While gio tried to attack a bit Engelaar had to control the upcoming russian back in the counter(sneijder didn’t really put in sufficiant defending work for anything else) leaving a space in midfield wich de Jong had to close, with that he also had Arshavin on his hands so, playing like that gave Arshavin all the space and freedom he needed to really hurt us, now im not saying De Jong didn’t do good enough you’re wrong, i thought he was one of the best dutch players on the pitch during the game, it’s just that he had to put in so much work cleaning up for others that his primary task of neutralising Arshavin alomst became mission impossible.
Arshavin now and then having these enormous amounts of space could easily pressure our defense on his own, that for me shows the lack of defensive quality by Mathijsen and Ooijer, only as a pair could they really cope with pavlyuchenko but with Arshavin coming in from midfield one of the two central defenders had to pressure him leaving either Mathijsen or Ooijer in a man-to-man situation, ABSOLUTELY DEADLY, however this could have been only a little problem, you could have contained it with Boulahrouz or Heitinga covering either Ooijers’ or Mathijsen’s back and Kuyt coming back
to cover for Boulahrouz/Heitinga. However with the russians attacking backs kuyt had his hands full already. This altogether led to a complete Russians overrun when they were in possesion but especially in their counter.
The dutch sides having to cope with the russian backs (they primarily chased the russians)meant that the place the russians were most vulnerable was left unattacked(the backs of their central defence), at times our right flank had mils of space and the opportunity to out in a cross for goal, this however backfired since Boulahrouz is a great defender, he isn’t as good attacking, so the right side didn’t really produce a lot of danger. On the left Gio and Engelaar coping with the back did’nt really get to attack as much as they would have liked leaving Sneijder, V.d.Vaart, V.Persie and Affelay a bit isolated, and especially V.Nistelrooy who got caught the same way as in 2006 in the WC, nobody could actually reach him close or in front of goal. Result: the only thing keeping us in the game was Van der Sar, our substitutes didn’t really change anything of the field game, our only weapon was free kicks, which we eventually scored from having pushed our players to the limit. But in extension, exhaustion on our behalf let the russians finish it off, leaving a brilliant but lonely V.d.Sar without a chance. Shattering hopes of winning a title for us.

The harsh reality is that our team went in to this game, with their minds affected by the tragedy of Boulahrouz’ child, with most of our important players out of their rythm having not played for more than a week. And they fell for Hiddink’s game of creating an underdog role for Russia in the public but also without really doing anything let the critics and media scare the dutch players, V.Basten fell for it the same way his players did, he gave them to much to think about, they were to affraid to play their own game from the start, they crapped their paints everytime the russians captured the ball from us in our attack.

ultimate conclusion:V.Basten failed as a coach, players went to long without a game, and Boulahrouz shouldn’t have played.

lets just hope Spain can keep it up till the final and slaughter the germans…but i think we all know how it is gonna end in real life!!

@Alex; good list, think you covered it pretty well…i esp. have great hopes for Marcellis and Ryan Donk. they look pretty confident defenders at a young age and both can play football
just heard Jack vGelder say that Gomes is not going to be a dutchie (hes prob. leaving for Spurs btw) but i rather have a real dutchman anyway, Velthuizen should become a great goalie if he isnt one already

the future looks bright, the future looks Orange