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What will the future bring? Part 3

July 4th, 2008 | By: Jan | 41 Comments »

The EC is history. Spain won. So what? It’s old news. Bring on the new…

The next big thing will be the World Cup (have I lost you already? Us Dutchies know how to put heartache behind them and look positively into the future…).

We checked out the technical staff and the goalies in part 1. We tried to break down our defense and control our midfield in Part 2. Let’s look at strikers, systems and progress now…

Strikers
Holland has a bit of a history with strikers… Johan Cruyff, Dick van Dijk, Kees Kist, Ruud Geels, Marco van Basten, Wim Kieft, John Bosman, Peter Houtman, Patrick Kluivert, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Klaas Jan Huntelaar…

Ruud will be 33 years old in 2010. As will Pat Kluivert be… Who knows? But seriously, Ruud will play for Real Madrid some more and if he stays fit I’m not too worried about his motivation. Focus and determination are Ruud’s strong points, and recently he added the roulette to it. Danny Koevermans will probably not play a part next tournament. Jan Vennegoor might. Klaas Jan “Hunter” Huntelaar will, without a doubt. But, as was posted by many already, Robin van Persie is not a shabby striker either. Dirk Kuyt? Nah…Dirk will remain the right midfielder at Liverpool and I’m not sure if Dirkie will be part of the 2010 squad.

We will always come up with new exciting strikers and who knows, in 2010 we will be discussing yet another player. There’s some talent at Heerenveen, at Sparta and it wouldn’t surprise me if Ajax and Feyenoord have the next big thing awaiting in their junior teams.

It seems logical that the Hunter will become the next striker. Ruud may have to get used to a super-sub role. But, you never know with Van Gol and Hunter will still have to prove himself in a big league.

As for the system, I have said it before and will say it again: systems are overrated. It’s pretty obvious that Bert van Marwijk will proceed with Marco’s (well, not really Marco’s) 4-2-3-1. At Feyenoord, Bert played 4-4-2, with Tomasson and van Hooijdonk as the two strikers. Pierre playing deep, Tomasson coming from behind him (a la Bergkamp and Kluivert). I wouldn’t be surprised if Bert will repeat that, with Hunter deep and Van Persie prowling around him.

Robben on the left, Van der Vaar on the left and Sneijder and playing centrally. Or maybe not.

The good part of the EC, no matter how disappointing in the end for us, Marco did set a benchmark for Bert. It’s pretty logical to suggest that everyone - fans, media, the KNVB, the players and Bert himself - will expect nothing less than that level of performance. Maybe not during the qualifications, but with Spain, Russia, Croatia and Holland setting a new standard at the EC, Bert van Marwijk will have to focus at forming a football machine that can get results and play astonishing football.

The future does look bright. Wesley, Arjen and Ruud will further grow at Madrid, as will Kuyt, Babel and Van Persie in England. If Hunter stays at Ajax, Marco will teach him a thing or two and if he leaves, let’s just hope he picks the right club.

Nigel de Jong will develop at HSV Hamburg even more, under Martin Jol. Orlando Engelaar will move to Schalke 04, with Fred Rutten, and will surely develop as well. Ryan Babel, Afellay, Stekelenburg, Heitinga, all these chaps will have some big lessons to learn, in particular in winning mentality. In a way, all these players moving to big competition may be bad news for Dutch fans in Holland, but it’s great for the Dutch team.

Sure, we’ve lost Sar and we may lose Gio and Ooijer. But we will gain two years of experience for the rest of the team.

The downside? Marco van Basten was lucky to work with a young and eager bunch. Players like Engelaar, De Jong, Babel and even Van Persie, Sneijder and Van der Vaart were happy to be at this tournament. In two years, the progress of the players could work against them as well. Engelaar may fail in Germany. Van Persie, Sneijder, Drenthe and Robben could have won the Champions League in 2010 and Huntelaar may have become the Italian top scorer for the second time, for Juve. Will they still be hungry? Will Robin accept Sneijder’s role as chief free-kick specialist?

JC said it: every disadvantage has it’s advantage. It works the other way around as well….

Tags: Babel, Background stories, Euro 2008, Holland, Oranje, Ruud, Sneijder, Van Marwijk, van Persie

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 41 comments.

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By white is right | July 4th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Our spanish talents and upcoming youngsters are more technically skilled than the dutch youth. The best midfielder in the world, Cesc is only 21, so too is Cazorla. Silva is 24, Torres is 24, Villa is 26. What about Sergio Ramos the best right back in the world?only 22. Casillas can play for another 12 years. Also we have great great talents like Bojan who is only 17..The future is very bright for us and frightening for opponents like you. Spain will win all the major trophies easily without breaking a sweat for the next 8 years or so..Holland is good but i wont be surprised if they wont qualify for the 2010 world cup. Robben is injury prone and is not consistent. Sneijder sucks in big matches. The rest are just ordinary, nothing special. RVN is almost finished. Van Der Saar definately cant keep on repeating the same standards, he is 38.And you dont have ready made replacements, the likes of Drenthe are ordinary, very ordinary.
If Holland meets spain in the near future, 3-0 will be a easy result to predict in favour of Spain.we are going to win everything for the next decade.
Campeones!Campeones!!!

Posted from Spain

By white is right | July 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

Caleb, mi amigo, Holland got very lucky against italy who were caught out with your counter attacks. It is not that Holland dominated Italy , but when we played the boring, defensive Italians, we dominated them to the utmost and we were very unlucky not to win the regular time by atleast 4 goals. We hammered Russia 7-1 overall( two matches9 but you guys lost 3-1 to the russians, it could have been Russia 6-holland 0 that day.

Posted from Spain

By Jess | July 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

I just think it’s sad other countries fans can’t comment on their own blog how great they are….you may have won the cup Spain(congrats by the way) but WE have the best blog ever!! Hup Jan Hup!!

By white is right | July 4th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

Jess, please dont misunderstand me, i mean wegive all the credit to the dutch but we spanish richly deserved this success after a long long time. Now , we do have a great bragging right, dont we?After all, we are officially the no .1 team in the world much ahead of you dutch. Arguments are made not to deride or mock one another but in a constructive way. Facts are facts. We spanish rule the world now and the future looks bright for us, we will win everything in the future with this wonderful squad.
Thanks

Posted from Spain

By finnster01 | July 4th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

What do you know about Dutch youth?

Posted from United States

By white is right | July 4th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

err..Finnster, may i redirect that question for you?what do you know about the Dutch youth? i mean you are an American and it is very funny when you ask me that question. Real Madrid is my team and if you did not know, we have a few dutch players in our squad, infact important players of your current squad. Also, i do know about the undeserved Dutch win in the recent u-21 European cup. For me, England or Serbia were miles ahead of the dutch in that tournament and only because of the referee bias and dreadful decisions which went against dutch opposition, the Dutch managed to win. By the way, Royston Drenthe , your brightest prospect arrived with a bang in Madrid and has done very poorly in the season.

Posted from Spain

By Bruce | July 4th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

white is right - he is just a dickhead!

Posted from United Kingdom

By Bruce | July 4th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

white is right or what other name he changes too - ha, you are very childish, i like your ass, because it smells , can i lick it? although your ass already being fucked everyday

Posted from United Kingdom

By white is right | July 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

err..Bruce..tx but no tx for ur very indecent proposal. I can very well understand your eh..strange interests , after all you come from the same land of George Michael, Elton John, Ashley Cole, Stephen Norris..errr..i hail from the land of matadors, straight ones at that

Posted from Spain

By bunchapooha | July 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

“By the way, Royston Drenthe , your brightest prospect arrived with a bang in Madrid and has done very poorly in the season.”

Shows how much you know.. lol

move along porky, there’s nothing to see here.

Posted from Netherlands

By dirk v.d.berg | July 4th, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I just read some shocking news. Apparently tomorrow is the freekickmasters, which is a free kick competition where the winner gets 1 million dollars. As good as this may seem, there are no, I repeat NO selected for the competition. Names like Shen Si, and Brad Davis show up, but no Wesley Sneijder, or Robin van Persie. Apparently Orlando Engelaar did well at it in 2004. Who knew?

@All the spainish guys, I’d say our dutch prospects are a lot better than any Spanish ones. You guys have players like Torres, Silva and Fabregas who perform at club level, but not really at international, and players like Villa who perform only at international.

How can one say that Fabregas, who has 1 international goal, is better than our Wesley Sneijder, who’s scored a lot more. Is Torres really better than van Nistelrooij, who was top scorer in Spain last year, when Torres played there. I’d argue that van Persie is better than David Villa, as van Persie can actually play well for his club. Then theres Robben who one could argue is better than Silva, and I would, as he is quicker, and scores and sets up more goals.

As for youth, we came third in the 2005 U-17 world cup, so I’ll be expecting those players like Goossens, and Sarpong to start showing up soon, where as ur 2007 u-17 runners up will have to wait a while longer, although it was really only Krkic.

Posted from Canada

By Jan | July 4th, 2008 at 11:29 pm

Interesting how Spain was unlucky against Italy and had to decide on penalties and luck at the same time helped Oranje win against Italy.

Luck. Bad luck.

It’s easy to give “luck” the blame for everything.

Let me say this:

1. I am a big fan of Spanish football and the Spanish team (and clubs like Real Madrid, Getafe, Barca…) and I am happy for Spain to have won this.
2. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest with the Spanish fans and I respect them a lot.
3. But…Toni had 35 opportunities to score goals this tournament and didn’t. Is that bad luck?
4. Being able to play counter football is a strength. We - Dutch fans - are happy that our boys know how to do this.
5. Scoring the first goal in a match is underrated in importance. When Spain was 1-0 up in the group match against Russia, the Russians hit the post, remember? How would that game had gone if the Russians had equalized?
6. Similarly, Ruud van Gol could have scored the first for us against Russia. Again, how would the game have progressed after that?
7. But that’s football. Sometimes, one nano-second or one inch determines a result.
8. Fabregas was off side scoring the fourth Spanish goal vs Russia

I won’t go into the Sneijder and Van Nistelrooy remarks by white is right (what kind of alias is that anyway??). Sticks and stones, my friend

I think Spain did well and they deserved the win this time around.

By goose | July 5th, 2008 at 4:22 am

guess the guy misspelled i reckon it should be ‘Barry White is right’!

Posted from Netherlands

By Dr.Mansur | July 5th, 2008 at 7:15 am

Spain will not win anything again, they’ve allowed their “great” coach to join Fenerbache.And btw Spain is not world champs, they r just the European champs( well deserved one, but their fans r too euphoric to have the minimal respect for other countries).These arrogant footballpsychos whashisnameis is not wellcome in our devine pristine blog.

Posted from Australia

By Dr.Mansur | July 5th, 2008 at 7:15 am

Posted from Australia

By Caleb | July 5th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Guys, I think it’s just another appearance of that trolling jackass who was here during the EC.. remember the guy with no education and royal blood? Anyone with the name white is right is just asking for everything that he says to be ignored… which I will do right now. So long, dumb ass.

By Alex | July 6th, 2008 at 6:30 am

i’m still wondering what Spanish fans are doing here, maybe they feel the need to compensate something by repeatedly saying how good their team is and how much they deserved to win the EC. I don’t think they have to become cocky now, it could have ended against Italy for them. besides that i’m not sure that their future coaches will be as able to create a real team capable of winning, just because you won a tournament, it doesn’t mean you’re going to win everything. And on top of that, the Spanish haven’t exactly performed well on tournaments the last 10 years so a bit of modesty wouldn’t be to bad. For all we know it could take them 40 years more before they win anything else. Hell even their first EC title doesn’t mean sh*t, in that time national squads didn’t mean anything for Spain, everything was about Real Madrid, Barcelona or any other club, and you had to win like 2 games to be champions. Well i think i’ve expressed my frustrations more than enough.
Let’s talk about our future, i think we might just get lucky in the near future, with players like Stekelenburg, Heitinga, Boulahrouz, Bouma, De Jong, Sneijder, V.d.Vaart, Robben, V.Persie, Huntelaar, V.Nistelrooij, Babel, Kuyt, Vennegoor, Engelaar, V.Bommel and Seedorf we’ll have quite a group of players with international experience, add to that a bunch out of our sh*tload of talented players and you have a strong, talented selection with experience and hunger for success. Who knows, just look at it like gambling, if you play a game(in this case tournaments) often enough you’re bound to win eventually. If were lucky their won’t be more than 22 years in between our wins.

Posted from Netherlands

By bobotoh | July 7th, 2008 at 12:35 am

The Spanish fans, let them do it. After years of humiliation, now they can win something. We will see what will happen in the WC 2010. I hope that they will suffer like France in 2002. Their coach has gone.

Holland blog is the best blog in this site. Hup Jan Hup!

Posted from Indonesia

By azzurro | July 7th, 2008 at 3:16 am

Dear spanish and dear oranges fans and even dear all soccer fans
I think the future will be the same as in the past 50 years where on top of world you will continue find always the same teams (Brazil, Italy, Germany and Argentina).
Yes Spain won Euro 2008 and so what? even Danmark and even Grecee won this championship but where are they today?

Posted from United States

By Jan | July 7th, 2008 at 3:38 am

Winning prizes isn’t everything to me. Otherwise I would find sympathy in my heart for Germany… I like great football. The Dutch played great football. Brazil has… Argentina too. Spain this time around. Greece didn’t. Italy hasn’t that much. Germany…I can’t remember an exciting tournament win coupled with good football from them.

I’d rather have Oranje (and other nations) play mouthwatering football and maybe losing out on penalties or on some off day or a ref’s mistake than have my team play crap boring destructive football and win prizes (this is not referring to any particular nation but is just an exaggerated example)

By finnster01 | July 7th, 2008 at 6:04 am

Speaking of playing great football, I think Denmark in 1986 deserves favorable mention as well. Laudrup, Elkjaer, Jesper Olsen (the backpass that killed a career…), Morten Olsen… I still remember that 6-1 win over a deranged Uruguay team that had no intention to play football on the day but rugby instead.

By Jan | July 7th, 2008 at 6:18 am

Fully agree Finn. They were a great unit. Jan Molby…

By Alex | July 7th, 2008 at 11:08 am

I always like to see, teams playing amazing football win a tournament, funny how the teams that play the best football are usually or often the same, Brazil, Argentina, Netherlands, Portugal, France…..
Don’t know if i should mention Spain, and England, the English style of play doesn’t seem that attractive to me but i’m not that old sow i might have missed some killer Spanish and English teams in the past.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jan | July 7th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

In my memory, Spain always lacked something. Sometimes a mediocre goalie, then they couldn’t find a striker who could score, etc etc. I presume there has been some infighting between Real and Barca players… I remember Barca coach Johan Cruyff’s fights with the Spain team manager for not picking more Barca players, etc etc.

I always like the English team. The 1990 squad, the 1996 squad… I just like the English mentality. Receiving knocks but without whining, tough but fair.

By --HedonistiX | July 7th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

@finn/Jan,

That Danish Dynamite team in 1986 was great, for one or two matches, until they got blown up by whom, I forgot, maybe Spain by 5-1. Actually the Danish team that won 1992 was legit, they played attractive attacking football and it was fate that brought them to the tourney replacing Yugoslavia …. unfortunately they also beat our team on the way.

With that said, I also want to see some results, not only playing attractive football. Brazil 1982, 1986 did that and did not go anywhere. Brazil 1994 and 2002 were not that attractive but they did lift the trophy. Don’t even get me started about Germany …. 1990 was probably the worst World Cup Final and 1986 when they lost to Argentina was not any better.

Yes, it is nice to be Oranje fans, we’re guaranteed positive and attacking football but unfortunately, we’re also guaranteed heartbreaking result. It would be nice if this can change. I thought we really deserved to win World Cup 1998 when we played both attractive and actually was getting results by beating Argentina ….. until that penalty loss. Ditto EURO 2000 …. you gotta be serious missing 3 penalties in 1 match? Ditto EURO 2008 …. urgh, enough said. Yes, I am still a bit depressed by our loss.

–H

Posted from United States

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