Douglas, potentially a world class defender

@Goose: I get your point. Somehow, I too would be more comfortable if the Dutch team were composed of players born and brought up in Holland (of course, their ethnicities do not matter.)

Perhaps losing to Sweden is a good thing. We have to see if VBM shake things up a bit, calling new players or moving players around. We definitely missing central defender who pass well, like Haan, F. De Boer, Koeman or Rijkaard. Converting midfielder work sometimes as in the case of Haan and Rijkaard. Perhaps Strootman is a good candidate( Van Bommel is too old and slow for a central D). I’d like to see BVM can call Douglas so I can see how he plays in a national team.

nice work Jan! With Brasil being one of our rivals, I understand there may be conflicts of interest but if one remains professional, i don’t see this becoming a problem. i think he deserves a chance to play for Oranje and we’ll see how he performs…

Posted from  Australia

Carlos,

with all due respect but the best left-side defender in WC 1974 was Ruud Krol, a right-footer

I think we can leave to BvM the details who to convert and where to place him.

But the general point I want to make is this: with so much talent in mid-forward we can have two teams equally successful in the front. Do we need that?
Can we take a couple of players and make them defenders? Just better allocation of resources is all I am saying.

Just imagine Pique being Dutch. We would march to EC2012 and WC2014 *hands down*

Demi – with further respect …Some of the best left full backs in the world have been right footed – Maldini for example. It’s just a simple fact that only 15% of the population is left footed. So often, right footed people can easily convert Phil Neville, Nigel de Jong, Reiziger have all played left back. Natural left footed players very seldom use their right foot. Can you name me one top right back that was left footed? Don’t think so because the choice for a good right foot back is immense. Not so for Left footers !

Posted from  Singapore

In that case, convert strootman as a left wing back, competing with pieters. I don’t really want to see brafheid with orange.

Posted from  Australia

Maybe it would be good to put Nigel de Jong on the right back position,he played there few times…He could make the defence better,and then you can have more attacking midfield.

Euro 2012 1st Team if everone is fit should be

Krul
Wiel
Mathijsen
Douglas
Pieters
Bommel
Vaart
Robben
Sneijder
Afellay
Huntelaar

Posted from  Bosnia And Herzegovina

@goose
just curious how you would view someone like me in the national team (Dutch father, Korean mother, Dutch passport since birth but grew up mostly in Australia)?

Posted from  United Kingdom

haha u wud be called up by north korea! so knvb wudnt have to make a decision

Posted from  Bosnia And Herzegovina

if you bleed orange, you can play for oranje.

Guys, another Dutch team in the finals of a World Cup!

The Dutch baseball team beat Cuba, 4-1 and can lose their last game and still plays for gold. Cuba could be our opponent in the finals. We already beat the reigning champs and the olympic title holders!

What a joy! I played competitive baseball in the 1970s and it was nothing compared to now. I never expected Holland to win the World Cup ( in baseball that is….)

I would start RVP out wide left, he and Robben can flip back and forth on the wings, causing confusion and wreaking havouc with defenders. Afellay and Kuyt could be used as super sub attackers.

I would like to experiment with Vaart lining up next to MVB. I do like NJD and would bring him into the starting eleven to replace either if things go wonky.

Mathijsen, Douglas and Heitinga are interesting in the centre back position. If Johnny continues to struggle to get playing time in that position with The Toffees then its a mute point, Douglas gets the nod with Heitinga coming off the bench (where he can play RB, CB and DM).

Huntelaar could score a boatload of goals at the EC!

@Jan – can it really be the world cup of baseball if the best players in the world are still playing in the MLB playoffs? Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but the real test is the World Baseball Classic played in the spring every few years.

Sorry OranjeRules that is not true. The MLB players are lame cry-babies who are all spoilt because their mummies didn’t breast fed them!!

HOLLAND RULES!!! IN BASEBALL!!!!

SSSSTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEE!!!

>Can you name me one top right back that was left footed? Don’t think so because the choice for a good right foot back is immense.

agreed. the reason you don’t see left footers playing right back is not because they can’t. it’s because no one will sacrifice a great left footer to play on the right. But …

>the choice for a good right foot back is immense.

except in the Oranje !!!!!

Petrovic,

most holding DMs like DeJong can easily play RB or LB. Heitinga has covered both positions. Issue is that the DM position is a lot more demanding so maybe DeJong has more value there. Unless you want to play something like:

DeJong-Douglas-Joris-Pieters
vBommel – Strootman

Not bad….Not bad at all. I hope someone listens cause we can’t win with the composition we have played the last few games…

Demi,yes,that was the idea.

Petrovic,

this is a good idea. And it does not involve too much changes, so for EC2012 we could be perfectly ready.

But, how different will be the style of play than WC2010? Not much in my opinion. So the same issues will come up.

JC will crucify vMarwijk, the papers will complain why Bert took us to the final without playing beautifully, etc etc…

Bert is realistic, the media is not. Unless we start moving talent to the defense, we will not be able to play like Spain. So what? is my answer. I am perfectly happy. The question of playing pretty and winning trophies is for Brazil who has already won 5 WC. Let’s bring our first one back home and then we decide if we want to improve the looks…

We just need to decide what we want. The silver home or nice eulogies about how beatifully we played and how sorry the world is cause we lost…

BTW – De Guzman was raised in Canada, and his older brother plays for Canada and Toronto FC.

On Douglas, if he feels Oranje let him play Oranje. You know women tend to do that, don’t you?

Of course we would hope he’d change his last name to van Douglas or Van der Douglas, or de Douglas.

Lastly, it’s almost impossible to guess who’ll be on fire next summer and definitely 3 years in hence in the next WK. BvM clearly has a system and it’s worked so far pretty well.

Last note – after conceding 3 goals against Hungary and 3 against Sweden – any more questions why BvM played 2 holding mid-fielders in the WK?

Posted from  United States

@ajacied;; i would have no problem with that, since 1 of your parents is dutch and you hold a dutch passport since birth

Posted from  Netherlands

on the previous discussion about first 23 lineup for euro, I only propose only 6 defenders (wiel, pieters, bruma, mathijsen, heitinga and maduro/ douglass) who deserve in the 23 list, because we have better quality of midfielders that we can and have to convert them accordingly.

Demi, when I say the Holland team of WC98-EC2000 is my favourite, I mean favourite in living memory. I am 26 and I did not have pleasure to see the class of 74-78. I have seen clips and the odd replay and all of what I have read/have been told about them lives me with an amazing impression of what they achieved but I cannot judge something I myself have not seen with my own eyes. Hence the WC98-EC2000 is my personal favoruite

My future hope for techinacally gifted centre back is D Blind. But if this is to happen I feel he needs to be part of successful Ajax team. They’re going through a tough patch at the momment but if they can overcome (unlike previous years) it can only add to their strengh as a team!

Posted from  United Kingdom

Hi Lucas,

the WC98 team was one of the greatest. But just like every great Oranje squad it suffered from some kind of bad luck curse. Ronaldo decided to play the game of his life against us in the semi. And then he fumbled badly in the final. I asked God, why ? Why not the other way around?

The WC78 team was even more unlucky. That final should have ended with, I don’t know, 4-1 or 5-1 for the Oranje. Every time we prepare a special Oranje squad there is some bad luck curse spelled upon us. Seriously, it feels like Netherlands versus The World!

Having seen Oranje squads since the 70s, I can also tell you the WC2010 is real “steel”. Amazing team, very different than what we are used to but great nonetheless. The reversal of the Brazil game is just amazing. Just like the save Stekel pulled off to the Kaka shot in the first half. The best save of the 21st century, period.

So, if you trust my almost 40 year experience watching the Oranje, we have real greatness now and an excellent chance to bring back both WC2014 and WC2018. The question is why do we want to pull out our own eyes ourselves? Why DeJong is benched? Why the pressure to play “jogo bonito”? We are an amazing team. And we play different now. Trust me, I have seen it all with the Oranje and the current team is awesome but in a different way. Just let them do their thing. Bert, please please please: Don’t cave in the press. Don’t listen to them. If it is not broken don’t fix it !

Have a nice weekend.

just let him play…