Ronald de Boer: Oranje misses the will!

WANRING!!!! I think they might have found the hunger with this squad.

Posted from  Canada

Ironically it applied to so many countries and teams. Not just Holland.
I believe that hunger for success is a habit players need to get used to.

Posted from  United States

good article. it seems he’s right.

Posted from  Hungary

Wow. Such candid thoughts. It runs contrary to Sneijder. Holland should have a couple of World Cup’s under their belt.

My friend is Dutch. He talks the same way as de Boer.

Posted from  Canada

oranje should have won 4times the world cup (1974,1978,1990,1998) and 4tumes the european cup (1976,1988,1992,2000)… and we won only once…

Posted from  Hungary

Don’t bring back these bad memories. 1974 I learned to hate Gerd Muller, for one reason only, and he is actually a gentleman from what I hear. In 1978 I hated the Argentinian Junta and Mario Kempes. Still think that was a fix. Since then, I became older and wiser I suppose.

Anyway, let’s look ahead, not back, but lets face it, growing up in Holland is not the same as Ronaldo growing up in Madeira and getting the crap kicked out out of him and teased in school after leaving home to try make a living playing soccer in Lisbon because of his Madeira accent. Look at him now. De Boer has a point.

Posted from  United States

I’m willing to bet that a lot of football matches in the past were fixed–I believe it. WC and Europ matches. It has just happened with Porto–accused of trying to bribe referees in the portugese league.

I tihnk Ronald is right about the “Seedorf” thing. The Dutch midfield at the last World Cup was crap, so he should have at least been given a fair look. Van Basten had his mind made up–and that is that. These are the personnel decisions coaches live and die by.

You would have to wonder about the timing of these statements. Maybe he means them as a challenge.
What Seedorf could have brought was some character and experience. As a soccer player he is not better than what we have there now.
Maybe what Ronald is saying is that it is just that which we miss. He may be right in that. It is why I love seeing a guy like Kuyt play. Energy and attitude.
Odd is that if I would have to name a team that does have the right attitude to play over their heads historically that would be the never say die Germans. That would suggest that the economic reasons don’t really have to play that much of a role.

Is winning everything, or is it more important to play “attractive football”? I think we have to be careful about how often the Dutch should-have, could-have, might-have won all those other tournaments. It is very difficult to win any major international competition, and it takes hard work, good athletes, quality coaching, the right mental attitude and a great deal of LUCK! The countries that have won multiple international tournaments, such as Brazil, Germany and Italy, have had all of these components, including and particularly LUCK. The interesting aspect of the Dutch is how many tournaments they have “lost” because of their inability to win spot-kick shootouts. It seems that I recall reading for a period of several international tournaments, the Dutch were never defeated during the match, but lost only in the penalty kick phase. For a country the size of Holland, that is remarkable.

Football might be the most mental of sports, because it requires constant vigilance, intensity, intelligence and an attitude of mental toughness. It also requires a belief in the team and a willingness to do what it takes to win. Neeskens was the best of the Dutch as to that attitude–whatever he needed to do to win, he would try to do. Do we see that attitude today, with today’s athletes, Dutch or otherwise? DeBoer suggests not, others may disagree. All I know is that the Dutch will never win an international tournament without that mental toughness, and much of that attitude comes from the coach. Why did de Haan and company win two U-21 tournaments in a row, with two different teams? I think the coach instilled an attitude of mental strength in the athletes, and they simply refused to loose. It was that difference in mental strength that distinguished these recent U-21 successes from the abominable “choke” of the ‘74 team in the World Cup by perhaps the best national team EVER, from any country.

Posted from  United States

Bob,
a very good post.

For me the 1974 team was something I think will never be seen again. The free flowing football, the overlaps, the interchange of positions all over the field, the authority, the excellence, the skill but also hard work was astonishing. Yet, when it mattered most, it ultimately failed. Why? Don’t know, but I still have this feeling that Germany wanted it more than Oranje at the end of the day.

That loss still personally hurts to this day. Never got over it. Holland should have closed out the deal, yet couldn’t do it. Certainly played the better soccer on the day. That team was shear magic. That lineup will never be equalled again. Was it bad luck, was it bad Karma, was it Germany playing at home, was it the dodgy penalty decision and Breitner putting it away? Was it Gerd Muller’s last sheer moment of magic before retiring? I don’t know.

However, I believe it was one of the biggest injustices in modern soccer history

Posted from  United States

Love the way De Boer bemoans Oranje for not playing hard enough for the shirt and then says it’s Marco Van Basten’s fault when Seedorf decides to pull out of playing for his country like the over-sensitive bottler he is. Ronald De Boer was always a pretty half-arsed player himself so it makes sense I guess.

Posted from  Japan

Deboer is right, you have to WILL a win and luck comes your way.

In 1972 Canada played the Soviets in a eight game series, our best vs. there best. We had np idea how good they were, we just assumed since its “our” game we were the best. Sports writers were predicting 8-0 sweep.
Game 1 in montreal, Soviets handed us a 7-2 loss, we came back with a win in game 2 in Toronto, only to tie game three and lose game four in Vancouver. The team was booed off the ice. Team captain Phil Esposito stepped up and gave his famous speech on TV questioning the countries support.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZOLIzs7zo&feature=related

We lost game 5 in Moscow. Meaning we had to will the last three in Soviet Red Russia. Paul Henderson scored the winning goals in all three of the last games with the biggest one in the last minute of game 8.
The country shut down for game 8, the Soviets even brought in a “neutral” Polish referee,the Communist goal judge even tried to take away one of Canadas goal, Soviet police tried to arrest Alan eagleson, Canada’s team manager when he protested the goal judge. The whole team pryed him away from the Soviet police and brought him to the Canadian bench.
Paul Hendersons game winning goal in the last minute is the most famous in Hockey history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lXDMA_bZZw&feature=related

Why am I saying all this? Because deBoer is right, you have to play your guts out to win. Talent alone cannot win. You must will it!
The Soviets shocked Canada with better talent in 1972, but Canada had HEART, the Soviets played like robots. They had no emotion. The Canadians had emotion, and finally gelled as a team the last three games. That will to win created luck, and it came through with Hendersons goal with 34 seconds left.

Oranje has to WILL, and play there guts out (I know Kuijt can). It can happen, deBoer says it is not in the Dutch character, I hope he is wrong on that point.

Agree with Ronald, he’s one of my favourite player beside Bergkamp & Overmars. Can anyone tell me what Marco Van Basten statement about his target/goal in euro 2008? If he’s target just semifinal or Finalist, It’s difficult to win the title because the manager doesn’t have strong motivation/desire to win the title

Well guys,
As has been rightly pointed out, the Dutch team should’ve easily won 4 World Cups, if it weren’t for the rub of the green going against us every single occassion. But tell me, which other team in the world contributes such a unique flavour, and brings such a wonderful brand of attractive football? Only one team to date has combined flair with results and that is Brazil. For the rest of us, there’s Holland to root for.
I’m sure if Holland had won more than two of those world cups, they’d have degenerated into yet another result-oriented European team and would’ve lost their fan base. It’s their tantalising failure, that convinces their fans that glory is going to be just around the corner…So let EURO 2008 be Holland’s….

Posted from  Australia

Why didn’t some of the great Dutch teams win World Cups? I didn’t see the games–but one big reason is the nature of the game itself. Scoring is difficult–and so one can team can solidly outplay another and have nothing to show for it, or might even lose via penalty shots or a fluke goal. This iis not unusual in football and it’s my biggest beef with football and ice hockey: two sports in which the better teams cannot be assured of winning because of the difficulty of scoring. Almost every football game is close–regardless of the quality on either side–as we’ll see in the days ahead. You are controling a game, then the referee calls a foul against you in the box and you’re behind 1-nil.

Posted from  United States

It was interesting today that the Wall Street Journal, a highly regarded news and financial daily newspaper published in NYCity, ran an article in the “Weekend” section of the June 6 edition about Netherlands football and its historic inability to win matches on penalty kicks! It was a great article, speaking highly of the wonderful talent of the Dutch teams and their seeming inability to win major international tournaments if a match is determined by penalty kicks. The article describes the efforts of a sports psychologist from Norway to analyze why the Dutch, an otherwise gifted football nation, seemed incapable of performing spot kicks under pressure. His theory sounded a bit like our own recent blogger discussions about the Dutch inability to prevail under pressure situations. van Basten and de Haan both were quoted in the article as being initially against the theories of the psychologist, then eventually understanding and supporting those same theories. Always look at the goalie and aggressively engage him right away; take time to set up the ball, with quick set-ups under 2.8 seconds often failing; take a deep breath and relax as much as possible before executing the kick–the challenge of overcoming the Dutch team problems, believed the psychologist, was developing the right mental attitude. An interesting and timely article, especially because of the status of this newspaper in this country and its depiction of our Orange footballers.

Posted from  United States