World

Europe

Netherlands

“Go full on the attack vs Macedonia”, says Van Hanegem

September 8th, 2008 | By: Jan | 21 Comments »

I heard the Dutch team didn’t do too well against Australia. Although I heard the goal was pretty impressive.

Still, if I were team manager, I wouldn’t be bothered too much.

Friendly games don’t really say much and when you have to play 45 minutes with ten men it sort of takes the flavour out. I’d concentrate on the attack that brought us the 1-0. That looked great. The pass for Babel, his cross in, Huntelaar’s positioning and finishing… World class. That’s our strength. Our weakness is our defense and the lack of power to force something. You can talk about that for weeks, but that won’t really help.

If you take every into account, to me it’s clear we will need to go all out on attack. From the first whistle onwards. In technical and tactical sense, we are the better team and in offensive play we are superior to them. Let’s just take them on and do what we do best.

And of course…Macedonia shouldn’t be underestimated and all that. I know. I saw them play Scotland on Saturday and they’re a tough opponent. For sure. And that’s why you need to grab them by the throat. Most nations concentrate on “not giving anything away”… I say, let’s create!

Listen, it won’t be easy, ok. It’s a trend in international football, that the smaller nations know how to arm themselves against bigger nations. Their defenses are well developed. Cypres, Lituania, Macedonia…try to beat them. And funnily enough, we have trouble developing world class defenders. That’s been our problem for years already. Dirk Marcellis is the first in a long time. That is something we, the coaches, are responsible for. And not just the coaches in pro football, all coaches, also in amateur play.

But, we will have to live up to our status. I saw Belgium, Spain, Italy, Scotland, Norway and some other countries play this weekend and they all got in trouble against so-called lesser nations.

Part of the problem is, that these lesser nations are being over-estimated by their opponents. You shouldn’t make them too important. They should be more scared of us that we are of them. Come on! When you start cautious against Macedonia, you help them into the game.

And if they score, you’re in trouble! They will then bury themselves in the box and it will be very tough to break through. We are not good at that. I can look at this from 100 angles, but I always come back to the same conclusion. A team with a surplus of great offensive players will have to play on the offense. Period. A nation with only mediocre defenders shouldn’t start cautious. I don’t think it’s rocket science. Just stay calm and use your head. Luckily Bert van Marwijk is the type of coach that can do exactly that.

Tags: Afellay, Ajax, Cruyff, Hanegem, Holland, Marcellis, Marwijk, Oranje, Persie, Robben, Vaart, World Cup 2010

Netherlands World Cup RSS Feed

Comments

By juan carlos | September 8th, 2008 at 8:18 am

i expect macedonia to take points off over rated holland..Goran Pandev will be strong for useless dutch defence..we will all laugh at Holland if they fail to get 3 points

Posted from Spain

By Caleb | September 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am

I expect Spanish fans to wake up from their post-EC2008 dream. Don’t forget your long, long, period of being shit at major tournaments. Enough of this Holland bashing juan – if that’s what your about, find a different board to post on.

Posted from Canada

By Bob | September 8th, 2008 at 11:42 am

Caleb, do you really care what juan carlos thinks about anything? It is best,I believe, to never respond to inane comments (a comment with no value or purpose other than to incite).

Posted from United States

By Caleb | September 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Good point Bob. I usually give new posters the benefit of the doubt, and then once I know that they are just posting useless garbage everytime, that’s when I ignore them. I think juan carlos has found his way onto my ignore list now though.

Posted from Canada

By goose | September 8th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

@caleb; im pretty sure this guy has been on this blog before under a different name…. just ignore

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | September 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Back on topic – I completely agree with Van Hanegem. The best defense is a good offense. This is the Dutch mentality right, and it’s the strategy I like to play by. Especially against the “smaller nations”.

Maybe defense really is the best way to win titles, but every now and then offense wins the title for a team, and those are the teams we like to watch/remember, so let’s play like that! (Plus we don’t have the defense to win titles anyways)

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | September 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Off topic: As Norway are preparing for Scotland and Oranje in about 4 weeks time, as I expected, the press is already calling for the manager’s head after the 2-2 draw at home against Iceland. The largest newspaper in the country is running a poll on their homepage whether he should be fired or not. Currently 82% wants him sacked…The Norwegian FA has already had to come out and give him support and say they are not looking for any new coaches, but the FC Copepenhagen manager (Solbakken, former Norwegian international) is already being linked with the job.

What has this to do with Oranje, not much other than the Norwegian team will now be playing for the career of their manager as well and as the players love him, I expect them to play very different against Scotland and Holland next month. Look for a difficult Oranje game in Norway, especially if Norway manages a result against Scotland earlier in the week

Also the Holland match in Oslo has already been sold out. All of the 25000 tickets were gone in hours.

As far as these message board morons go, ignorance is indeed the only way to get rid of them

By dirk v.d.berg | September 8th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

I completely agree, thats why we should substitue one defensive midfielder (de Jong), for an offensive midfielder (Robben), and play a 4-1-3-2, or bring back de Jong for a defender, and play 3-2-3-2, or 3-5-2.

Posted from Canada

By Michel-Olivier | September 8th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

de Jong used to play right back throughout his career until the hamburg coach(stevens or doll?) decided to convert him in to a defensive mid. so bert should convert him back to right back and play bommel and heitinga in defensive mid.

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | September 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

@ juan carlos
are you juan carlos valeron from deportivo l.c.?

Posted from United States

By Lights | September 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

i just don’t understand why our oranje’s defense is so weak n still the coach takes it so easy like nobody business.I think it is wise to try out new defenders n just let them play in the last 20 mins to experience the needs(at least we r trying to find lights) .2010 is a long way but if we keep remain the same,haha….i m sure we will be disappointed again!!!

Oranje needs to be hungry!!!Wake up,Bert van Marwijk

Posted from Netherlands

By juan carlos | September 8th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

hi Michel oliver,, iam just Juan Carlos Velazquez from Madrid

By Jan | September 8th, 2008 at 5:31 pm

I guess the problem is time here. Holland ended the EC mid June and then in August the first friendly is there. The first WC qualifier is in September. Not a lot of time and opportunity to test new players.

By Michel-Olivier | September 8th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

@ juan
another madridista

@ jan
i agree

Posted from United States

By Vojo | September 8th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

I`m from Macedonia and i face the reality , although we usually fight to death on the pitch but this Holland squad wiil be big chunk to bite on,draw is what we aim but victory will be nice too,Dutch will have their hands full with Pandev because he is very dangerous and he is Lazio top scorer ,thats why we have Shumulikoski and Maznov from behind which are not Roben or Van Nest. caliber but will do the job.

By Miguel Rosado | September 8th, 2008 at 11:53 pm

Willem is very right. In order to win against these kind of teams you have to attack them and when they have the ball be a little nasty, that’s what we lacked against Russia.

By Dr.Mansur | September 9th, 2008 at 1:48 am

Good luck for Holland in the qualifiers.I watched the Macedonians during the EC qualifications, they know how to frustrate other teams.Scotland and Norway are tough opponents too.It won’t be easy for Holland.I agree with Van Hanegam,attack from the first minute.It is very important to score first.

Posted from Australia

By Caleb | September 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am

@Vojo – welcome to the site! Good analysis of the upcoming game. Macedonia may not have the superstars that Holland has, but they certainly have the fight to the death mentality that Holland lacks. What do you think the chances of a draw are?

(sorry Jan, I stole your job there a little bit )

Posted from Canada

By Maki23Inter | September 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Hey all im from Macedonia.For tommoroews game i think Holland will have a lot of difficulties to take good result.If we manage to score first i think we can beat Holland.We played with them 2 times and got 2 draws,now our team is much more expirienced so i really hope we will beat Holland,draw would be good result too.NAPRED MAKEDONIJA!!!!

By Nino | September 9th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Hello. I’m also a Macedonian that hopes for the best, but truthfully I think that we will be beaten by the dutch players only because we expect too much from our sheety squad. I’m just objective, i have watched the 1st game vs Scotland on the stadium and i think that if we play like we played in the 2nd half we will be hardly defeated. Beside that, that we have two draws vs Holland in the past I really don’t think that we can do it again. We need some more players like Pandev, who are expirienced in some serious matches. Maybe this post isn’t looking writen by a macedonian fan but I’m. Anyways, I have ticket for the match vs Holland so I’ll cross my fingers and cheer my team till my last breath. Go Go Macedonia, and as a fan i ofcourse hope for the best. Cheers