Comments on: Oranje beats Norway 0-1, but…

By: ferenc

ferenc — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:42:52 +0000

i’m happy with the result and don’t care about the bad performance. before the game i was sure that it wouldn’t be sexy football because norway is not the team for it and against this kind of opponents we have to battle and wrestle hard. in the past my team – oranje,ajax,barca – had so many beautiful game but at the end they didn’t get too often the result i expected. at this preliminary stage teams don’t play good football because the result is the most important. now we have three victories and are in a very good position despite all the injured players. if next time we win against scotland we’ll be at the wprld championship and van marwijk will have plenty of time to experiment formations,new players etc.

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:13:12 +0000

It’s clear to me that Oranje expected a fierce Norway, the expected a storm. When Norway didn’t start like that, Oranje was smart enough to play the pace down and let the ball do the running. We weren’t the ones needing a win badly. Norway played at home, backs to the wall, another finals for them. And they decided to allow Oranje have the ball.

I think it was smart of Bommel, Zeeuw and the others to take it slow.

Tactically, I must say Van Marwijk played it smart.

But, whenever we had opportunities to move upfront, we clearly didn’t do well. Huntelaar was useless, Afellay to wrapped up in his C Ronaldo imitation, Kuyt wasn’t supported by Marcellis or De Zeeuw/Bommel and van der Vaart was marked too well and didn’t have enough lightfooted players around him. In particular Bommel and Zeeuw didn’t move up in the first half. I can understand the tactics behind it, but when you have ball possession, you should move up the pitch and go for goal.

One reasonable opportunity at the end of the first half (and that wide shot by Kuyt) for Afellay is a bit poor.

Second half we had some good chances on breaks but we didn’t play it well: Van Persie’s heavy touch on Afellay for instance…

It was lovely to see Kuyt take that throw in ball in one go to ramsack the cross bar

Really, sometimes balls that hit the bar are cooler than the ones that go in….

By: Michel-Olivier

Michel-Olivier — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:53:06 +0000

we will win the WC in 2010. even if we have bad defenders we will beat every team by scoring more, like hockey.

By: Felipe

Felipe — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:56:22 +0000

I agree with Jan (and I also watched the game… ALIVE! YES!).

Oranje needs urgently to change its tactics. Against teams who play hard on defense and push upfront their markers, the team is not being able to play a game full of fluidity and very strong in the counter-attack as the players like and know. Just similar to a Portuguese-speaking South American country… but that’s serious: Holland needs to find a way to repeat those marvellous Euro scores against sides stronger in defense.

For me, Van Bommel was the man yesterday. MvB is that kind of player you got to bear. He’s not the guy one’s father would want as a son-in-law to its daughter (unless the father is called Bert van Marwijk… LOL!), his temper is very bad, but he knows a thing or two about being a midfielder. De Zeeuw is useful to help the defense, but not that much when the subject is playmaking. Mark can help VdV on it.

By: lowiesje

lowiesje — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:49:34 +0000

Considering half of the team is injured, the result pleases me, but it is appalling the form, or level, Huntelaar is in; not worthy to play in Oranje. He’s crap, for now. Did everything wrong what he should have done. He lost my confidence. Don’t want to see him in oranje in this shape. If he’s the best young main-striker we have, right now, we’re doomed…
I’m not worried about our young defenders, there are many of them, but only a few can make it to Oranje, Zuiverloon, obviously, Donk perhaps, their time will come and if their constistent enough van Marwijk can’t skip them no longer. I’d say, be patient.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:27:20 +0000

Defence was a bit shaky, just as during the EC, because against Italy and France we had a lot of luck in front of our own goal, at the EC, their strikers , luckily, weren’t really sharp enough.
I thought Marcellis was pretty solid again, still needs to learn a bit in positioning, marking and high balls, but that will come as he gains experience, but our central defence did look very chaotic, they marked from too far away, very cautious, they gave the Norwegian attackers lots of space, Norwegians won most of the duels around our box, won most balls coming out of our box, poor forward defending, very wild kicks, with balls played into the opponents feet, i thought the defending on field lacked organisation, too bad Boulahrouz, Bouma and Heitinga are injured because they’re much sharper defenders than Ooijer-Mathijsen, but also Gio(I think he isn’t defending very convincingly, maybe cause he doesn’t play leftback for his club anymore), we were lucky to have big Ed back in goal these games. I’d like to see Marcellis stay with the selection from now on
keep De Cler, Gio and Mathijsen in for now, drop Kromkamp once and for all, bring in Braafheid, together with Marcellis most convincing dutch defender around, cause Loovens, Kruiswijk barely get to play right now, Zuiverloon and Donk should prove themselves for a longer period of time on PL level first, but i have to say after Marcellis and Braafheid most promising defenders at the moment, Luirink and Vlaar are injured or are just coming back from injurie, and have to prove they earn it, V.d.Wiel and Pieters not ready yet, as are talents like Koenders, Kum, Drenthe, Emanuelson, Janmaat, Jong-a-pin, they are all still too inconsistant or not convincing enough. I’d say this is a better defensive selection then we have right now:
Marcellis, Heitinga, Boulahrouz, Bouma, Mathijsen, De Cler, Gio, Braafheid
and Michel Vorm can stay as second goalie after Stekelenburg, third keeper Timmer or Boschker or something like that, maybe Velthuizen or Vermeer already. But that’s just a possibility.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:34:54 +0000

“I don’t remember what wine I ordered …”

Haha! Great comparison!

By: Bart

Bart — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:30:48 +0000

I just had to smile after that last comment I’ve said the same thing to my half-Italian friend for the last 4 or 5 years.

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:42:38 +0000

Well, how many qualication games do you remember? Oranje must have played 40 qualification games in the last 30 years (probably more) and I remember the ones we lost dramatically (vs Belgium, France, Portugal, Ireland) and a couple we won (the Robbie de Wit game for instance).

Other than that, it’s like wining and dining the mrs before you get…you know? I don’t remember what wine I ordered …

It’s a mean to an ends. Players spend 5 days together in training camp. Opponents mostly don’t want to play football. The actual fun of following Oranje is in the warm up before a tournament. The excitement. The expectations. Then we glow in the praise Oranje receives for great games or we flock ourselves if we had one of those “would have/could have” abominations of matches… Ending in long debates how we got whipped this time around .

That’s the life of an Oranje supporter, I suppose…

“Next tournament! We will win the next tournament for sure. We’ll show the world…”

Does this ring a bell?

By: Carlos

Carlos — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:14:28 +0000

I think Caleb summed it up very well in one word “forgettable”