (as Jan said) and the eredivisie is not exactly the Prem or la Liga.
What about Urby finally being called up as LB? This is what Jol wants for him and I think he is right on. Urby should focus on that position and make it his. Even if Gio plays in the WC (no doubt unfortunately) he will surely retire after, so there is place for someone and if Braafheid is not the guy then Urby could take it. He has been very very impressive the last 2 matches with Ajax as LB. I love his technique (absolutely superb) and the fact he is extremely dangerous when going forward. He is also quite fast certainly a step up from Gio in this position. With VDW and Urby we would finally have modern backs like in the days of Reiziger and Numan.

Posted from United States

By Abhirup | September 14th, 2009 at 11:21 am

According to goal.com,Urby has expressed his desire to return to the national team.He feels he can be the left-back of the team in SAF and he is ready for the challenge.He feels he can compete against the likes of Braafheid and Gio for the left-back position of Oranje.

Posted from India

By Michel-Olivier | September 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

“the level of Oranje is two levels up from the Eredivisie”
van der wiel, afellay, stekelenburg, and de zeeuw made it.

Posted from United States

By Jan | September 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm

Sure they did… But remember, the right back position in Oranje has been a problem for a while, Afellay is a sub, Stekelenburg is only the goalie because Sar retired and De Zeeuw is not a starter and also questioned on this blog.

And in the past Robben, Van Persie, Sneijder etc made their debuts when they were younger, but so did a lot of the other names I mentioned. Being a good football player in the Eredivisie is simply not enough!

It takes the skill to adapt to a higher pace, more intensity.

Players like Bouma and Henk Fraser (to name two) had trouble making the step up mentally. If you do it too early, you can get a player in trouble (media attention, expectations, etc) so why take the risk with players like De Guzman and Cagna when it’s not necessary yet.

It’s funny how people who say “when you’re good enough, you’re old enough” and try to talk youngsters into Oranje, are the same ones who say Ooijer and Gio are too old. Being too old should also be irrelevant. It’s not about age, but about performance.

By Tjeerd | September 14th, 2009 at 5:49 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHNVoqDAbcw&feature=player_profilepage

You have to love Tomassons “wonder” goal as Jan put it.

How nice it would be if Jonathon would change his mind and join his brother Julian De Guzman and play for Canada, I understand its not too late.

Jan called it another sloppy (slordig) win, he is right.
But a win is a win is a win. I will take it anytime, especially on the road.

By Michel-Olivier | September 14th, 2009 at 6:34 pm

@jan
i agree

Posted from United States

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