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Marco van Basten: superstar again!

June 14th, 2008 | By: Jan | 15 Comments »

Gunter Netzer. Former star player. Head strong. Incredibly talented. Un-German in his football vision. Grumpy like his Dutch alter-ego Willem van Hanegem. He is not a real fan (”Most of the time I am not impressed with how the game is played”). He is not a fan. He is a critic.

In front of the German ARD cameras, he said: “What Holland showed is brilliance. Utter brilliance. You hardly see this type of play in international football. You are under pressure against France and the coach plays two extra strikers. That is just out of this world.”

Former German team manager Rudi Voller once had a huge row with Netzer, live on telly. He had just said that Voller should start to teach his players how to play football. Netzer will never budge.

Netzer: “Van Basten took an incredible risks, but he is capable of forcing his luck. It paid dividends and Marco won the match for the Dutch.”

The German icon sees the Dutch confidence (Dutch courage anyone?) as Oranje’s strongest asset. “It starts with Van Basten, who was uncompromising in his four years stint. He never backed down for criticism, went his own way. He battled Van Bommel, Van Nistelrooy, Seedorf, Cruyff even and many reporters but went on to do his thing, with his team. They have the guts to play their own game, with their incredible talents.”

The whole world looks with admiration towards the peformance of the Dutch. First they serve off Italy, then France. Two behemoths in World football.

The Guardian: “This match reminds us why we love football. I want to see every match played like this. And let’s be happy England isn’t here. Our boys would be cut to mince meat by the Dutch.”

It’s the turn around in particular that catches the imagination. “I am high at the moment. They only need 25 seconds or less to move from their own goal line to the net of the opponent. I don’t know what to say, it is football from another planet.”

“Now it’s clear why they call this the Group of Death. It’s because Holland plays in this group and they kill off every opponent.”

And: “Oranje re-invented football. Again! Five players running at the opponent in unison, creating space, combining, dummies and converting their chances. It’s attack, attack, attack… Fantastic play. We want more more more…”

Team manager Van Basten gets the praise he deserves, at last. “What a star! Among all those big name and lesser big name players, he is the main man. Which manager would actually play Van Persie and Robben to defend a lead?”

“This team brings a huge smile to my face. Football nowaday is cynical, negative. Van Basten should come to England to do master classes with our English managers. Many many thanks, Mr Van Basten.”

The Guardian also recognizes the luck Oranje had. “And when needed, Van Basten is even allowed to play a second goal keeper, this case Andre Ooijer. Why not?”

Still, the title is maybe not for the taking for Oranje. “Holland plays great, fantastic. But they won’t win the title. Their success will go to their heads. Like the Heineken beers on a Saturday night. It’s their biggest weakness and they still don’t realize that.”

“If justice exists in football, and it doesn’t, Oranje should win this.”

Tags: Euro 2008, Holland, Kuyt, Netzer, Oranje, Robben, Sar, The Netherlands, Van Basten

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Comments

By Carlos | June 14th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Not commenting on issues in this article per se except that I think Jan is absolutely marvellous when he digs these stories up saving us clowns from spending hours on the net searching for what others are saying about oranje (yes we orange addicts do those funny things).
Altho very interesting that the experts and press think van Basten did a master stroke when 95% of the 16 million Dutch coaches would have made the same 2 changes in the team. Just goes to show we all LOVE football ATTACK style.

Posted from Singapore

By Warning | June 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

Dick Advocaat would have brought on De Zeeuw and Bouma instead of Van Persie and Robben.

Posted from Canada

By bullshido | June 15th, 2008 at 12:05 am

I love it how everyone is praising the orange. fact of the matter is they are not the only ones to play offensive football. most of those teams didn’t even qualify, and the few that did had their defensive mistakes fuck them over this week. france & italy are not behemoths. if they are, then what are the dutch, midgets? france has played like other shit since 2002. in 2006 ribery was their workhorse, while zidane entertained the crowd. now zidane is done and ribery has become complacent with riding on his reputation, just like ronaldinho.

as for italy, hah. they won the world cup soley on riding their luck and diving.

look why am i mad? i like the dutch, and i’m happy they are playing the game the way it should be played. i’m just sick and tired of the horse-shit media treating certain teams underdogs and other teams as favorites…and the legions of idiots who believe anything the media says. most of all i’m sick of the term “group of death”

Posted from United States

By bullshido | June 15th, 2008 at 12:08 am

and what did you say about dick advocaat? he is a real coach, while marco van basten would of been fired LONG ago had it not been for his superstar status dating back to his playing days.

Posted from United States

By Eoin | June 15th, 2008 at 1:13 am

Euro 2004:
Dick Advocaat is manager of Netherlands, a 2-0 lead against the Czechs is reduced to a 3-2 defeat. What did Advocaat do to change the game? He brought off Robben, who had been tearing the opposition to threads, thereby giving the Czechs the chance to press on for a victory. He was slaughtered in the press for that.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Jan | June 15th, 2008 at 1:56 am

Bullshido: I agree with your first post. I’m actually going to post a piece that will enrage most fans soon

Looking forward to that too!

Don’t agree with your second comment. Dickie is not a real coach (in my view). Despite his Zenith success. And you could be right about Marco being sacked if not status etc. but he wouldn’t be in the job in the first place then.

Posted from Australia

By John | June 15th, 2008 at 5:12 am

Actually, van Basten has been statistically the most successful bondscoach for quite some time. I don’t see why he’d have gotten fired. It was only a matter of time for them to begin to play like this, the players just needed to grow and mature. Van Basten didn’t do a whole lot wrong. He kept doing what he was supposed to be doing: winning.

By JC | June 15th, 2008 at 5:28 am

If i was in charge of the netherlands, I wud lose to Romania, so that Both Italy and France get eliminated. Coz one of them, cud bite the netherlands asses in the semi’s, if they qualify..

Posted from United Arab Emirates

By lowiesje | June 15th, 2008 at 6:25 am

That’s right JC, its tempting to lose against Romania and avoid Italy and/or France. But for good sportsmanship sake, lets beat the Romanians since we couldn’t win against them in the qualifications. Besides that, I am glad that van Bommel isn’t in the squad. He would have made some awful errors with his annoying attitude on the pitch…

Posted from Netherlands

By HappyChappy | June 15th, 2008 at 8:07 am

Despite getting good results (lots of wins, few losses) Marco van Basten (MvB) has been criticized all this time. I think everyone in Holland was agreeing that MvB was not doing a good job. It is funny to see that now after 2 (good) games he has become the national hero already. As if he has won the cup already. It is a bit hypocritical. But I suppose it is the same everywhere. If you win you’re the man, if you lose then you’re worthless.

By Sol | June 15th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

The only mistake I saw van Basten make was replacing RvN for Kuyt against Portugal in 2004, but it was his first appearance, so I guess I never really blamed him.

In 2006 he did nothing wrong in my book, neither did the Dutch team against Portugal. It was Portugal who played the ignorant referree perfectly and they prevented any play in the latter part of the second halve by making foul after foul, diving, pretending injuries, trying to provoke Dutch players, using every trick in the book to stop play. Cause they were being outplayed, even with 9 Dutch against 10 Portuguese players Hollland was still creating chances in the short moments of actual football/play.

Then they lost to Italy or France in the semi’s just because they had spent all their energy on the game against Holland (and I think they couldn’t field some key players because of yellow/red cards, was Ronaldo injured during the game?).

Holland and Portugal were the better teams than Italy and France 2 years ago, and now Holland has proven that. Germany was overrated and still is, a Holland – Portugal rematch would be great, with a fit Ronaldo and everyone in form it would be a great and fitting end to an already great tournament.

Spain looks strong and confident this year though…

I’m so glad Greece is out, if there ever was a more underserved winner of the EC I wouldn’t know about it. They don’t even play to win, they play to draw, blahhhh. They won the whole tournament on defence (and a lot of pushing and pulling), not even risking anything on counters.

At least when Italy and France play on defence, they are willing to risk something on the counters, or start pushing at the end of the game if it’s still 0-0.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | June 15th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

What I particularly like this year though, is that he’s playing the exact players I would have chosen, and making the exact subsitutions and changes I was thinking in the game against both Italy and France (I was so glad he chose Bouhla to replace Babel, and I’m even more glad with how Bouhla performed, allthough he can do better).

I didn’t think he would do it, move vd Vaart or Sneijder back to add Robben and take out one of the DM (obviously Engelaar who was making mistakes), but I was thinking it before the match.

I was also thinking about options of adding v Persie without removing Kuyt (but I guess that would have been over the top, taking out de Jong who played his position perfectly). Kuyt is a key player on counters often (as is RvN).

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | June 15th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

Sol – I think you got your dates a little confused. Advocaat was still the coach in 2004, and mistake you were talking about (Kuyt for RVN) happened during the Portugal match in 2006. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Holland ever had less men than Portugal. It was Portugal with 9 and Holland with 10 until our second player was sent off. You are spot on with your analysis of Portugal’s play in that game though.

By Sol | June 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am

Then van Basten never made any mistakes

I usually just watch the football, guess I remember it wrong about the facts. I do remember both games though. And Portugal was the stronger team in 2004, although we came close (that’s why I still wonder what would have happened if he left RvN and added Kuyt and taken off a midfielder or defender).

In 2006 we were the stonger team.

Posted from Netherlands

By peyman | June 20th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

i like netherland

Posted from Islamic Republic Of Iran