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Van Hanegem: Dutch Defense is top notch

May 29th, 2008 | By: Jan | 12 Comments »

Vennegoor and Van der Sar. Long John missed four penalties (!) on training

Willem van Hanegem’s column in the AD

The whole nation is impressed with Orlando Engelaar. I can enjoy myself with that stuff. We play against a totally uninspired opponent and before we know it we get all mushy over a player like Engelaar!

Let me say out loud here and now that I think Engelaar is a great player. He was particularly good at NAC under Henk ten Cate. He was adventurous then. I enjoyed that highly. He has changed though. He plays in a more controlled way, a line back now. But still, most of his passes are deep and apparently by doing that you already differentiate yourself. Food for thought.

But, the main strength of Orlando is that he hardly ever loses the ball. That is extremely important against teams like Italy and France. Still, I am a bit sorry that he brushed off his adventurous play.
Then again, it’s easy for me to say now. I watch him as a fan and football lover, not as a responsible coach. That’s a big difference.

I also saw he played well. And after the match, I liked him even more. He was the first to state that although he played a good game, it was against an opponent who allowed him to. That is strong. Than you can say a player has grown and is mature. He keeps his feet firmly on the ground and knows the road to the title hasn’t even started yet. It’s a good sign. This Dutch team and this technical staff are realistic. The big question will be: are the fans realistic too? Before you know it, we’ll all sing that Oranje will win the title “on a slipper and an old football boot”.

I don’t understand the whole circus around Boschker. If Timmer has all those benefits, why invite Boschker in the first place? I understand Van Basten’s thinking, but to have someone because he was part of the group and great for team spirit he could also have selected Bergkamp or Van Hooijdonk.

I am not too worried though. We have Edwin van der Sar. One of the best of the world. I suppose he is ready with his partying and good to go. With him in goal, we already have on of the best defenses of the world. Seriously. People claim our back four isn’t world class, well…look at the stats. I do not share this idea. In the qualifications, we conceded the least goals. And that’s what it’s all about. If you take those statistics and add Edwin van der Sar to the mix, we have a top notch defense.

Tags: Boschker, Engelaar, Euro 2008, Holland, Oranje, Sar, Van Hanegem

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Comments

By ClockworkOrange | May 29th, 2008 at 4:57 am

I think its very dangerous to keep repeating that in qualification we conceded the least goals, therefore our defence is solid. If you compare the teams we faced in qualification and those we’ll be facing in the group stage, it really is apples and oranges.

Stopping Belarus, Albania and Luxemburg from scoring is one thing, but when you have the likes of Henry, Ribery and Benzema, or Toni, Pirlo and Quagliarella bearing down on your goal things are just a wee bit different. Our defence will need to be a helluva lot better to stop those guys.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Jan | May 29th, 2008 at 5:07 am

That’s true. But at the WC, we only conceded once in the group of death. And if you look at France, Italy, Spain in their “easy” qualifications, they conceded more than we…

But anyhow, yesterday doesn’t count. Only today.

Posted from Australia

By finnster01 | May 29th, 2008 at 7:43 am

Look mate, Clockwork has a good point.

If there is one thing that keeps me up at night is thinking about how the heck our defense is going to deal with Toni et al.

Beating Ukraine in a friendly they don’t care about is one thing. Playing (and presumably beating) Wales is along the same lines. BTW their captain, Fletcher was carried off the field with ligament damage when they beat Iceland away 1-0 last night.

Either way, when we open up against Italy, everyone needs to be razor sharp. I think our defense is overrated. Sorry. I am not comfortable. We need another Staam with his calming influence and I see him nowhere, unfortunately. That first Italy game is so vital. 3 points we are through in my book, zero points we HAVE TO beat France and Romania to go through. Big difference.

Playing Mickey Mouse countries does not make me feel that great. Couldn’t we arranged something against a real country like Brazil or Argentina? It is not like Wales will play like France or Italy, nor did Ukraine. I guess KNVB is up to its usual standard of quality…Good job!!!!Not!!!

Posted from United States

By Rob | May 29th, 2008 at 8:33 am

How the defence will cope with Italy and France? Well, look, the way Holland play, the defence will cope if the attack do a good job keeping the ball. Brazil have had plenty of successes with a crappy defence - if Oranje plays to its strengths (possession, attacking flair) and the defence do a workmanlike job, it should be enough to see off an undoubtedly negative Italy side, and a France side whose defence isn’t that great itself.

The point about Van der Sar is especially true. He’s been playing very well this season and if you have a good keeper in a cup competition it always gives you a chance. Edwin will martial the defence together - players like Ooijer, Heitinga et al. are no slouches - they’re not amazing, but as defenders you don’t have to be if you can keep your concentration for those 6 matches.

Posted from Japan

By goose | May 29th, 2008 at 10:15 am

@Rob; amen to that; the best defense is offense, that was always the case…dont think Haan and Krol were fantastic defenders, the team did pretty good anyway in 74

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | May 29th, 2008 at 10:25 am

@finnster; dont think you should play tough matches 2 weeks before the start of the EC… only if you have lots of time, like Hiddink had with Korea, can you play stronger teams to test…you will never have a real tough match right before an EC anyway, players will not take any risks, afraid of getting injured
no, these matches are just to ‘get the feeling for eachother’(bbbbhehh)and to “fool around” with substitutions for the manager

btw; im sorry for all you non-dutch people; dutch tv (NOS) is repeating games from the EC88..yesterday it was the classic Ger-Hol 88, the show the whole 90 minutes and everything around it..i had to watch it all and went to bed at 1.30!! haha..great, great game…when vBasten scored the winner i caught myself grinning again, together with Dennis’goal v the argies my fav. Oranje moment

here it is again (note; watch behind the goal, when vBasten scores you see one guy cheering and jumping like a monkey…thats Kees Jansma who now is press chef for Oranje)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY5rjO_Q7W0

Posted from Netherlands

By finnster01 | May 29th, 2008 at 10:35 am

@Goose. Think you are being a little harsh there. Ruud Krol was world class and didn’t rack up 83 games for Oranje for nothing. I may give you Arie Haan though.

I sense you are rubbing it in for Ajax greats. Do you happen to be Kuijt’s daughter’s kindergarden teacher by any chance:-) ?

Posted from United States

By goose | May 29th, 2008 at 10:53 am

haha… my student are just a little bit older and im pretty sure they know that song already. i dont ‘hate’Ajax as much as most people from DenHaag..the team i hate with a passion is Feynoord (sorry Jan/Tjeerd)

as for Krol/Haan; what i mean to say is that it was the first time they played together like that in Oranje (think Haan played midfield at Ajax, not sure)and they both had their scrappy moments during the WC, but cause of our brilliant offense we were always the more likely winners

Posted from Netherlands

By Robert | May 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am

Top Notch? Nahh. Adequate maybe. But top notch especially in the Dutch way of playing soccer would certainly mean that we should see a lot better ball distribution from our defence than we are seeing. I think that is our weakest link. We have good ball distribution from the midfield with talented playmakers. Hopefully that will make up for some.
Re ball distribution, I thought vd Vaart and Engelaar clicked very nicely in that department. v Basten has an interesting problem on his hands there in who not to play…

By Johannes | May 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Van Hanegem loves our defense, Jol doesn’t like it one bit… I guess we’ll just have to see how Ooijer, Melchiot, Bouma hold up. I would have prefered Bouhlarouz above Melchiot though.

http://www.nusport.nl/20080529/oranje/jol-oranje-kansloos-voor-europese-titel

Posted from United States

By finnster01 | May 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Just thought of it, Dutch defense is actually an oxymoron. Just like ” pretty ugly”, “agree to disagree” , “japanese project mangement” and “Iraq has weapons of mass distructions”.

Posted from United States

By Marina | May 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Netherland has no chance against Romania, swiss pool revealed http://www.gsp.ro/stire/cum-ii-vad-elvetienii-pe-tricolori-71159.html

Posted from Switzerland