FC Utrecht like Barcelona

January 25th, 2011 | by: Jan |

utreg

Sol challenged me to write about De Graafschap, after they’d beaten Feyenoord. Fair question. I did write the Feyenoord piece before they lost, so I didn’t know… I’m happy to write more about other teams although the interest of most punters here will be for Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV, I suppose….

But, with Utrecht beating Ajax (again) I felt I should share this Chris van Nijnatten column with you .

FC Utrecht has been Ajax’ angstgegner for quite some time. Ajax is the club of the well dressed and perfumed pretty boys while Utreg was always the team with lesser talented but harder working and tougher lads. Remember, Ajax hunted many Utrecht-talents away from the Dome City and the ones that didn’t make it to Ajax ( and therefore play in FC Utrecht) have always demonstrated tremendous motivation to hurt the moviestars. Players like Van Basten, Vanenburg and recently Sneijder are from Utrecht, while Jan Wouters, Jan van Halst, Robbie Alflen, Alfons Groenendijk, Rob de Wit and Mark Verkuyl made the move to Ajax as senior players.

Over the years, Utrecht has beaten Ajax many times and last weekend Ajax lost again. Deservedly so.

And whenever Ajax loses, that fact claims all the attention the next day. Frank de Boer is not a miracle worker. Ajax does miss Suarez and El Hamdaoui. And Martin Jol lights another cigar.

But let’s focus on FC Utrecht for a bit. Kevin Strootman, for instance. Made his debut for Utrecht and the ex-Sparta midfielder was Man of the Match in his debut game, which doesn’t happen too often. And not just that: he was an example for his mates and actually for every player in the Eredivisie.
stroot
Kevin Strootman, Man of the Match

Strootman demonstrated what it is you need to bring as a basic skill. Before you even have the ball and therefore before you can start to play. Strootman, along with his other midfielders and attackers at Utrecht, didn’t allow their opponents one little moment of respite.

Whenever Ajax had possession they were hunted down in packs and only when it was 3-0 did Utrecht take the foot off the gas. You don’t need to be brilliant or in great form if that’s your gameplan. But it’s highly effective if a number of players in your team have speed and a bit of skill.

It reminded me of Barcelona. The technical skills in Camp Nou are a tad higher but the idea is similar. From second one, you put a knife on the opponent’s throat. Even in their box, if you need to. Wonderful to watch too, even if it fails.

I don’t want to be corny but shouldn’t Ajax and Feyenoord, our most important clubs, look more closely at that tactics? Or at Strootman? You don’t need to be a world class player. You need to be willing to give it your all and work for your team mates. That’s all, really. FC Utrecht is the new benchmark.

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 72 comments.

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By Finnster01 | January 26th, 2011 at 5:19 pm

Don’t forget Duvel either. Another great reason to invade that country

By Alex | January 26th, 2011 at 5:26 pm

No need to invade, its slowly breaking up on its own

Posted from Netherlands

By Eduardo | January 26th, 2011 at 6:38 pm

I think someone in this blog wrote a few months ago, when we was talking about the eternal topic (Kuyt vs RvP), that there was a young player who will make us forget Kuyt in the Orange, because this player use to play similar to Kuyt, but is better in skill and in defensive work.

If my memory is good, I think he mention Kevin Strootman, but I´m not sure.

You remember this post??

By Eduardo | January 26th, 2011 at 6:41 pm

were you Alex?

By Alex | January 26th, 2011 at 6:51 pm

I think…. I mentioned Jens Toornstra from ADO Den Haag I think that’s what you mean. He was great in that U-21 match vs Spain.

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | January 26th, 2011 at 6:51 pm

Though, I think Strootman qualifies for that too in a way xD

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | January 26th, 2011 at 9:31 pm

I meant Trochovski, not Tymoschuk (very late edit for comment on previous page). I always mix the 2 up.

Posted from Netherlands

By Jad | January 27th, 2011 at 4:42 am

Do you know guys that patrick kluivert and Ruud van nisterloy had been born on the same date : 1 July 1976

but RvN was late in action cause he continued his university studies ( Electronic engineering)

looking forward for Austria game, de jong is back in action,robben is rested, who will be starting RVP or JKH? ….. we will see.

By Carlos | January 27th, 2011 at 5:52 am

Jad Yes we ALL know that fact – been written here many times too – but keep them coming – a few originals will soon emerge

Posted from Singapore

By goose | January 27th, 2011 at 7:07 am

vdSar quits after his season so strange; i never liked him altough i do think he is a very good goalie

Posted from Netherlands

By Petrovic | January 27th, 2011 at 7:10 am

Looks like De Guzman is not even close to getting a call up. Van Marwijk said that Siem de Jong,Dost,
and Beerens were close,but he didnt mention De Guzman..

Also,I red an interesting thing this morning on a Croatian portal that the player of the year award was false,and that FIFA falsificated it.. They didnt count all the votes. But,nothing can be done about that I guess…

By Jad | January 27th, 2011 at 7:25 am

@goose he is 41 years, its time for change.

By Alex | January 27th, 2011 at 7:37 am

@ Petrovic, thats cause he was talking about his choice to include 2 fairly inexperienced talents from Eredivisie into the preliminary squad, therefore he mentioned also being quite charmed by those players, who are also talents in Eredivisie, but this time chose to pick these 2. Sort of a justification to include them.
He has mentioned Drenthe and De Guzman before as possible call-ups because they were/are doing quite well in Primera Division.
But I think he’s trying to make talents in Eredivisie feel that they’re not being looked over just because they play in Eredivisie. I think hes trying to get them to stay in Eredivisie for longer by showing others that play in Spain dont immidiately get picked over them because they play in that competition.

Posted from Netherlands

By goose | January 27th, 2011 at 8:37 am

do any of you really think that deGuzman is Oranje material?? that would surprise me..

Posted from Netherlands

By eric | January 27th, 2011 at 9:10 am

I’d take De Guzman and Brama over De Zeeuw or Schaars, in a heartbeat! Both Demy and Stijn have ~40 international caps between the two of them, but I can’t recall a single game where they really shined and dominated. Well, OK.. maybe one or two games under Van Basten era but that seems to be long time ago. They’re both valuable player at Eredivisie level, useful borderline players for Oranje. Unfortunately they have peaked and will not improved much, if at all.

I would rather give their spots to the youngsters. Wout Brama is 2-3 years younger than them. He owns Twente’s midfield very well, and has international experience at Champs League. He should be given more chances at Oranje. De Guzman has nice tools at his disposal to become a solid midfielder in the future, and he is only 23. He’s proven than he can handle the pressure playing at a more competitive, faster-paced league in his very first year. He should be further stretched and tested as well.

Posted from United States

By Petrovic | January 27th, 2011 at 9:28 am

Goose,he is more Oranje material than Schaars and De Zeeuw.

By Eduardo | January 27th, 2011 at 10:09 am

Eric 200% agree with you. Bring new young talents to Orange!!!!!!

By Eduardo | January 27th, 2011 at 10:34 am

100% sorry

By Eduardo | January 27th, 2011 at 10:36 am

LOL, Alex, I confused Jens Toornstra with Strootman…

similar names to me, a spanish speaking.

I hope to see the new (and better)Kuyt !!

By Miguel Rosado | January 27th, 2011 at 11:35 am

Edwin retires he was a great goalie.

Some might disagree but I loved his style and confidence when passing the ball with his feet he was a 5th defender.

By Miguel Rosado | January 27th, 2011 at 11:43 am

I think this season has become interesting!

1) Milan will be a real contender for the UCL with Mark and Urby.
2) Arsenal has most of his players fit for the Barca game (Robin)!!!.
3) Afellay is with Barcelona! and is winning Guardiola’s confidence.
4) Arjen is back!
5) Tottenham is doing great with Vaart…let’s see what they can achieve

By Sol | January 28th, 2011 at 1:31 am

“3) Afellay is with Barcelona! and is winning Guardiola’s confidence.”

And how exactly is he doing that again? By sitting on the bench for the last couple of games? Or by losing the first game he’s allowed to start?

We won’t see much of Affelay for a while, I think most of us realized that as soon as we saw he was moving to Barca, at least I realized it. I also still suspect we might see him flop there, and be sold or loaned out sometime next season. He is only marginally better than Drenthe, and not as good as Sneijder or VDV, if the latter 2 didn’t even make it (OK, that was Madrid), who are we to think that Affelay is suddenly going to rock the boat at Barca? Just not gonna happen.

Allthough I still sort of like the fact that he’s there, learning from the best.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | January 28th, 2011 at 1:39 am

And the fact he was taken off when Barca was losing (the game he started) shows that Guardiola’s solution for not losing a game is not using Affelay. Not a particularly good sign. You wanna have it the other way around, that Guardiola puts or leaves him on when Barca is trailing, then you know for sure the coach has confidence in his abilities to contribute something positive to Barca.

Right now, he’s either the scapegoat or Guardiola hasn’t come to trust his abilities yet. At least not enough for him to rely on Affelay.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | January 28th, 2011 at 1:45 am

So far, I don’t have all that much faith in Affelay’s ability to earn himself a starting spot there. The only way in my eyes he’s going to earn that there is for others to drop out with injuries or leaving the club.

I also think PSV – Barca was a rather big step, perhaps too big for the likes of Affelay, but since he really broke through for Oranje, he might have a small chance to make it at Barca. He’s still thrown right into the deep water having to learn to swim quickly. Still too early to tell how it’s going to turn out probably. But the above are all my suspicions/feelings about it.

Posted from Netherlands

By Sol | January 28th, 2011 at 2:00 am

Hell, even the training sessions are probably giving him more experience than the 10 minutes he gets to play against mid- and lowlevel teams when Barca has already won the game. But I guess you have to start somewhere.

Posted from Netherlands

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