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Oranje is having fun in San Marino: 0-5!
Comments(50)
Winning against San Marino is not headline news. Oranje is the number 1 in the world ( for us at least) and San Marino the number last. Winning with 5 goals is a bonus. Winning with three KJH goals and one Van Gol goal is like Christmas.
Sure, it wasn’t good. And the pitch was bad. And Frank de Boer had hemorrhoids. But so what?
The boys were having a good time!
As always, the game started slowly. Oranje needed to find some rhythm on the pitch and with new players like Maduro and Pieters in the line up. Huntelaar scored a first goal after a rare Elia distance strike but was ruled off side. The new Schalke man would come back for seconds though. Dirk Kuyt was on the score sheet first though, with Huntelaar being held in the box. The Liverpool man is a penalty specialist and demonstrated that again: 0-1.
The Huntelaar show started after that but they were all relatively easy tap ins. Thank you Wes, Kuyt and in particular Rafael van der Vaart. The new Tottenham man came on in the second half and made it all look Zidane-like easy.
I AM STILL FRUSTRATED WITH REAL MADRID!!!!!!
The high point of the night though, was the return of Ruud van Nistelrooy. In style.
He who was not needed in South Africa demonstrated what a real striker can do. Score from half a chance. As Carlos said on the blog (nothing against Huntelaar) but Klaas Jan scored three tap ins while Ruud scored from half a chance…. Van is still The Man!
Bert van Marwijk was happy with the result, obviously, but felt Oranje should have scored more! “We started slow but created some good chances in the first half. Rafael van der Vaart did well for us and accelerated our game. I’m happy for Ruud that he scored. He came from afar and it’s great reward for him. We could have scored three goals in the last phase of the game and more goals would have been good, but hey… our first game…. I can live with this.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy will never forget the San Marino away game. “I’ve played many great games against big opponents but I won’t forget this one either. I got the goosebumps when the anthem was played and I was totally ready. I did make some mistakes on the pitch though. I wanted to get involved and wanted the ball but at some stage the coach said “move up move up” and I did and I was able to score, hahaha…. Good tip! I want to remain in the team and be a part of it all, but it’s not up to me, obviously. We’ll see…..”.
Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 50 comments.
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And with that, I mean I can hardly believe Nasri wasn’t even selected for the game against Belarus with so many French players banned/suspended from the national team or whatever they’re calling it.
He wasn’t one of the banned ones was he? I think he wasn’t at the WC either.
Posted from 
Netherlands
I think Nasri is a bit of a more improved and experienced Affelay.
Posted from Netherlands
they have fair players, but it’s not like we can’t beat them, Malouda, Nasri, Diaby, Benzema, Gourcuff are all big names, but gourcuff especially has dissapointed quite often in the french squad..
Posted from Netherlands
Funny how things go sometimes … as of recently, Maduro has asked to be played as holding midfielder for his club, with the hope that this can get the best out of him and thus get back in contention for Oranje. Arguably, though, he has a larger chance breaking through the Oranje if he plays as central defender– knowing that the pecking order in midfield is ridiculously deep. Regardless, this is a huge season for him to prove his critics wrong, myself included.
Well he looks a bit like Bruma, but Maduro has a real flaw, his handling speed isn’t as fast as you might need at the top, and he’s not the speediest/fastest one around.
Posted from Netherlands
I also consider France more of a threat than Italy. If I’d have to rate chances of winning the EC, I’d use this order right now:
tier 1: Spain/Germany (can’t choose, Germany wants revenge, direct confrontation would result in a German win I suspect)
tier 2: Holland (I can imagine some of our players subcousciously feeling the same way about the EC as I do, or leaning just a bit towards that feeling)
tier 3: England (they’re a lot better than most people think now, the fact that they weren’t used to that WC-ball really wasn’t just an excuse for a bad performance, Germany DID have an unfair advantage with ALL of their players playing with that ball since feb.)
tier 4: Portugal
tier 5(these are all still doubtful if they’ll even qaulify): France (if they can get it together)/ Turkey / Russia
tier 6: Italy (they’ll qualify easily, but I rate them lower than the above tier 4 and 5, which undoubtedly many would disagree with right now, who knows, maybe Cassano can keep saving their asses all the way to the EC-final, but without Buffon…nvm)
tier 7: Sweden, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, Denmark
tier 8: Switzerland, Greece, Ukraine, etc.
Some of the tier 7 and 8 nations have a much higher chance of qualifying because they’re not in any of the groups with high tier nations, but that doesn’t give them much more chance to win the EC anyway, nvm. I’m rambling.
Posted from Netherlands
I’ve always liked Maduro as a player when watching him at Ajax (with that I mean I think he was pretty good), but I’ve hardly seen him since then and right now I’ve still seen too little of him to form an opinion. I hope he lives up to the potential though, cause we could really use his height at the back when vBommel grows older and slower (less stamina for tracking back, or box to box stuff).
Posted from Netherlands
I think Maduro could help as a defensive mid because he is a fantastic passer of the ball and he plays CB, which means he is good defensively.
Posted from 
United States
I always the idea playing Maduro as CB, in particular if we want to play with one defensive midfield, as in reality he become the second midholding player, even he can contribute with his good passing for buildup. so it gonna be like 3-2-4-1 with heitinga and one LB (pieters or other good defensive LB) stay deep controlling the defence. I think we need a LB who can play more as CB than a LW, and pieter is the closest candidate (quick, good height, good header)?
Posted from 
Australia
I mean “I always like the idea playing Maduro as CB”
Posted from Australia
Well guys, I hope to see him in the lineup against Finland, a more difficult opponent to see how he performs, should be a harder test for him.
If anyone notice U21 lost against spain in the last group stage match, U21 has already thrugh, still I wish we could beat spain at least at this U21 level.
also got one redcarded…:-)
Match statistics
Spain Netherlands
2 Goals scored 1
4 Goal attempts 7
2 Yellow cards 2
0 Red cards 1
10 Fouls committed 11
2 Corners 3
2 Offside 2
Posted from Australia
after euro12 the new coach(frank)should drop bommel, rvn, boulahrouz, and kuijt.
i hope castaignos play for france, because they really need a player like him.
Posted from United States
He was born in Holland and has played for several youth Dutch teams. Why would he choose to play for France. I don’t even think he’s eligible for them. His mom has Italian backgrounds, should he try to play for Italy as well? And who cares what France needs. If Luc turns out to be top he should play for the Dutch, not betray us.
Posted from 
Canada
But then your name sounds a little French, do you have French roots? NO stealing our talents. 
haha
Posted from Canada
For those still thinking of Douglas, perhaps you may have followed the Arteta saga and the England squad. A FIFA rule says that the player in question must have held a passport of the “new” country for at least 5 years. Now I have no idea if thats true or if this is a definitive Fifa Rule as there are quite a few Brazilians playing for different countries – Deco – Eduardo etc. So as usual the rules are not clear.
Posted from 
Singapore
“i hope castaignos play for france, because they really need a player like him.”
……I’m gonna pretend I didn’t read that…
Posted from Netherlands
@ Carlos, that’s not really correct, there is a certain rule about changing nationalities.
Arteta can’t play for England because he has played for Spain’s national youth teams and at that time he didn’t have an English passport. Douglas on the other hand, never played for any Brazilian youth team as far as is known, so he could play for oranje with no problems if he should get dutch nationality/passport. I checked some articles and sources about this..
Posted from Netherlands
Also, you mean the fact that if a player has been in a country for 5 years or more, he automatically has the right through law to apply for that nationality, or he can then obtain that nationality quite easily, and if he never played for any other national teams in official matches, can play for that new country. You will find that Douglas still fits all of those requirements, and he can’t be called up for U-21 anymore and he is 22 already, so unless he is called up for the main Brazilian squad there is no rule that holds him back from appyling for special shortened procedure where you can get nationality earlier than waiting 5 years.
Posted from Netherlands
who is Douglas?
What´s his full name?
Where he plays?
Is he very good?
Douglas = Douglas Franco Teixeira, born in Brazil, about 22/23 years old, tall, strong defender, very fast, has made big steps in terms of footballing qualities. Would make an absolute worldclass centerback duo with Bruma in my opinion.. He’s seriously considering applying for dutch nationality and playing for oranje..
Posted from Netherlands
Playing for FC Twente.
Posted from Netherlands
ty
does anyone know where i can buy this or what it is called?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/01/world-cup-holland-brazil Thank you, Hup Holland!
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“Whoever it’s gonna be, it must be anyone but Spain, either us or Germany”
***
Actually, if we would win the EC now, it would make losing the WC final even worse for me. I’d prefer to make it to the semi-finals at least, further than that, I really don’t care, I want the WC after that. As the Dutch expression goes, the EC can be stolen from me (”kan me gestolen worden” = couldn’t care any less).
But can I reconcile with Germany winning anything? Neah, I’d rather see England or Spain win it then, or one of the underdogs (Turkey with Hiddink? it’s not impossible, those Turks really play with their hearts and can rise above their own level, we saw that last EC).
Watch out for France though, they may look like their team is in shambles right now, and probably is, but once they get things back together there’s so much potential in French talent (thinking primarily about Lloris, Malouda and Nasri now), that if their scouts and coach start to recognize it, they’ll be the most dangerous ‘outsider’, if you can call ‘em that.
Posted from
Netherlands