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If Oranje grows up, it wants to be…

October 21st, 2008 | By: Jan | 26 Comments »

A poll!

Why not?

We have exactly 20 minutes between the last competition match and the next CL game, right?

If Oranje could copy the playing style of one of the big kahuna’s in European football, which style should Oranje adopt? Which system would suit our players and what team would you want Bert to study in order to emulate them?

Oranje should try to play like
( polls)

Tags: Arsenal, Bayern, Bommel, Madrid, Oranje, Robben, van Nistelrooy, World Cup 2010

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Comments

Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 26 comments.

Read the rest of the comments

By ian | October 21st, 2008 at 7:04 am

those players are who well need then so should be playin now

By sims | October 21st, 2008 at 7:14 am

Ian, if height is so important, what abt Rik Smits? I mean he’s 7′3″.Is he still living Holland? He could be quite useful against some of the taller teams

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | October 21st, 2008 at 7:53 am

they should play like madrid 4-4-2 or 4-1-3-1-1.

Madrid: Orange:
Iker Maarten
Ramos Pepe Heinze Marcelo Zuiverloon Mathijsen Marcellis Urby
Diarra vBommel
Higuain vdVaart Sneijder Kuijt vdVaart Sneijder
Raul vPersie
Ruud Hunter

Posted from United States

By goose | October 21st, 2008 at 8:26 am

i say; Ajax – 3-4-3- always love to see oranje play with wingers…think its better to play attacking football with the qualities we have

Rik Smits; the best payed dutch athlete of all times (estimated 125 mln euro), as far as i know he still lives in the US…

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | October 21st, 2008 at 8:46 am

Arsenal of course! They play the quick passing game that we pioneered back in the day but don’t often seem to play anymore. Real Madrid would probably be my second choice because I think we could adopt that system well (and considering Real Madrid is already half of Oranje anyways!). Ajax 3-4-3 is good too though…

Posted from Canada

By marc | October 21st, 2008 at 11:37 am

GUYSSS WHY COPY????? We have a unique playing style that has been known to us for years… we own the secret of dominating attacking total football. yes we do not need to copy anyone… the closest to this is the one touch collectif play that arsenal is playing at the moment with lots of ground passes and combinations…

Posted from Switzerland

By mario | October 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Our benchmark should not be Real, Arsenal….our benchmark has to be Holland 1974, Holland 1988, Holland 1998 and Ajax in the 70´s and the begginings of the 90´s. Arsenal, Real, Barcelona or any team right now would love to play like those Dutch teams. But only a Dutch team can play that kind of football so I TOTALY AGREE WITH U MARC. Holland´s playing style is unique and is recognized around the World. Why does a Mexican guy like me love the Dutch and many other people who are not Dutch follow the Oranje???. It is because we love that style of play and we don´t have to copy nobody. Why Real Madrid want so many Dutch players and why Barcelona in the past and so many times have hired Dutch players and coaches???-

The answer is simple: HOLLAND´s STYLE IS AWESOME AND WE HAVE TO PLAY LIKE WE KNOW WE CAN. In Euro 2008 we showed great things and although vs Russia we underperformed when we are at our best we can be lethal. If not ask the world champions. We have great players, and we are a great soccer nation power.

Posted from Mexico

By mario | October 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Posted from Mexico

By Jan | October 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Hmmm….well to start off, it’s not literally copying, what I mean. It’s more that I use it as a metaphore to determine what style of playing would fit our players. I tried to list the “top” teams of today with a distinctive style. See, in club football you can define a style and buy or develop the players you need. With Oranje, you have a certain group (30 players?) who can play top football, but you need to adopt a style that fits the group.

What I find remarkable, is that Man United play great football without a static centre striker. No Van the Man anymore. They play with Berbatov, Rooney, C Ronaldo, Nani/Tevez and they can all make the play, set up the play, give the assist and score. They drift, they move from wing to wing, they have speed, they can take on any opponent individually…

I think Sir Alex has found a new style and I think that Oranje has the players to emulate that style.

I appreciate all your patriotic statements of the Dutch style, but really…it was 4-3-1-2 in 1974 (JC was all over the place but hardly ever in center striker position), 4-3-3 in 1978, 4-4-2 in 1988 and 1998 and 4-2-3-1 in EC2008…. So…What’s our style then?

By ghost of steve finnan | October 21st, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Drenthe is an ass.

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | October 21st, 2008 at 3:33 pm

@ jan
the dutch team used to play great football without a static centre striker. at euro 08 ruud played like he was a play maker, he hold the ball, he give assist and score goals. the thing is hunter can’t do it, he can’t hold the ball up and bring other players into the game like ruud.

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | October 21st, 2008 at 3:34 pm

juve 2 madrid 1

Posted from United States

By stephen | October 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Our style is: wingers, one-touch combos, movement(lots of it), forward thinking backs, back thinking forwards, pressure defense….from whatever formation we choose. To me that 1974 team was a bunch of really knowledgeable guys that could play anywhere. All Michels really had to do was throw 11 guys out there and say, “Play some good football boys”. I may be technically assigned as ‘right back’, and that is my first priority, but during the course of the game I may be everywhere and anywhere I am needed. I am football smart enough and savy enough to figure it out and fill the spaces. To me, that is Dutch football.

Posted from United States

By Carlos | October 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pm

@stephen – way to go man ! and totally agree, however 74 team will NEVER be again and neither will we have a Cruyff. Also think Arsenal plays like the Ajax of the 70s and 95 and I very clearly remember many coaches incl Sir Alex admiring the “Ajax” system which was discussed week in and week out in football magazines etc (no Euroblogs then). But most of all agree with Mario we have our style and the main emphasis (ask the 60,000 supporters attending a game) is ……”AANVALLUHHH” whch means ATTACK!! and compare that to the Italians who hold up banners displaying Catenaccio ! (Defend tightly)

Posted from Singapore

By Alex | October 21st, 2008 at 7:35 pm

Oranje should play like…..ORANJE! Their own style, total football, quick ball movement, technically excellent! I voted Manchester which I am embarrassed about, but I voted for them out of they way they win! They slam teams they should slam, and fight hard against good opponents.

Posted from New Zealand

By Jess | October 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm

I voted for Arsenal. I enjoy their passing and I like that they want to win by playing beautiful football. I know ugly football can win matches too I just like it when we win and win pretty.

By Michel-Olivier | October 21st, 2008 at 8:55 pm

I’m tired of pretty football arsenal, when was the last time they won a trophy? 1979? i rather win cups playing ugly.

Posted from United States

By Bart | October 21st, 2008 at 10:05 pm

Well Arsenal did have the Invincible season with Dennis Bergkamp in 2002. o__0

Posted from Canada

By mario | October 21st, 2008 at 10:10 pm

Yes Bart, but no champions league….Wenger is a great coach but no champions leagues, no euros, no world cups…

By Jan | October 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 am

Oranje should play like Oranje… I realize that . I think we’re all for that. But, with our current players…is it feasible? Do we have the players for it? And my whole point is: Arsenal, ManU and Real Madrid all play “Dutch style football”. As was pointed out: Sir Alex, Wenger and Schuster are fans of Dutch gootball. But you can play without a static striker (ManU), with 2 strikers and four midfielders (Arsenal), with wingers (Real)…there’s many ways to play. Oranje played – see my earlier comment – different styles in history and we always managed to play “Dutch”. I don’t think that is the point. The point is:

Given the players we have, given the development our opponents went through (in particular the smaller nations) who do we deploy our players?

By Jan | October 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 am

News: Valencia wants Demy de Zeeuw…

By marc | October 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 am

de zeeuw sucks… theyre making a mistake… i thnk oranje should maintain van bommel as holding mid feilder and use 5 attacking minded players. kuyt should play right back and our lethal formation would look like this:

——————————–stekelenburg———————————

——Kuyt———-marcellis—————-boularhouz———–van.bronkh-

——————————vanbommel————————————–

———sneijder—————–Vandervaart——————-robben——-

———————vanpersie——————huntelaar——————–

Posted from Switzerland

By Caleb | October 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 am

Whoa, easy guys! There’s no need to get all down on Arsenal!

@MO and Mario – the last time they won a trophy was in 2004 where they went undefeated for the whole season, playing beautiful football the whole time!

And to say they are not a great team because they haven’t won the Champions league recently – there are lots of very good teams that haven’t won the Champions league recently! They did win the Uefa Cup in 2000 (under Wenger) and were runner’s up in the CL in 2006 (aside from winning the premiere league 5 times under Wenger). That’s not exactly the sign of a bad team! ( Also, you can’t win the World Cup or the Euro cup with a club side )

As to the comment about winning cups playing ugly… that’s like blasphemy for a Dutch fan!

Posted from Canada

By goose | October 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am

Caleb is right; altough we dutch love to win, we dont want to win ugly…actually kind of unproffessional but thats the way it is…. what we want in Holland is attacking football we almost rather lose 4-3 in a great game than win 1-0 playing bad thats why people were so angry with Advocaat in 2004, it was the substitution made out of fear and we dutch dont like that; when under pressure, put in an extra attacker! (like vBasten v France EC08)

i do agree that Arsenal seems to go nowhere lately… they just cant get me warm anymore…maybe its time for Wenger to call it a day

and yes Marc, deZeeuw sucks

Posted from Netherlands

By ferenc | October 24th, 2008 at 5:53 am

i would never vote for arsenal. zhe reason is simple: they always start in a brilliant way but they never win anything. at least in the last 3 years. it’s obvious that this year they’ll be as trophyless as in the last years. i hesitated between ajax 95 and barca but finally decided that in 2008 barca-style fits more to our team. i wouldn’t be happy with rfeal madrid style: they don’t have tactics. it depends on individual brilliance. with capello they had tactics but schuster is a bad coach with an awful defence (juve versus real).
the flamboyance and “free style” of barca would fit perfectly to our talents and mentality.

Posted from Hungary