San Marco hands saint-title over to Czar Guus

“Sneijder and van der Vaart thought they were in Hollywood.”

Arguably the most annoying moments during the match were the flicks with the heel from van der Vaart. What an arrogance, trying to humiliate the Russians while being outclassed by them in every way. They all went wrong and all ended up losing the ball to the opposition, he probably hadn’t slept the night before (again) either.. It frustrated the hell out of me.

Posted from  Netherlands

I will continue supporting the Netherlands all my life.

Posted from  Australia

sorry if my comment is coming a bit too late..but the match ended at arnd 3 a.m. in the third world & so i couldnt post this earlier… i havent been able to sleep whole f..ing night so this might sound a bit too bitter & silly…
but couple of things which i feel were bad mistakes by our coaching staff..
- if u see the spain-russia match, the reason spain could score so freely was mainly cos their centre forwards have tremendous speeds…(ofcourse arshavin not being in the game mattered a lot)…it would have been a lot lot better to play with(or atleast switch after the first half) van-persie as a centre forward…RVN couldnt trouble their defenders for shit
- even when RVN got the ball & managed to hold it, there was noone running off him & so possesion was quickly wasted…there was no pace in our team specially before the substitutions…kuyt & engelaar had amazingly poor games…
- all van persie & effelay did was cut inside, almost everytime they got the ball…i never saw them getting past the fullbacks & deliever crosses…as a result of which our play could never spread in the final third of the pitch…even when effelay cut inside & gio overlapped, he totally ignored him & gave the ball to wes or vandervaart who always had some russian stuck on their asses & so we lost the ball when we were close to the box.
- & finally & there is simply noway to get arnd this i think but we have no (defensive) player in our team who could markout arshavin…he was skimming past engelaar etc with consumate ease & there was nothing to do but just admire..
ok i can go on & on but it doesnt matter anymore i guess(still had to vent it out)..sorry if whatever i have written is crap &/or if some1 has already written it somewhere in the comment…
but this has really SUCKED

Posted from  India

I’m so disappointed. I’ve read all the critics and their high praise for the Russians. I agree in part. They were superior and better, but we didn’t play with our hearts, we didn’t play with arrogance, but there wasn’t a fighting spirit. It was an empty performance. Our biggest players, Van Persie, Sneijder and Van De Vaart seemed like there was something missing.

Ai, two years till the world cup but on this performance, our boys are not fast enough or passionate enough than our opponents. Ai, big sigh.

So so so dispppointed. My friend said it right, we’re a bunch of bottlers. Like the Spanish and English. So sad.

Posted from  Australia

@alaa; think im as flabbergasted as the team looked yesterday….

think its like many others said before; during a EC or WC you have at least one bad game, the germans, the russians all had that bad game (the first one they played)i guess it was our turn now to play a bad game…..and we did…..dont know; thats just football

i knew it after 8-10 minutes…all but vdSar and deJong played bad….vPersie, vNistelrooy and vdVaart played terrible, the rest was just bad

Engelaar again showed he isnt ready yet, vBasten was too late in responding

its just sad; i didnt expect anything the first 3 games, but after qualifying i got my hopes up really high…. so frustrating to lose the first knock-out game AGAIN

vBasten; played 2 knock-out games, lost both!

also; this was the first game where we got behind, i was not too impressed by the response, they never looked like fighting, they never looked like they really wanted to win this game

sad to see all the Oranje stuff is getting pulled down everywhere (my whole street was Oranje but they pulled it down yesterday night)

but eh; well done Russia, well deserved!

i do now have this feeling that we are never gonna win anything ever again…we always LOOK good, but never win

Jan; thanks again for all the time you put into this blog….i hope we can keep it up till the WC….you know i will be there!!!!!! Keep strong !!

Posted from  Netherlands

@alla; and i share your embarrassment for Oranjes performance….you should at least go out fighting for your life once you realize the football isnt there on the day…we didnt….we looked like we thought nothing was to be done about it….thats a shame and an embarrassment

i share your pain alaa….im just glad we can have some more in 2 years time!! hahaha

Posted from  Netherlands

@goose
this our only condolence, is to start thinking about the wc qualifications and hope we can do better.

@jan
we appreciate your efforts that made this blog the best among all the other teams’ blogs and i promise you to be here always as long as my heart beats:).

i donno how long it is gonna take me to recover from this shocking match.
after the oranje lose and get eliminated i hate soccer for few months. for me soccer is netherlands and netherlands is soccer. i don’t give a damn about brazil germany italy and all the other teams. this is why the pain is so big and deep now.

Posted from  United States

@goose :the problem is that russia and germany had this bad game in the gropu phase when it is not good but allowed. in the knockout stage you don’t have the right to make errors. halas,yesterday we made a lot. i don’t blame marco. football is a question of luck,too. in the first two games sometimes we had luck,yesterday we hadn’t. russia was far stronger than us. at the beginning of the ec i dodn’t have too much expectation,but after our first game i started to dream. this why the reality is so harsh. i’m sure that at the wc 2010 we’ll have a great team with all the youngsters,van bommel and seedorf back. but i don’t want to dream about the future. the reality is that we had the capacity to win this tournament and we failed. (at least i hope italy won’t win it. it would be a shame for world football.)

Posted from  Hungary

This game had nothing to do with luck at all. We were outplayed right from the kick-off and the thing that disappointed me the most was the effort (or lack off) by the dutch players. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with losing, or even by being outplayed, but the players really put in very little effort. They played it almost like a friendly or a dead rubber without ANY intensity whatsoever.

I was happy when Van-Nistelrooy scored the equalized but at the same time, I felt a bit ashamed as I knew Holland didn’t deserve it, and was even somewhat relieved when Russia scored the winner in extra time. The only good thing coming out of this game was that the best team rightfully won the game.

Posted from  Australia

Actually it wasn’t every single dutch player that didn’t put in the effort. Edwin Van Der Saar was Holland’s best player by far and if it wasn’t for him we would’ve been 4 nil down by half time.

Posted from  Australia

@dissappointed; true, thought deJong did rather well too…but the rest??

1. All others games went our way; we scored at the right moments, so may not be as good as we (and the players) thought
2. The Boula story did have an affect on the group dynamics, dont think it helped Oranje
3. Is it a coincedence that all the teams who rested their starts in the 3 game got beaten?…looked like we werent in the flow anymore

and last but NOT LEAST; Russia…lets be honest; you also are as good as your oppanant lets you be; Russia took us by the balls from the word go and didnt let go…they made us look bad and incapable, hats off for them

Posted from  Netherlands

Stavrogin, while my heart bleeds too because loved the way the dutch pay and have always played, ( unlike, italy, greece etc) but what the hell was that about 3rd world crack.
i trust u r not suggesting that we do not have internet connection here or is it we had u lose the game

Posted from  India

I must admit that i had high hopes for this game, but yet again the Dutch fell short of their mark…… at least i’m used to it now. I think that i subconsciously expected them to choke anyway.

I agree with Scorps: It’s easy to say now, but Hunt might have been a smarter sub–somebody who could run and put the russians on their heels a little. I watched this game and thought: This team is not fast enough, not athletic enough. I too thought Van Bastens substitutions were a bit odd.

I love RVN–what a career, and he had a good tournament–but I think the Dutch need strikers who are younger, can roam the field and create more danger. Just hanging around the box isn’t nearly good enough. Engelaar is simply not that good; and I say the same for Van der Vaart. He has technical skills, yes–in that European way–but he’s also small and not very athletic and gets exposed at high-level competition. Oh, well: we can be assured that all the talk of the Dutch be entertaining underachievers will surface again next tournament!

@alaa,

I am absolutely gutted. I agree with your points. I think Oranje needs to much more engage in the mental preparedness aspects of the game. It is blatantly obvious that the Dutch do not mentally play at the level of the Germans & Italians. I am just sick of it, it just looked like nobody cared out there. What has happened? Pulling on that Orange shirt should make you proud and make your best effort like Kuyt always does (and not get substituted in the process). These people may make so much money now that playing for you country has lost its meaning entirely. A very sad day, but I must say Oranje looked like it has no heart anymore.

Russians, and the little magician, Arshavin, on the other hand…Don’t get me started. Bottom line, they were proud of wearing their flag and played like it. Oranje didn’t and I agree with Alaa, it actually disgusts me.

@ Jan
I know I don’t post much but i’ve been visiting this blog daily since before the start of the EC. ure doin a really great job here. I can’t say how sad i was that we got knocked out…i actually had trouble sleeping! Ive never felt this before…and im not even dutch! or in any way related to any dutch person. I’m from Malta…a small country under Italy. we’re infested with english and italian supporters here…i have no one who sees my side of the story…but you’ve truly been a help.
Regarding the game…well let’s face it…if boulah’s tragedy didn’t occur we’d have still lost it due to overconfidence…it would have been better if our scores against Italy and France were closer calls.
Also, the team has lost a great man now…not van basten…van der sar. does anyone else on this blog seriously think stekelenberg can fill his gloves? I’d like him to prove me wrong…maybe hell be good but van der sar is just irreplacable

I have to agree about Stekelenberg (sp): I watched him against Romania and let’s just one could tell a big difference between his play and Van der Sar. I thought he was a tiny bit shaky at moments simply in the way he handled back balls to him. He needs more tourney experience but Van der Sar is great. I wonder if he’s got two more years in him?

Scorps:

You are absolutely right.

@ Rob(ben :D)
“still lost it due to overconfidence”
i agree, they went and party after they defeated france. they did not play as a team against russia. i’m still shock and i stll blame heitinga for all three goals the dutch conceded.

Posted from  United States

Italian Stallion,
AT one time I used to laugh at racist blokes like you. Now I just feel so sorry :-). Even in 21st century you just don’t seem to get out of your mental wrap and ’smell the coffee’. I am not sure where you even got the idea that India is 11th in the world in poverty. Making up cock and bull stories to prove your point just highlights your desperation.
In a blog concerning football, it is a decorum that you stick to football. but when will you people understand? Sometimes it is futile to expect an iota of maturity from you.
P.S. I love pasta and believe me curry does not burn your guts :-)).

@Prabal,
don’t worry about his ignorant rascist rants. He will be gone soon enough. Just ignore his posts. In any event, Spain will beat the Italians starting in approx 1 hour and he will not have the balls to come back here after they lose.

You are a good fan and a good poster. Don’t let a few idiots get to your head. Sometime I do too. But the thing is, this blog is much bigger than that.

great finnster!

Posted from  United States

@finnster01:
… I am just sick of it, it just looked like nobody cared out there. What has happened? Pulling on that Orange shirt should make you proud and make your best effort like Kuyt always does (and not get substituted in the process) ….
***

Could not have written it better than that!

When the tourney started, I was critical about Kuyt. On another site, I wrote of his lack of flair/technical skills as “un-Oranje”. But Kuyt is actually the player in this year’s squad that has “heart” and he works harder than the others chasing after the ball. How many times did we see him at the right side of our defense against opponents’ strikers?

Very disappointed with van der Vaart, the so called “superstar”. At least van Persie and Sneijder managed to see some chances yesterday. With that said, I guess Sneijder is not quite the “captain” I was expecting him to be either? I meant, great players like Platini, Zidane, Gullit, etc. can change the game. We just haven’t seen anyone like this wearing Oranje no matter how spectacular goals were scored.

Also, is it true as one of the posters wrote the team partied after beating France? If it is, it’s very lame ….. 2 victories just going through the group qualification and partying it up. I’m still not over this loss, so pardon if my posts contains really random stuffs. Lots of sh*ts going inside my head now after yesterday’s defeat.

–H

Italy is out of the tournament. Thanks God. Otherwise, Holland team would look like a bunch of fools. Why would I say that ? Because if Italy got into the semi-final, there would be no doubt that they would beat Russia and then laugh at us. Anyway, I have to admire the Italians mentality and their pride of representing their nation. Did any one of you see the match today between Italy and Spain? They were singing their nantional anthem really loud and it looked like they are very proud to be Italians. I just wish if our players could show the same passion. That’s the only thing that we lack of.
To be honest, I just miss Edgar Davids. Dont get me wrong but if we’d had a player like him on the midfield two days ago, it would’ve made a huge difference. He would fight back to the russians midfielders. He would yell at anyone else who did not play well. He would never give up till the end. I think we need agressive players with such mentality like Edgar Davids. Well, it’s just a dream anyway.

Posted from  United States

I think Edgar would’ve broken someone’s legs in the process, maybe even his own.

Posted from  Netherlands