Olympics and other news

Back from the Big Smoke. Sydney was busy, smoggy, cold-ish and like any city :-).

Been there, done that.

Back to the pitch :-).

Lots of wonderful news indeed. And not so wonderful… Ruud retiring as international is a bit of a shock. He definitely was the beesknees during the EC, but Van Gol must feel his body and maybe wants to focus a tad more on his family. I’ll see if I can find some sound bites on this case.

Van Bommel back is expected and maybe it’s a good thing. But then again, maybe it’s not. However, with Sneijder out for some time, you just can’t be too picky these days eh?

Marc Overmars back on the pitch is quite something. The 35 year old former Ajax, Arsenal, Barca and Oranje star is top fit. He did stop because of his knee injury but he was still involved - in several roles: sponsor, technical consultant - at Go Ahead and after the Stam-tribute the Go Ahead coach (for the love of God, can’t reproduce his name) joked that he wanted Marc back on the pitch. Some days later, Marc called him and said: let’s do it… :-).

Can we still use a good pinch hitter in Oranje???

Amrabat is doing well at PSV. I think his wondergoal against Everton will be shown on YouTube soon!

Ajax is doing well in the warm up, it seems Van Basten is making progress with getting his team together. At Feyenoord, the keeper Henk Timmer is the best man on the pitch, which normally is not good news. Tomassen isn’t 100% fit and Roy Makaay is in China, as is De Guzman, so Verbeek won’t be too happy as yet.

Van der Vaart’s move to Madrid is great! I always felt Raf was one of the best players coming out of Holland (partly) for a long time but his tenure at Ajax was a bit rocky so when he left for Germany I was worried. But seeing how he looks and plays (and how he was feted after his goal) shows me he is finally where he belongs. Good stuff!

And then now the Olympics!! Success coach Foppe de Haan has left his lucky streak in Holland it seems. After two disappointing draws, Holland needs some luck - it seems at least - to qualify.

Gerald Sibon was heralded before the games as “a real leader” but after some lacklustre performances and with Babel in good shape, De Haan subbed the Heerenveen striker and some bad blood between De Haan and Sibon surfaced. But, as was commented earlier by Bob, when Sibon came on against the USA, he finally showed why De Haan called him a leader. With only ten seconds to go and the assistant coach texting the staff at the hotel to pack the suitcases, the former Ajax-man saved the day with a blistering free-kick. Sibon: “I can shoot really hard, but my precision is terrible. I know that when I’m lucky and the ball is on target, not many goalies can stop the ball. I decided to give it a go.”

In the half time break, Sibon got a tip from the stands. “Some bloke yelled: can’t you do any better? I turned around and said: thanks mate, I’ll tell the boys in the dressing room, hahahahaaa….”.

De Haan: “I think that it’s clear that we weren’t able to prepare well enough. I can’t see any other reason for our disappointing results. We have very good players. We all know that. On training, I see great one-touch football, but in the games, we don’t seem to play as a team. In these circumstances, the ball needs to do the work. It’s too humid to keep on dribbling. But in the matches, I don’t see a team play, I see eleven individuals making wrong choices. Maybe we needed more time, but in today’s football it’s hard to gel a team together. Babel was injured, Drenthe was in Madrid, etc etc… The calender is full and our boys needed more preparation. But… I still have good hopes.”

Holland started good, with Emanuelson on the left as the secret weapon. After 20 minutes, the American coach made some tactical changes and Maduro and Urby had problems steering the team.
De Haan reacted very late moving Emanuelson up the park a bit, and when the injured Makaay was brought on with Sibon, it didn’t seem that Holland would be able to score. Ever. Until the 93rd minute.

De Haan: “We were very very lucky. The USA won every personal challenge, they seemed much fitter. Emanuelson told me after the match that he felt we are the weakest team physically. That’s a worry.”

I am not sure what will happen when Nigeria and the USA draw. They’ll have 5 points in that case and so will Oranje if we win against Japan. I don’t know the rules in that case. If either Nigeria or the USA loses and Oranje wins, we are through. Let’s hope for that scenario. I like to see the USA and Holland go through…

Argentina impressed against Australia, but the Olyroos weren’t too shabby either. Some of these youngster can surely play football! Italy impressed me even more. Having seen Italy plod along at the EC, I wondered why they didn’t play Casiraghi’s boys at the EC2008. They definitely have some wonderful young players, the Azzuri. Brazil outplayed New Zealand (yawn) and are through as well.

I haven’t seen Belgium or Germany play. Any comments on those squads?