First reactions from the Dutch camp

good bye 4-2-3-1 formation, bert will bring back the 4-3-3 system.

Posted from  United States

i’m happy for the Turks but so sad for Van der Sar

Well done Holland, to lose against the Russians and let them have the ball during the whole game. Holland never could attack because they played without any passion and the Russins had bigger balls than us and thay is why they deserved this win althought they are not better than the Dutch they were the team that wanted to win more and more and they achieved that…Hiddink, will you some day have the balls to go back to Holland to make us champions?. Your jobs of having nothing to lose are easy ones because you will never be champion with Australia, Russia, Korea or Singapur…but will you try to win gold for your country some day soon, or you are just after the money?-

Anyway, what a awful performance I just saw Nigel de Jong, Engelaar and van der Sar playing a good game, all the other players were below par it seemed they rested a lot after beating Italy and France because in the extra time we were out of gas and it was a matter of time for Russia to score. A big failure by the Dutch.

Some time ago I posted that I didn’t want to see us play Guus. Sweden would be my choice. In retrospect, I could say I told you so.

Doesn’t matter, the facts remain:
1) Oranje got outcoached
2) Oranje got outplayed
3) Oranje didn’t want it
4) Oranje was not mentally prepared for the fight
5) And last but not least, players played crap.

I am tired of this. Happens all the time. Why can’t we win when it counts?

I actually though Ruud van Nistelrooy played pretty good too. Or good, good… That’s not the word, really. Acceptable.

Another way to put it, last time Oranje won something it was 1988. That is 20 years ago.

20 years from now, I will be 74 yours old. That is if I am still around, and after watching stuff like this not sure if I would take that bet. I would very much like to see Holland joist a cup before I go, but I actually do not like the odds, and I bet a lot.

Holland needs to fundamentally change things and get hungry the German & Italian way. I don’t think it is the football style as much as it is the lack of want to really close out the deal. We need some mental training more than anything else. Todays Oranje is soft, we do indeed need some old school hard bastards to appear on the field. Edgar Davids, Seedorf, Neeskens, Rijkards of this worls have disappeared. In stead we have glass leges Van Persie, Robben and pensioners such as OOjier and useless Mathijesen? And now we don’t even have a goalkeeper. When is this going to end?

does anyone else see the slight irony in the fact that Guus Hiddink was the man who initially gave Van Der Saar his first intl cap, and 14 years later the man to end his international career?

Posted from  United States

Finnster…you are right! Netherlands have to work mentally because the talent is there… I meand, does Russia have the talent we have?. No.

But they were much more agressive than us and we just gave the ball away specting to play the counterattack. That was a huge mistake because this Russian team is fast and know how to play with the ball. I am glad van Basten´s gone because with him we never looked as a Oranje Machine except the games against Italy and France.

I think van Warwijk has to call up again players like Kromkamp and van Bommel and stick with a solid group. Van Basten never had a regular line up, he had some nice ideas but at the end his period was a failure.

I’m gutted it. We bottled it. Big Sigh.

Posted from  Australia

Kromkamp?

OMG

PSV supporter perhaps?

Please no. Kromkamp should not be in the picture, I hope he never will be again.

The only capable rightback I can come up with atm is Zuiverloon. Has had 2 excellent seasons, both at jong Oranje and at Heerenveen, he deserves a selection. Other than that, Bouhlarouz and the others shouldn’t be ruled out all of a sudden just because we failed this one game.

Posted from  Netherlands

to me the dutch still looked gutted from the whole bouhlarouz tragedy. it brought them to the ground, hard, and they struggled the whole game to find the joy of playing again. and i don’t blame them. football is a game, after all. real life has nothing to do with it.

and hats off to the russians. they played really well, all match, and deserved to go through.

In my view Holland had the best team in the Euro. And I expected Russia would lose but somehow you guys were not that fast as in the group plays and our team vice versa got stronger. We won and I am absolutely happy, but same time I will miss your 3-0 and 4-1 games at the beginning.

Posted from  Russian Federation

I am happy that Russia won. But I am sad that it had to be over the Netherlands. I very much like the way your team plays attacking and beautiful passing football.

Posted from  United States

Sadly, I saw this coming. The psychological effect of the Bouhlarous tragedy was direly underestimated. Top-class sport demands total concentration. It was sacrificed for social considerations. That is a choice you can make but, having made it, you should not complain if your sport suffers. That said, the Russians were so good that they would probably have beaten the Dutch at their best. Hiddink is supernatural.

Posted from  Netherlands

Great comments all! We will look at Oranje post EC2008 soon here. I agree with Johannes re: the Boulah tragedy. And Japple… well spotted. It is bizar.
Life is bizar… At least, today it looks like it is…

@finnster01:

……. 20 years from now, I will be 74 yours old. That is if I am still around, and after watching stuff like this not sure if I would take that bet. I would very much like to see Holland joist a cup before I go, but I actually do not like the odds, and I bet a lot.

Holland needs to fundamentally change things and get hungry the German & Italian way. I don’t think it is the football style as much as it is the lack of want to really close out the deal. We need some mental training more than anything else. Todays Oranje is soft, we do indeed need some old school hard bastards to appear on the field. Edgar Davids, Seedorf, Neeskens, Rijkards of this worls have disappeared. In stead we have glass leges Van Persie, Robben and pensioners such as OOjier and useless Mathijesen? …….

*****

Damn, you’re on fire, finnster! Saying it the way I’m thinking it …… 20 years from now, I’ll be in my 50s, but like you, I’d like to see us lifting the cup and also like you, I bet a lot as well. My co-workers are familiar by now that I bleed “Oranje”, I can’t imagine what they’ll say tomorrow when I get to the office (and this is in the US, where most of them do not care about football!).

I surely hope you and I won’t have to wait that long before we’re lifting a WC or EC trophy!

–H

first of all let me say that on the day, Russia played better and deserved to win. However, i think that the we had a serious off day:

-mentally the players were off (thinking of the semis? figuring after 3 good games, they would just automatically keep winning?)

-we played long balls all game long, instead of the quick passing play that worked so well in the group stages

-the defense was weak and slow, like others have observed they just ran alongside the russian attackers and forgot to actually dive in and take the ball away, their marking was also terrible, too many people watching the ball and not paying attention to the unmarked runners

-we played with an individual mindset. van persie and affelay were poor and held the ball too long, both vdv and sneijder worked hard, gave it their all and didn’t play all that bad, but again when things weren’t going oranje’s way they tried to do it all themselves which is never going to work. lots of ppl said they thought vdv was invisible, but i disagree and his free kick delivery was superb.

-not sure about the subs, i thought kuijt was one of our best player in the first half…sure he didn’t create a hell of a lot BUT he was the only one who still was playing according to the game plan used in the group stages, in other words he was making smart passes not losing possesion endlessly by just kicking long balls towards van Nistelrooij. and ofcourse he was one of the few players who could keep up to the russians with his running. engelaar played poorly IMO and should have been subbed instead.

-not everyone played a bad game: i thought van der Sar and de Jong (never thought i would say this) played exceptionally well but both had one bad moment when it counted the most (russia’s second goal and de jong’s missed header on the free kick). van Nistelrooij also played decent…not great but if everyone had played like him we would have seen a different game

-gio was back on planet earth after playing two games like he was out of ths world.

Posted from  Canada

i hope this teaches all of you and the oranje a lesson… DONT GET COCKY… stop talking about how u want revenge on the portuguese and this and that… anything can happen in football…

Posted from  Canada