Comments on: Van Hanegem: Dutch Defense is top notch

By: Marina

Marina — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:40:45 +0000

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

By: finnster01

finnster01 — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:27:49 +0000

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”.

By: Johannes

Johannes — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:12:14 +0000

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

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:58:50 +0000

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: goose

goose — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:53:55 +0000

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

By: finnster01

finnster01 — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:35:37 +0000

@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:-) ?

By: goose

goose — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:25:21 +0000

@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

By: goose

goose — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:15:10 +0000

@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

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:33:45 +0000

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.

By: finnster01

finnster01 — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:43:50 +0000

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!!!