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Russia outplays Holland: faves sent home!

June 21st, 2008 | By: Jan | 82 Comments »

It’s more than half an hour after the game. I needed some time to collect my wits, my thoughts and all the coffee cups I threw at the screen. It’s early Sunday morning in Australia, and I am not enjoying myself. I desperately tried to find a scapegoat for this humiliation (which I think it was). Was it the ref? Nah… Our coach? Nah… Orange Angel perhaps?

It was simple. Holland wasn’t good enough (understatement) and Russia deserved this win.

So… Let’s not be sore losers here: A firm Congrats to the Russian team, the Russian staff and the Russian fans! Well deserved, you outplayed us all over the pitch.

It’s a tad too early maybe for us hotheaded and terribly disappointed Oranje fans to do a rational and balanced de-briefing here, but let’s give it a go anyway.

The facts:

* we started in a too slow pace
* we never settled in the game and couldn’t get a grip on the wonderful movement of the Russki’s.
* our only chances in the first half came from setpieces
* the creative midfield couldn’t deliver in the first half. At all! Sneijder? Kuyt?
* Van Nistelrooy and Van der Sar can’t win matches by themselves! But they surely tried!
* we fought ourselves back in the match in the second half with Sneijder more dominant
* the Boulah- Heitinga change didn’t do us much good
* Afellay impressed, Sneijder centrally worked much better but Van Persie couldn’t settle
* and still we couldn’t get a grip on the Russians, moving between our lines
* the ref was a bit of a tosser, but he didn’t lose the game for us
* even after the 1-1, we never looked we believed in it or wanted to work for it
* Van der Vaart seemed wasted after 90 minutes
* Russia deserved this win and could have scored three more
* Oranje lost against Russia but also against itself

Now let’s look at why and how this happened? Although we’ll never know… But it’s too easy to say the Russians are better than we are. Because they aren’t. We normally should be able to find the tools to beat them. Despite all the “De Jong and Van Nistelrooy and Sneijder could have/should have scored in the first half” banter, I think we just couldn’t get ourselves into the game.

Tactically and line-up wise, I don’t think Van Basten did anything wrong. It was the execution. It seemed as if our midfield was tired. It seemed as if our defense was too afraid. We couldn’t cut it as a team. The interplay wasn’t there. The combinations failed. The individual qualities didn’t emerge. And…everything went a bit against us too (loose balls, 50-50 challenges) but… we only have ourselves to blame for it. The “oomph” wasn’t there. The 10% extra missed. The spice wasn’t present. We were an ordinary team. Simple.

And I don’t want to take anything away from our opponents. Hiddink was as sharp as Van Basten with his changes. They took advantage of our weaknesses and deserve the kudos.

And yes, we can ponder… About the decision to give 9 players a rest against Romania and stop their momentum. Or about the horrible Boulah-tragedy that may have impacted the team’s focus. Or about Robben’s new injury. But we’ll never know for sure.

What we do know is this:

* We are going home. We won’t win this title.
* Van der Sar and Van Basten will retire from their jobs.
* I will support Russia from now on.
* Oranje Angel is a stunner.
* Bert van Marwijk has something to work with for the WC 2010.
* Oranje did warm the cockles this tournament, at least in three games.
* I am having a couple of vodka’s tonight.

Stay tuned my friends, for the after-match debates and for more exciting stuff. I’ll allow you a little peek into our future here at the blog!

You have been a wonderful group of friends, and let’s stay together for while here.

More later. Gotta go and have a cry…

Tags: Euro 2008, Hiddink, Holland, Oranje, Russia, Van Basten

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 82 comments.

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By finnster01 | June 21st, 2008 at 8:23 pm

@wnuck;

never mind me. I am feeling absolutely terrible for insulting you and the Germans posting here on the Oranje blog. I should not have done that, and if I really intended to do that, I should have written in German as you obviously have a few people incapable of reading and writing in English.

I don’t think for a second that Ballack is a cheat and Lehman is the biggest ego goalkeeper in the world. I also don’t think Loew is an unexperienced coach who will never win at this level. The fact that your best strikers are actually Polish has got nothing to do with it either.

Again, I really apologize if I offended the great German republic and their fantastic, exciting and clever ways of making football games very boring. It was certainly not my intention. Whilst I wish you the very best of luck in the rest of the tournament, I do have decided to purchase a new lock for my bicycle for personal reasons.

By OMY | June 21st, 2008 at 8:34 pm

finnster did you watch the Portugal game at all? The Germans were not the boring ones. And today certainly the Dutch were no better than Germany was against Croatia, and that was an off day for the new look Germany. Not forget how Holland played negative football throughout qualifying. A Russian stole your bicycle today.

Posted from United States

By Gord | June 21st, 2008 at 8:37 pm

Russia was faster and more agressive attacking. Holland was slow, looked unsure and unable to get any offensive flow to their game. Russia definitely are full marks for their win. I think Spain-Russia semi final would make for great football with the Spanish fast and explosive counter attack. Im a hockey fan here in Canada who has really come to love the game of Football. Merci

Posted from United States

By Ivan Kuryachiy | June 21st, 2008 at 8:39 pm

Great game. Love my country. Respect our Russian football team the first time ever. It is unbelievable! Winning over the EC2008 favorites mean a lot. This is the complete dismantlement of Dutch team. So keeping believing in our future successes!!! Go Russia Go!

By finnster01 | June 21st, 2008 at 8:43 pm

First time a german called me a racist, but I guess there is a first for everything. My black girlfriend had a good laugh at that. Can’t we just stick to football/soccer?

By Jan | June 21st, 2008 at 8:47 pm

OMY: how did Holland play negative in the qualification games? Back this claim up please…

By wnuck | June 21st, 2008 at 8:51 pm

“Can’t we just stick to football/soccer?”
… that’s what I’m talking about and say Hello! to your “black girlfriend”.

Posted from Germany

By richard | June 21st, 2008 at 8:51 pm

In the end you need luck to win this title or the world cup: that is patently obvious. Greece won it last year–does anybody REALLY think they had the best team? It’s easy to say so now, but it’s crazy to think that the Dutch were going to go 6-0, beating italy, france, romania, a fresh russian team, then either italy (again) or spain, then germany! I don’t think the best football team in history could go through those six games unscathed–or as we saw, even four. Even a good team is going to have one flat game. No, you need to be like germany–an easy/mediocre group, play well to beat a portugal squad that was not its best, and now they have mighty….turkey in the semis (this year’s greece). Spain is the team to pull for now…

Posted from United States

By finnster01 | June 21st, 2008 at 9:01 pm

@wnuck,
she says hello back.

By Eoin | June 21st, 2008 at 9:47 pm

So, who are the favorites now??? I’m so pleased that this years surprise package, Russia, have went about their business in an entertaining and ambitious style; makes a change from Greece and shows that you can still win in style. Turkey have played a huge role in making this tournament as entertaining as it has been but their general play is a bit negative so I kinda hope that Germany end up pipping them.
Bring on Spain-Italy!!! Can’t wait!

Posted from United Kingdom

By Dmitri | June 21st, 2008 at 9:50 pm

I honestly expected for my comrades to go down with something along the lines of 6:1 and I would have been cheering for that one goal they would have scored. I was even afraid to watch the game to be frank. This is even more unexpected than Turkey taking out Croats.

All I can say to the Dutch fans – take pride in the fact that Russia’s coach is your countryman, he made a real contender out of an extremely young team that technically stood no chance. He simply took your own strategy and applied it against your own team, the Russian team being the younger one had the edge. We simply outpaced you, that’s not a strategy, that’s bruit force.

I hope we win, but going against Germany in the final will be tough (lets face it, that bird is done, Deutsch could outplay the Turks on one leg)… and yes, I am making this huge assumption that we take out Italy/Spain in the semi’s… a miracle happened once…why not again.

Posted from Canada

By bunchapooha | June 21st, 2008 at 10:01 pm

“Spain is the team to pull for now…”

lol, so that concludes the quarters.. It’ll be Germany – Turkey and Russia – Italy.

Spain is going to choke the same way we did tonight.

Oh noes, the knock out stages! I thought we’d already won the tournament! Look out!

That’s pretty much how we played tonight.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jenica | June 21st, 2008 at 10:04 pm

Shocked! Too depressed! After the final whistle, i stared at the TV screen for a long time to actually believe this…it’s hard! But face it, it’s the truth! A couple of days before, this team almost became a lengend,every single one of the players seems like warrior, they fight with all their might, the proof was they won beautifully… they beated Italy and France magnificently…but now…just like “Bang”, maybe they got little bit too intense or maybe they weren’t fit very well yet after long days of rest. however, deep down, This Dutch team is a great team, they are still young and a promising future awaits them. Anyway, Russian team performed very well during the match… they deserved it and good luck for the rest of their journey.
As an Orange fan, no matter they win or lose… i was,am,will be there for them…i will always root for them forever and ever… i always will! Good luck!

Posted from China

By bunchapooha | June 21st, 2008 at 10:15 pm

“I was even afraid to watch the game to be frank.”

hehe, I wasn’t, I was eagerly anticipating the match, but after only 5 mins of play I was already shaking like a leaf, cursing and zapping back and forth. This only progressed as the game went on.. Glad I didn’t get a heart attack.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | June 21st, 2008 at 10:20 pm

Thanks Jenica…

By the way (this is a futile attempt, I know): do you guys – even the hostile ones – think this could have been a scenario:

First half: Van der Vaart swings a free kick in the box. Ruud puts his toe to the ball: 1-0!

Again, later, Van der Vaart swings a free kick in the box: Nigel de Jong puts his head against it: 2-0.

Still in the first half, Sneijder picks the ball up on the edge of the box and instead of hitting it poorly, he rams it home: 3-0 at half time.

What would the second half be like?

Robin van Persie for Kuyt.

Russia fires on all cylinders but fear the counter-attack.

What would have happened?

Because, with luck, this scenario could have been reality, right?

By bunchapooha | June 21st, 2008 at 10:30 pm

I think we could’ve lost against any team tonight.

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | June 21st, 2008 at 11:47 pm

Jan – that’s a great scenario to dream about it, and with a lot of luck it could even have come about… but I guess you create your own luck, and we didn’t make it this night…

By Tom | June 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 am

I discovered this blog only a couple of days before the tournament and have found it a great read throughout… Will it continue throughout the WC2010 Qualification etc.? I hope so. Anyway I feel terrible for Van Der Sar as he’s been such a great national footballer and leader and has suffered much dissapointment at big tournaments eg. WC98, EU00, EU04. Im gutted that we choked yet again. I hope the boys can rebound and it doesn’t effect their motivation for WC qualifiers. IMO van Basten should not have replaced Boulah with Heitinga, it upset wat little rhythm they had on the right hand side and he was simply not up to speed… Boulah is not afraid to tackle. The dutch put in a practically disinterested display, perhaps mentally they had already put themselves in the semis. Sneijder was trying hard towards the end and VDS (fantastic) and Van Nistelrooy were good throughout but why did the defence let the Russians stream forward as oppossed to tackling them? Particularly on the second russian goal Ooijer (I think it was) basically ran along side Arshavin for a quarter of the fields length before the kid crossed it over for the goal… Also the russians pressured our back line not allowing them to pass and build fluidity going forward. In contrast our forwards put practically no pressure on their defence when the Russians were in possession. Anyways im rambling a bit and am going to stew in my misery, I was sure we could win this tourney

Posted from Australia

By AT | June 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 am

Hi Jan,

Regarding the scenarios that you presented, you were only looking at it from a biased dutch supporter’s perspective – which of course i dont blame you

However, there are always two sides to “what-ifs” scenarios. Do remember that before the dutch opportunities that you mentioned, russia dominated the game and had chances of their own.

What would happen if Zhurkov free kick went in insted of being saved by Van Der Sar? What if Pavluchenko scored with the free header instead of heading it over the bar?

Then it would have been 2-0. What would the second half be like? The dutch might have been slayed even more from the counter attacks of the russians.

It would have been 4-1 to the Russians in normal time, i would think.

Just my two cents worth.

Posted from Malaysia

By sky sports sucks | June 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 am

well I don’t know about the rest of the team but they sure took care of arshavin for most of the game. in the first half they played him very physical, fouling him numerous times which were not always whistled and making him miss passes

later in the game it seemed they were less physical, but he was surrounded by more defenders, but maybe that’s just because he was taking a position farther forward and didn’t have much support

Posted from United States

By Ronald | June 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 am

The final maybe Turkey vs Russia, and I really hope that the latter one can win. They are really playing Holland football!

Posted from Hong Kong

By Jan | June 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 am

You’re right AT, that other scenario was out there too. At least your response confirms that “my” scenario could have worked too. That’s a consolation

By Frank | June 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 am

Come on guys.

This germany vs holland thing is boring and not helpfull.

germany:

It is one of the greatest myth of football that germany or german players have no technical skills or not enough. germany always had and have very skillfull players in their teams. it is simply not our main advantage. Germany always plays as a team with teamspirit and football is a team sport. Who cares about a super stars like ronaldo if he is not able to lead his team while players like ballack gives everything he has for the succeess of germany and not his personal advantage. Watching Sneijder yesterday really made me sick. Just complaining or shouting at other players selfish shots on goal and so on. That would never happen in a german national team. Perhabs it´s a question of different culture but perhabs it could help the netherlands to learn from german football teams and perhabs you win a title again and you could stop complaining about all your talented players and all your beautiful football because yesterday there was no beautifull football and talnet was more on the other side.

The dutch sould better try to analyse why they are such underarchivers and Sneijder or the whole team gave the answer to that question yesterday.

To repeat the same stereotypes of german football just shows little knoledge what football really is about and how german football works we are able to play very good football and we show that but most of the time we have what teams like the netherlands do not have and perhaby never will have.

By Art | June 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 am

Sport is emotion, and the drama of Boulah was too much emotion for the team.
Russia lost 4-1 of Spain in the first match, Guus was able to change the spirit in the Russian team, great work.
In 1988 the Dutch won the championship, were they winners each game then?

The main problem of the Dutch? We do not just want to win a championship, we want to win it majestically. When the dutch have a dayoff, they can´t kill the match. The players keep on trying to get back in the match, wasting a lot of energy and giving the opponent a lot of changes to win the match. They are fighting against themselves, instead of the opponent.

Posted from Belgium

By Sal | June 24th, 2008 at 11:15 am

i was there, on the match.. can’t find words to impress the frustration.. i am with Holland at heart since historicall 1988 wins.. and now this.. what a waste, to disappoint 35 thousand people stunned by this awfull experience.. no words.. just pain.

Posted from United Kingdom

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