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Fresh Oranje tries to dazzle in bleak Moldavia
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Oranje wants it’s reputation back! After a successful World Cup campaign, nationally and internationally the Oranje squad was blamed for playing dirty anti football. Obviously, if you analyse the results and the games, you know they actually didn’t. There was nothing dirty about the games vs Brazil and Uruguay, for instance, and that tag was placed upon Oranje due to the finals against Spain and more in particular the Nigel Karate Kick.
Ironic then, that Nigel de Jong wasn’t present in this third qualification game for the EC2012, in which Oranje clearly walked onto the pitch to use their creative streetsmarts and show the world and Spain who actually came up with fast pass-and-move combination football in the first place 
.
Unfortunately, not all the ingredients were there for the Dutch to actually make international headlines with a big score. Holland had to settle for 1-0 in a game that could have ended in 3-0 or 4-0.
Huntelaar did score his 22nd goal in 39 internationals. Quite a feat, in particular if you realize that Hunter has to make do with substitutions a lot. He’s not as elegant and skilled as Van Persie, the currently injured central striker of choice, but probably more lethal in the box.
“Klaas has been sharp this whole season,” said Van Marwijk, “but the whole squad is fit and hungry. We played very offensive, but like on the World Cup our organization was tight as well. We couldn’t do that against Finland last month and that gave us severe difficulties, back then.”
The ambiance was probably one factor why Oranje couldn’t translate the dazzle into goals. It was as if Oranje played in 1958 Moscow. A freezing cold wind blew into the Zimbru stadium and the chunky pitch deteriorated by the minute. Men with square jaws and Stalin moustaches yelled “Holland kaput” and soldiers in green uniforms couldn’t care less.
Holland was struggling with the impact of a long World Cup campaign and a full playing calendar. The season is only a couple of months old or the sick bay is already getting full with Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben, Eljero Elia, Theo Janssen, Vurnon Anita, Ron Vlaar en Hedwiges Maduro in it. Nigel de Jong was fit but was told by Van Marwijk to figure out a gameplay without dirty and clumsy tackles.
With Rafael van der Vaart next to Van Bommel Oranje’s game clearly benefited and added flair and the surprise element. The Spurs playmaker prepared the only goal in the 37th minute with a genius little foot movement.
The Schalke 04 striker rewarded his team for a number of good combination plays with either Van der Vaart or Sneijder in the lead role. Oranje had most of the possession but couldn’t effectively turn it into opportunities because Kuyt and Afellay weren’t able to penetrate on the flanks. The World Cup runner up dictated the game, but couldn’t convert the domination into goals.
The second and third reason for Oranje’s disappointing final score: Huntelaar ( and others) not effective enough when given the chance but mainly a tactics that kept on attempting to break down the opponent through the center. Kuyt, Afellay, Van der Vaart and Sneijder all want to follow the shortest route to the goal. The two flank players aren’t wingers, of course, so you’d hope and expect either Pieters and Van der Wiel to take care of business there or you’d hope for Van Marwijk to follow Van Basten and have him pick real wingers. Even if they haven’t demonstrated their skills at the highest level yet, players like Roy Beerends or…well….who really? Wijnaldum? Jozefzoon?
Goalie Namasco did need a tremendous reflex to stop Sneijder from scoring in the 51st minute. John Heitinga hit the cross bar with a header and Kuyt and Hunter missed surefire chances. The Moldavia players couldn’t pass Stekelenburg in the game, but one spectator did when he ran on the field. One of the 600 agents in the stadium brought him out. The man, not Stekelenburg.
Bert van Marwijk was happy with Oranje’s victory. “We played well and we controlled the game for 95%. We do have to look into the mirror why we only scored once. Tonight, we should have put this game away with 3-0 or 4-0. We missed too many opportunities and you always end up with these tight end phases in the game. We didn’t need that. However, compared to Finland, we did defend as a team. If we don’t, we’re vulnerable.”
Finn, we need a photo analysis here…
Asked about Rafael van der Vaart. “Rafael did very well on Nigel’s position. We played very attacking but still didn’t give a lot away. I can also see that Moldavia is not Brazil or Spain of course, but this does give me a lot of confidence, in particular now for the next game, Sweden.”
Timing is everything…
Maybe Manchester City is right if they say Van Marwijk used this situation to change De Jong for Van der Vaart.
Let’s recapitulate:
De Jong doesn’t offer a lot of football and Oranje’s build up hasn’t been good in the last years.
We do win games with De Jong but not in the “Dutch” style.
Van der Vaart is playing out of this world football at the moment and any coach would give up his left arm to be able to play Sneijder and Van der Vaart!
During the World Cup, anytime Van der Vaart came onto the pitch, he turned the game around ( sadly in the wrong direction against Spain… )
It’s time we utilize the strength of our players and structure our defense around that instead of using 6 defensive players and tell our men upfront to “sort it out”.
Timing was good. Against Moldavia, we didn’t need Nigel de Jong. Mark van Bommel, normally so industrious, was walking around in midfield with his hands in his pocket. If De Jong was there, Van Bommel could have planted his chair in the mid circle and smoke a cigar.
This game didn’t demonstrate what Oranje is like without De Jong. The Sweden game might.
De Jong wasn’t missed. A player who was missed but mentioned by no one is Arjen Robben. It’s his speed paired to creativity that lacked. Kuyt, Afellay, Van der Vaart, Sneijder ( and this applies to Janssen, Van Nistelrooy, De Zeeuw, Schaars)…all players who can do something with the ball at their feet. Robben ( and to a lesser extend Elia) are players that you can use in their movement. And play the ball in front of their feet, in other words. Use depth.
Without Robben or Robben-like players, Oranje is predictable and doesn’t look like a World Cup finalist.
It was almost as if Moldavia had buried a big magnet in the center of their box to attract all players ( maybe it’s that annoying arm band they all wear??) to that center spot. It’s relatively comfortable defending for the Moldavians. Much to crowded in the box and much to predictable.
We all know how it’s hard to win kudos against nations like Moldavia. If you need to do this without a virtuoso like Robben, you know that it’s almost impossible to satisfy your criticasters.
Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 83 comments.
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Toivonen is a bad statistician, I can tell you that. For every single match, each team has an equal 33 1/3 percent chance of coming away with a win. The other outcome possible is a draw, which is also a 33 1/3 percent. There is also a possibility a match is abandoned (and thus, no result recorded) if catastrophic incident occurs. But of course, such case is rare, and thus is negligible. I don’t know where Toivonen got 60%, maybe he pulled that number from his a$$, simply doesn’t make sense ..
Posted from 
United States
@Eric: And on top when was the last time Holland lost in a meaningful game at home?
How all that come to 60% chance of Sweden winning is beyond any reason.
Toivonen should be glad he plays football because something tells me he would have a few issues passing his math classes, and I am certainly not talking university level here…
Finn: unfortunately i remember the last meaningful game oranje lost at home – november 2000 0-2 against portugal…
Posted from 
Hungary
Bert isn’t very popular at City right now! It just seems like it’s have a go at Nigel week. You can bet he will get more vocal support than any other player at Blackpool next week. He isn’t a malicious player, even Ben Arfa seemed to accept it was unfortunate at the time, but everyone else is twisting it round now, and he’s not now gonna defend Nigel if there’s big money in it.
@ferenc But Holland should have won the return convincingly in Portugal. Nine years later, I still can’t believe van der Sar didn’t save their first goal.
@Carlos, ages ago re our away strip: that red and black stripe has been in our away strip since 1972, it’s a return to tradition to have it back. The red represents the red rose of Lancashire.
For all those railing on Guus. He is now not the same coach as he was back in 98. I doubt any manager at the time could have handled the Oranje of 96-98 any better. Don’t forget the semifinal was lost on penalties.
The Oranje of 98 could have won this World Cup when considering the relatively easy path compared to the other side of the draw. Had Brazil not fallen apart Oranje would have departed home.
What’s more is that’s exactly what the KNVB thought. So much so they didn’t even book the hotel this time round. So much for more confidence in 2010.
@CityDovesPounding: “The red represents the red rose of Lancashire.” That is just like Man United’s red represents the color of Sir Alex nose.
Interesting comment of Johhny Rep today in an interview on dutch tv today. He was saying he found Ibrahimovic one of the sleaziest palyers around, full of nasty tricks and then said: He is awful, even worse than Nigel de JOng…
Well there been some people here saying some of us were howling in the woods and all blacking De Jong but now a certain cruijff , hiddink and Rep made some pretty clear comments on it too, and I am just so happy these old legends of football share the same opinion.
am expecting 3-0 against sweden
@ Jad
Is that just wishful thinking? lol b/c I would LOVE to see that. But too bad I just can’t see it logically after we only beaten Moldova 1-0. It’s kinda like… wishing Oranje performs like they did during Euro 2008, I can only dream of
we are not playing against spain, we ar eplaying sweden, we will eat them.
@CityDovesPounding! I have always been a Manchester City fan (my favorite team in the UK) and it is really nice to see that not everyone is joining the bandwagon against Nigel. So thanks for that.
Adrian, please look again at the video and you will see without a doubt that it is the right knee of De Jong that hits the tibia/fibula of Ben Arfa. I suspect that someone with a stronger body frame would have been ok. But in this case the combination of Ben Arfa thin legs, the momentum of De Jong’s knee (kinetic energy) and the location of the hit (just below the tibial plateau) resulted in the nasty double break. This is my explanation as a physician for what it’s worth.
Posted from United States
Jeff I watched it so often i cannot see it anymore. As much as I do respect your knowledge as a physician, there is something that you forget, : he, nigel always attacks the standing leg and this is the unwritten holy rule of football you should never do. But he does it time and time again. combined with terrifying incoming speed. That makes each football lover cringe. As much as I like his dynamics on midfield and howmuch I miss him on midfield I think we better off without him. Gatuso, matarazzi, goicoechea, de jong, even zidane , its a rather miserable group of people who freaked out or went berserk.
And… If there is a bandwagon I prefer always to be on the one where JC is on- he is usually right
sorry if this was a cold issue. i just found out Maxwell [yes Barcelona's left back] actually holds Dutch passport. so why anybody at KNVB never tempted to call up Maxwell to Oranje? he will be a quick solution [but short time] for left back position. if they tried so, why Maxwell never materialized to wear the Oranje shirt? yes he already played for Brazil U-23, but since you never called up to the senior squad the chance switching national team always open, rite? CMIIW…
Posted from 
Australia
nice stuff hawe11. its a fine solution to the left back position for us. he is better than any left back we have tried after wol cup. he is very good moving forward and most importantly he is in the regular starting 11 of barca 4 about 1 year
Maxwell? wow it’d be great to have him.
Really, I thought Maxwell played for senior Brazil team..hmm, maybe someone should alert Bert that we have a 29 year old LWB playing at Barca xD haha
Posted from 
Netherlands
Whatever it is.. I think i can recall him playing for Brazil at some point..
Posted from Netherlands
Nijel is an iron man, ho ever touches him will loose his leg or arm.it is not a wonder,what jeff said was absolutly right.Some one with a harderbone should have been ok.
Posted from 
United Arab Emirates
todays game isnt sold-out (again) still 5000 tickets left
Posted from Netherlands
Haha good ones Finn….
Didn’t know about Maxwell. Cool. Cor Pot will play a totally different team against Ukraine in Kiev and bench Fer, Bruma and MArcellis.
Posted from 
Spain
well, after further research on the web, Maxwell already called up few times for Brazil. first at October 2004 and again June 2008 but never played. i dont know how FIFA’s regulation says under that circumstance. but for now, i guees it rather seems we have to wait for another “Gregory-van-der-Wiel-in-left-back” to arise…
Bench Bruma, hm, interesting, I thought he was one of the better on the pitch if you can call it that.. I would have selected and played Toornstra, he’s more than useful in this sort of match, he works and works, and always gets a 6. Would also play with Cabral and Biseswar, at least then you have some wingers to create space.. Still, in my mind it would take a miracle for young oranje to go through, they have to win 3-0, 4-1 or more to go through, 2-0 isn’t enough and 3-1 would still give a tie.. I’m expecting elimination 100% so that any other result can only be a welcome surprise.
Posted from Netherlands
I called the upcoming Dutch P-M and I let him know he needs to put full financial support on cloning business.. he agrees and say we will have perfected cloning and accelerated growth within 6 years.. and he assured me our 2018 team will include clones of Cruijff, V.Basten, Gio, V.Hanegem, Bergkamp and Stam..so just put it in your agenda, summer 2018, gold 
haha
Posted from Netherlands
Photo caption:
Huntelaar – “This pitch feels… so… GOOOOOD!”
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Toivonen is quoted saying Sweden has a 60% chance of winning… is this true, if it is, he’s quote arrogant saying that..anyways.
Posted from
Netherlands