Now what is it exactly that you want??

Jan,

I love this blog. I have learned more from reading this blog in the past 2 weeks than I have watching soccer on my own for years. Everytime I have a minute which is not a lot with a young baby. I am reading this blog. Holland blog and email. Everyday. Also thanks to everyone else who comments as I learn so much from you as well. Goose, Bob, Finnster, everyone I love reading your comments and learning. Can’t wait till I have learned enough to add to the discussion. An if it’s worth anything I gotta give my vote to Sylvie over the Orange Angel.

Is Sylvie Meis the sex symbol in Netherlands?Is she loved by all Dutch?
If so, it would be nice if she visits this blog, and maybe give Lucky Jan an interview about…ANYTHING.

Posted from  United States

Jan,
Are there famous enough besides Silvie Meis ?
A great appreciation to Jan for keeping this blog alive. I am sure they are many keep coming to this blog even they don’t write any comments, just like I did
JAN FOR THE PRESIDENT OF KNVB !!

Posted from  Japan

Not really on topic, but i figured i’d let you know anyway.
I just saw a Ford Focus which was completely orange and had the number plate ‘oranje’. Coolest car i’ve seen and it was driven by a Sylvie look alike No jokes.

Jan - i was thinking; since the Eredivisie is importent to track potential Oranje players i reckon ‘we’can write more about it…i would be happy to make some sort of general post on sunday on the games played and the little insides and sent it to you; you can than use it to make a decent post on the games played in the weekend (if you dont want any help thats cool also ofcourse) and remember; i think you will be able to see more Eredivisie since it moved back to the NOS and i think reruns of Studio Sport will be shown on uitzendinggemist.nl

let me know what you think.

Posted from  Netherlands

i think the russia game was more complex than boulah’s tragedy. but it was more than that. several - mainly psychological - factors played against us: boulah’s tragedy,hiddink (his perfect knowledge of dutch football),being favourites,etc. and we had a bad day. almost every team had bad days at tournaments (germany against croatia,spain against italy or the wc 06 italy against the usa or australia,france against switzerland and south corea,etc.) - our problem that we had it in the knockout stage. maybe we were too good at the very beginning and it is impossible the keep such a brilliant form for 3 weeks. i don’t know but have the bad feeling that against spain we would have played in a totally different way than the russians did. this is sad because we had the talent to win this ec. at the very beginning i considered oranje and spain the most talented teams. i hope spain will win it. they deserve it. at this tournament there are only two teams who produced great football: oranje and spain. russia? maybe,but they had to play against an aging and not enough creative greece,a very predictive sweden (with its only one world class player being half-injured) anf an off-day oranje. (about spain: i read somewhere that we should have a puyol-like defender. with all my respect to puyol who is a braveheart,etc,the writers of this kind of posts should have seen barca’s games this season…)

about the knvb site: i used to read it 4-5 years ago when they had an english version. unfortunately they don’t have any more english version. before the wc06 i found somehow this blog and now i have all information i need about dutch football.
@goose: good idea about the eredivisie because this is the way we’ll know more about young dutch talents.

Posted from  Hungary

Maybe Jan can team up with Mike over at the Netherlands Offside to help with the Eredivisie coverage.
http://netherlands.theoffside.com/

Great ideas all!! YES Goose, I’d be delighted if you could do that. Wonderful! you will be close to the fire. Thanks a lot!

And Jan, (huh?): Mike started this blog, as you may know, we wrote the WC2006 blog together. The idea is for Mike and myself to write more “together” for the Offside blog, where Mike will focus more on Eredivisie and I will focus more on the national teams. And with Goose’ help, we will be in great shape.

To paraphrase Jack Black: expect awesomeness!!

@Goose: That would be fantastic!! I don’t get much Ajax stuff over here.

Also, remember, we need to follow very closely McLaren’s umbrella count

Posted from  United States

Jan: ah ok, I didn’t know Mike was part of this blog etc.

@Jan: You have to stop talking to yourself…

Posted from  United States

finnster01 - can’t you just see a satirical “you’ll never walk alone” be sung with the crowd holding umbrella’s?

I can’t wait for Sunday! Go Germany!!!

Posted from  United States

@Rickytd; oeps! you must have hit the wrong link my friend; this is not the german blog!! wrong crowd

Posted from  Netherlands

@Jan,
the umbrella is very funny. When England lost to Croatia at Wembley, Steve McLaren hid under this huge golf umbrella. It became the symbol of his cowardness and the England fans went on a rampage. Many a joke and story were produced.

My favorite is the one below. It is very cleverly made as it sounds just like McLaren singing Rihanna’s Under My Umbrella. It is hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbyUDJbVgM8

Posted from  United States

Thank you
Hi,

Thank you for your message. I will do my utmost to respond to messages from fans personally. Any press, commercial or business requests will be answered by a member of my management team at Essel Sports Management.

All the best,
Rafael van der Vaart
——————————————————————-
In response to:
LIFE GOES ON by Rafael van der Vaart (22-06-08)
It’s very disappointing indeed. Of course, the Russians have a fantastic team. And they deserve a big compliment from us.

We were terrible in the first half, though we improved a lot in the second. But looking at the numerous chances Russia had, you have to say that they always deserved to win.
It’s been a hectic week. That’s no excuse, but a lot has happened. We just should have tried even harder.
We’ve played a great tournament and we didn’t expect it to end this way. It’s a downer, but we’ve got to move on.
In terms of football, this is horrible. But we’ve seen again in the last few days that there are things that happen in life that are a whole lot worse.
———————————————————–
MY RESPONSE

Of course, there are many things which are MUCH worse than the latest defeat at Euro2008 [we do not need to be reminded that]. But, that defeat is the TRAGEDY as well, of course to a lesser degree than some other horrible things. If you think otherwise, you will keep making your fans “happy” all the time, like in the game against Russians. If Brasilians had lost like that, or even Germans, they would have been much unhappier and thus, more motivated to correct their mistakes. Anyway, with all due respect, once the Dutch national team learns to be tougher, keep their spirits up and not take it too easy all the time, maybe 1988 can be repeated at some point. What makes many fans angry around the world is that no one in the Dutch team had guts to stand up and sincerely apologize to the fans for all the PAIN you have caused. As if nothing happened, yeah, we lost, but it is OK, you know, we will try to be better - this is a shameful attitude, trust me.
—————————————————————

http://www.vandervaartofficial.com/en/contact_me.asp

Like so many other people here I chanced upon this blog through my relentless efforts to find news about our team. Best thing I have done in years and Jan is super cool with his comments. Having lived in Oz for some time too (in fact growing up there) I can see he is picking up the Oz humour as well. Cool combination Dutch Aussie humour.
Jan your blog is one of the first I visit and will continue to do so. You also have some great regulars here who give VERY balanced reports/views which we can all discuss, disagree, or distance ourselves from.
Keep it up !!!

Posted from  Singapore

Sorry guys, I need to ask this SO BADLY because I am no Dutch but I love Oranje and it is difficult for me to swallow the fact that we had been kicked off the tournament like that, after performing so superbly at the start. I do NOT mean to insult anyone, I am just trying to LEARN, and that is it. So please advice and I will be happy to hear that I am wrong in my impressions.
Guys, is there a “problem” with the Dutch nature in general? It seems that Dutch people are TOO gracious, gentle, polite, peaceful and “easy-going”. How can they swallow the fact that they are beaten by LOUSY arrogant Russians who played extremely WELL that night simply because the Dutch players let them so? I am NOT asking you to explain me the reason of that defeat (there are many, in fact), just please advice me about the Dutch people’s attitude in general. I just want to learn, that is it. How can Marco, Raf, Robben, Sar and even the Oranje ordinary fans so easily ACCEPT that Russian were better?? IMHO, they were NOT, it were Holland players who were LOUSY that night!! I am NOT suggesting that Dutch people need to start WW III but why don’t Dutch people have some kind of “sportsman toughness”, like Germans or Brazilians who are never going to so easily SWALLOW the fact that some LOUSY arrogant team is better than them.
Second issue is with Oranje fans on the stadium that night. Why were not they going crazy supporting their players when our elftal needed that support SO badly? Why a bunch of drunk Russian fans could outshoot them persistently?
Third, it seems that the Dutch nature does not let them to LOVE their country MORE than themselves! Look at Seedorf who arrogantly states that he is glad he didn’t play that tournament. Who is he to downside his COUNTRY like that? Players better than him would literally CRY if denied a place in the NATIONAL squad, no matter how jerk the coach can be to them. Or even Ruud Gullit, who refused to play in 1994 when we needed him pretty badly, with all due respect to Ruud who was a GREAT player really. Is this the way Pele or Maradona would behave? They would literarily DIE for their teams, especially the former one.
Guys, do not get me wrong, I am just angry but I am not a nationalistic jerk. I am a pretty peaceful guy myself. Yes, I was pretty rough on Russians in my message. Most of you are lucky that you do not speak and understand the Russian, but I do perfectly, and if you could only hear how INSULTING and MOCKERY they were during and after the game. Well these are Russians; we of course should not behave like them. But what is the problem with Dutch nature anyway?? If we keep behaving like that, never will we learn to be MEN and always will we be out too early and the entire world would always laugh at us. Thanks.

Dear Jan:

Thanks for your reply, Jan – it helps to know. Unfortunately, it seems that we really need to boost our national spirit, honestly. See, the Dutch – a country of Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Cruijff, Michels MUST be proud of itself, - there is no other way. Per capita mega talents in the Netherlands would perhaps be one of the highest on earth; this is the reason to feel pride in every cell of ones body and spirit! Of course, we should not go and beat up the Russians after dfeat, - I am not suggesting that, not at all, - but why can’t we make a huge deal of the fact that WE had been defeated. Raf says: “life moves on, there are worse things in life”. Thanks, Raf for reminding, we are not stupid, we know life is tough. But if you ADD UP all the “small” pains you caused to your fans all over the world, - this will be a heck of a pain you know. Losing a game by itself is not necessarily bad, but giving up and being scared (as if not 11 Russians, but 65 Peles and Maradonas are against you) and taking it so easy is! I know now that we have some attitude issues, thanks Jan for your great clarifications. I just want to say that maybe we should try to develop some attitude, you know. Otherwise, we will keep losing which is no good. I remember a couple of years ago when I was in the U.S. I played soccer with friends, persistently wearing an orange T-shirt and people used to tease me. Especially when I publicly stated that I believe Holland will win WC2006. It hurts, you know. We have little respect. If we were an ordinary nation with lousy people, that would have been OK. But we are not! (I am no Dutch buy I say “we” b/c I feel the unity with you guys). Look, we are a tiny country but so many things to be proud of. I recall we were playing soccer one day (just a street game) and an American pretty ordinary goalkeeper (maybe playing soccer second time in his life) conceded the goal from my teammate. A minute later I was on the attack, and I accepted the ball and was almost sure I would score, but the keeper in a split-second appeared in front of me remarkably kicking the ball of my feet and yelling: “I ain’t gonna concede the second one in a row!” Can’t we be like this? Can’t the Dutch soccer academy help to develop some winner’s attitude while developing future Rafs or Robbens? This is a public issue; we should do something about it. Here is my suggestion: we seriously need to think about inviting on board the national team a professional PSYCHOLOGIST, really. And maybe make this issue a public one,- good luck with that. Thanks.

I think it’s the same old problem of team spirit. Jan you live in Australia where players will die for a team. So often my friends say “wish we had the “want to win” mentality of the Aussies.
We dont get angry (well 90% donT) because perhaps we accept facts better than most people, thats why there are always “discussions” or “arguments” in Dutch Camps as to how to play this beautiful game.
But we take football as a game it’s not life or death to many of us.

I remember an interview with MvB after the 88 win, he said - Yeah it’s great, but tomorrow is another day-off to the supermarket, shopping and live another day.” That just about sums up our mentality - Wine or Lose.

Posted from  Singapore