Willem: start with Robin and Boulah!

not too convinced by willem… if robin is not 100 % fit,he shouldn’t play against the world champion. boulah? no way. he hasn’t play any game sincs november.
sure,our defenders play in top leagues but not in the best team of these leagues. let’s face the reality: ooijer in blackburn rovers (10th, 8th in the pl?), melchiot in wigan athletics (15th,16th?) and bouma in aston villa which is a good team. not top but good. hamburg? i don’t consider the bundesliga as a top league – definitely not england,spain or italy. gio played at barca and he was good there but he’s 33 and is no more there. boulah? sevilla is ok,but even when he’s not injured he’s not in the starting 11. why? because he’s not good enough. we all love him because he was great against crying baby ronaldo,but shouldn’t forget for example barca-chelsea in october 06 when he had to play against ronaldinho and was ridiculised. etc,etc.
he’s right that sneijder and vdv can play together but the rest of his analysis…

Posted from  Hungary

I am not to convinced by Willem either.

@Ferenc: he has played since November – he played about 5 or 6 Arsenal games at the end of the season. The only problem is that it took him about 4 games to find his rhythm! Which is why van Hanegem is wrong! In the first games he played when he game back he missed some easy opportunities which he normally would’ve buried. Also a lot of balls skied way over the net. Not your usual lethal RvP stuff.

And don’t accuse me of being a pessimist or an RvP hater. RvP is actually my favourite player… just being realistic here. Anyway, I hope I’m wrong!

Posted from  United Kingdom

I agree with clockwork about RVP, but I don’t think he was fully fit. I’d rather he be used as a substitute unless he looks super sharp in training.
A fully fit RVP would be much better than Vaart though.

Starting Boulah? Ridiculous! Although, a lot that went wrong for him at Chelsea was due to being thrown in at the deep end and played out of position.

The comment about clubs is fair enough. Okay, they’re not the top clubs, but these defenders deal with players just as good as the guys they’ll meet in the Euros, and do a decent job. There’s no reason to suspect they’ll fall apart. Wigan’s defence has been quality all season and been a thorn in many big sides, Villa are pretty good anyway, and Bouma’s the most popular defender there and had the season of his life, Ooijer Premiership. Basically, the defence is not dazzling but perfectly capable. It’s just a shame Van Basten’s innevitably going to play Mathijsen

Posted from  Japan

I think we have found a new star here: Orlando Engelaar. As I have previousley explained that Holland need a player like Frank Rijkaard in order to be successful in this tournament. I think Engelaar has the same quality to Rijkaard. If not the same, then it is very close….

Don’t field RvP if he is not fit. Holland still has Sneijder, Robben, and VdV . Not to mention Ruud van Nistelrooy!

Don’t worry, be happy!

Posted from  Indonesia

I can imagine your thoughts on Willem’s column. Still, with Robin the difference between his first games after returning from injury with Arsenal is exactly that. He was months out, came back in a period of major pressure and failed to settle in. In this case, he does have some matches under his belt and I don’t believe he actually is injured at the moment. Not seriously. I believe Marco trusts that Robin, with his instincts, doesn’t need to train with the ball and the team. He wants Robin to be fighting fit for Italy instead of having him train with the team and maybe get a little injury again.

If Robin can play with the team this week (is what Willem implied as well), then Bassie should consider playing him.

Bobo, I like the Engelaar – Rijkaard comparison! I agree.

Posted from  Australia

I believe Marco will start Robin only if he is doing very well on training, I don’t think Marco will bench Robben, Sneijder or VdV if Robin is not match fit so we don’t have to worry. Marco will see Robin’s development and decide according to it.

I’ve seen Melchiot and Bouma play against the top teams in the premier league and they always played very well with authority over top forwards. They should both start in my opinion, Heitinga has played two major tournaments with Holland and has never made any mistakes so we must trust him. Gio is a very experienced player and knows how to play this tournaments. Mathijsen, Ooijer, Bouma, Gio, Heitinga have all played in major tournaments for Holland as starters so I really think there’s not that much trouble with defense!!!.

Melchiot, Bouma, Heitinga, Gio.

I was going to say the same thing about van Persie. When he came back for Arsenal mid season he painfully showed that he was off the pace and needed time to get back up to speed.

Posted from  Canada

Friends!
Basten will not start Persie. surely start Vaart, robben, Ruud, Sneijder Quadro: The only other alternative he trying to adopt other than 4:2:3:1
is 3:3:3:1, that didn’t go well still. De jong and De zeeuw failed to satisfy the solution.
May be..
Ooijer, Heitinga, Bouma
Afelly, Engelaar, Bronkorst
Vaart, Snijder, robben
Ruud
would work

Posted from  Australia

yeah robin was terrible when he first came back for arsenal, much to my chagrin. although he was doing better by the end of the season, he still wasn’t in the kind of form that he was in at the start of the season. i personally feel that he’ll need some match time before he’s back to his usual brilliant self. so i see him as the first sub in the italy game. my fav lineup vs italy:
————van der Sar————
Melchiot—Heitinga—Bouma—de Cler
—–Engelaar—-van Bronckhorst—–
Sneijder—van der Vaart—Robben—-
————van Nistelrooij———-

de zeeuw hasn’t played well in the recent friendlies, plus de cler is a better left back than gio in my opinion. bouma has been excellent this year and that alone should give him a starting spot, never mind that mathijsen has been crap in the past couple of months. vaart and sneijder can play together and combined nicely on a number of occasions in the games where they have played together…the rest is self evident.

one more thing, i’m a Heitinga fan and i think it was MR who mentioned that he’s already been with oranje to two major tournaments without making a mistake but i have to disagree there. in the ec2004 (playing right full back) he was more worried about attacking then defending and took a few cautions for some pretty rash tackles (there may even have been a red card or suspension in there somewhere). however i feel that he’s improved vastly since then and should be solid for us this time around.

Posted from  Canada

10 reasons why the english should support us dutch

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/euro2008/article-1023898/GO-TEAM-HOLLAND-10-reasons-wont-passing-Dutchies-left-hand-side.html

Posted from  Netherlands

i don’t care about the italy game, a win against romania and france is a must.
@ Igor, i agree.

Posted from  United States

I do like to play darts

Posted from  Canada

I would start Robin every time. The comments about his performances for Arsenal after coming back are not quite correct. Apart from when he was suffering a recurrence of the thigh injury he was performing really solidly. …scoring a penalty, making very incisive passes, tackling back etc. His crosses into the box are the best I have ever seen… whipped in fast, curling inwards etc, with the right forwards in the box Netherlands will be deadly with this guy playing. RvP has added so much more to his game at Arsenal and has become a real team player. Van Basten is being very cautious with Robin’s fitness but he knows he is world class.

I sort of agree with Frank here – RvP was very shaky in his first few matches back, but started to look his old self. If he’s fit, I think he offers more than Vaart has in the last few games.

Posted from  Japan

Here’s an article from the BBC on the new breed of Dutch football: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2008/netherlands/7415457.stm
They have the worst researched starting eleven I’ve seen yet, not even getting the formation right. Who pays these people?!

Posted from  Japan

Personally I am one of those who believes that with a fit and healthy Robin we have chance to win it all; without it will be very tricky.
One player does not make a team but this guy healthy can add that little bit that could put the whole thing within reach.
So do you play him against Italy? To me if you don’t start him you at least give him some minutes. With that he would probably be ready to start against France and Roemenie

The Italy game will be the toughest game of the three; an opponent that has pretty well always found a way to beat us.
I have way to many Italian friends; we need to win this…

Rob – did we read the same article “Dutch substance over style”? I didn’t see any starting eleven on there, except for the 1974 and 1988 finals starting elevens… and I hope you weren’t talking about those ones

Posted from  Canada