Matchday 11: what did we learn?

For Russia/Sweden:
same team as first 2 games

For Spain/Italy:
start Heitinga and Bouma at center back–will need more athleticism at the back, especially if playing Spain.
start van persie and sit engelaar and move vdv back one line–

Posted from  United States

Move van der vaart back one line???? We all know he cant play there. If you were to move someone back, it would be sneijder. But even then his skills of football would go to waste. Im not to sure about the 2 central defenders heitinga and bouma playing against spain or italy. If its spain i would probably put them as central defenders, but against italy i would keep ooijer, (and i cant believe im saying this) matthijsen in as central defender just like the first match. Keep snijder on the left and kuyt on the right, and if we need subs, put van persie and robben on at the same time, just like the match against france. Jan, your articals of what did we learn always make me laugh, cheers for posting.

Anyone got the scoop on why Heitinga – Dutch Player of the Year – didn’t play the first 2 matches and got the captain armband in match #3? I hope this is not a sign of the usual drama in the Oranje squad.

Also, does anyone know if there is any Oranje Fan Club in the US? or some sort of Official International Oranje Fan Club? After 20+ years of supporting the Oranje, I feel like I need to step things up (wearing Oranje kit or posting on this site during tournaments is not enough anymore). I’m also disappointed that the KNVB site doesn’t even have a decent English section. I don’t mind doing some works here from the US together with other Oranje fans outside Holland to set something up like this?

Anyone has info. or interest on this pls. let me know and email me: hedonistix@yahoo.com

GO ORANJE!

–H

we, polish people, love our couch leo beenhakker and we thank him for all
http://www.thxleo.pl

Posted from  Poland

Martijn, vdv did play that spot against France in 2nd half and Sneijder stayed up front. Worked pretty well, I’d say. Even though I agree that Sneijder is probably better at that spot but he’s too great attacking.

As for central defense, even against Italy those guys looked shaky and vulnerable and Italy easily coulda scored multiple goals. I like what an earlier poster wrote: that Heitinga breaks plays up before they get into or around the box–compare with mathijsen and ooijer.

Posted from  United States

i think our central defense is fine…both sets… ofcourse the opponants are gonna have changes; thats logic…and most of those changes in the games we played during this EC have been shots from outside the box, i remember Toni having a clear change but not many others…we have conceded 1!!! goal in 3 matches, what more do you want??

my only worry is Engelaar

Posted from  Netherlands

iam speaking on behalf of my beloved Italia..my worry , the one and only and the sole worry is that our artist from Brescia pirlo wont be there for the Spagna match. But i dont have worrys on other fronts..Toni should have had atleast 10 goals by now..against the dutch he missed atleast two chances which he would have put in any other day..against Romania, well we all know that besides that valid goal of his which was wrongly called as an offside, he missed three sitters..yesterday , against France he missed 5 one- one situations and his misery was complete when he hit the angle of the post in the dieng minutes..the beauty though is that his bad luck is bound to end and iam sure the spanish defence is not exactly in the class of the dutch/french or even Romanian defence, so the future is bright!!!!!But who will replace the irreplacable Pirlo??????????””””””

@Jan:
Thinking of a formal and official “fan club”, incl. website, etc. So this “club” members can organize something together when the Oranje plays locally. Something like this fan club of Man U in the US is what I’m thinking about: http://www.manutdusa.org/

This blog is a good start but there are still some trolls, if one has to pay, they won’t be trolling.

–H

hahahaha good job Holland. I’m from Romania … dude…. wow. I could see the Dutch Team TRYING NOT to score lol. A club team from … freakin’ Ethiopia’s 3rd League would have played better. There was this joke in a newspaper in Romania : Marco van Basten tells his team that they will play with Romania but no one is in the mood. So Edwin van der Sar tells them that its ok he’s going to play Romania. THe team goes to a pub and watch the match. Not much time goes by, 1 – 0 for the Dutch team. Everyone cheers and change the channel. Later they start watching again and they catch the ending Holland 1 – Romania 1. Desperate and amazed, they go ask van der Sar what happened. And he says ” I was eliminated in the 6th minute of the first half. lol. Netherlands : Good Game ! Romania : You wanted 2 make history ? YOU DID! The most pathetic game of all times !!!

Haha, good one Vyo!

Posted from  Canada

By the way, I’d just like to say I’ve gotten my predictions for this group exactly correct (remember that worldcupblog contest Jan posted before the tournament started?).
1)Holland (kicked ass in this group!)
2)Italy (lucky, as usual)
3)Romania (not a push over, but can’t win games)
4)France (not what they used to be…)

Posted from  Canada

Well done Caleb