The AD readers - and maybe you too - have chosen their definitive team. Edwin van der Sar was the no-brainer on goal. As right full back they wised up and picked champion Sergio Ramos
Portugal’s Pepe and Spain’s Puyol guard the center while Russian Zhirkov beat Gio by a few votes.
Brazilian Spaniard Marcos Senna impressed [...]

It sounds as a cliche already, but it is true. The beautiful game of football won! Spain deserves every gram of this cup. And Germany should be happy too. With a bit more finesse in the box, Spain coould have won this match 5-0. Easily.
The Spanish side has shown tremendous consistency and quality throughout the [...]

Tonight is the EC final. Germany vs Spain.
Too bad Holland isn’t it. I do hope Spain defeats the Germans and that Spain plays otherworldly football. It would be good for football in general and the Germans would probably hate it. Which is good.
Michael Ballack is rumored to be injured and won’t be able to play. [...]

On the KNVB site - still no English version!! - a list of Top 11 items are published with regards to Oranje and this EC. I added my own choices: the worst Oranje moment, the funniest Oranje moment, the best analyst moment
11. Crazy about Oranje
Holland loved Oranje again. It took four years. The Dutch fans [...]

Maroon 5 dedicated a song to this blog, called…eh… “This Blog”.
It goes: “this blog has taken it’s toll on me, but you said goodbye, so many times before…”
During tournaments, we sometimes hit 100+ comments or more, while during the off-season for national teams, sometimes only Goose comments
This is your chance! I’d like to [...]

Subtle passes, beautiful goals and tough challenges. This is the Best of the EC team, according to newspaper AD. Apparently, the final doesn’t need to be played anymore.
The goal keeper is Edwin van der Sar. Our Edwin. We won’t debate it. He helped us reach the quarters with some spectacular saves. Sar even got us [...]

I couldn’t get myself to write the daily “what have we learned” posts, because what we basically learned was how to play football, thanks to the Russians. I was not that interested anymore.
But, I did see the semis of course and my quick analysis is here:
Germany - Turkey
I said it before, the German defense looked [...]

A bright future for Sylvie and Rafael…
Okay, so we checked out our technical staff and our keeper-potential.
I am pretty confident there… I mean, Martin Jol or Co Adriaanse may have been better team managers, but how can you know, really… Co and Louis van Gaal have a similar working method and Louis certainly failed (I [...]

Our captain has retired. Edwin van der Sar… Won two Champion League Cups with Ajax and Man United. Several titles. Played for Ajax, Juventus, Fulham, Man United and Oranje, of course.
Definitely the Man of the Tournament for Oranje (which normally means bad news, if your goalie is the best man…).
Never won a cup or a [...]

The team manager is gone, long live the new one!
Let’s have a look at our crystal ball again…
The coaching staff
Bert van Marwijk (ex-Fortuna Sittard, ex-Feyenoord, ex-Borussia Dortmund, ex-Feyenoord again) will be assisted by Cocky Voorn, Frank de Boer and Phillip Cocu. The latter will be assisting as an apprentice (Cocu is still “studying” for his [...]