Sorry guys, traveling for my work. Less time and opportunity to write. Back home again this weekend, so expect the ultimate WC2014 Oranje analysis and debrief :-)….
Thanks to all for your tremendous support. Still working on improving the site. I will get back to all of you soon with some specific questions on this….
This is like the afterplay with sex. We have had our peak experience but we don’t want to get out of bed yet. We want to cuddle a bit and maybe relive some of the good moments.
Best player this, best goal that.
Apparently, Messi is the best player of the tournament. Yeah right. Even Maradona, who normally talks a lot of crap, saw that his fellow countryman didn’t deserve it.
For me, biased as I may be, Robben was the most dangerous player of this whole tournament. He has had most fouls against him, he scored goals, he created goals (assists and penalties) and he was continiously leading and threatening. Hands down, best player of the tournament.
The Castrol rating system determines the best player based on the passing quality of the player, where forward passes in the final third are valued higher than passes back to the goalie (otherwise Martins Indi would be the be the best player of the World Cup….).
The Castrol system says Toni Kroos is the best player, with Arjen Robben as the number 2 and Stefan de Vrij (!!) as the number 3.
This means, De Vrij is the Best Defender of the World Cup. Robben would be the best Forward of the Tournament. More like it.
According to the AD newspaper De Vrij is actually the best overall player.
Obviously, Arjen Robben’s story is quite sensational. The usual story line. Prodigal son. 16 years old when he broke at Eredivisie level. 18 years at PSV and prolifically scoring. Transfer to Chelsea, but there injuries disrupted his career. Mourinho wanted to offload him (and get Malouda in…) and at Madrid Robben continued his injury stricken career. When offloaded there he found his home in Munich. And turned himself from choker (CL finals, WC 2010 finals) to winner. He won titles at Bayern and seemingly fixed his fitness problems. Seeing him play, run, fight, battle etc at this World Cup gives me the idea we will see a bit more of Robben, yet.
However, Stefan de Vrij’s story is a fairytale as well. Started in Feyenoord 1 in a time when the club didn’t have too much options. The club was technically insolvent and used young talents to cover the gaps in the team. De Vrij did really well until the start of this last season when he lost his mojo at Feyenoord. When he decided to work on his fitness without the club doctors aware of his training program, he lost the captain’s armband. The “experts” (also the ones here!) wrote him off. De Vrij should not be part of the squad, he was not good enough, he was not going to cut it, etc… But Van Gaal kept faith. Because Van Gaal analyses players well and is not carried away by emotions. De Vrij has too much quality, Van Gaal knew, and he was able to get the youngster to play his usual self.
And to me, while Vlaar is compared to a player like Jaap Stam, I personally liken De Vrij a bit to Pique or Laurent Blanc… Less confident and cocky in terms of personality, but similar in style.
So, the 22 year old who was passed over in a friendly vs France for Joel Veltman. But he fought back and got the starting spot. And he played versus Torres, Alexis Sanchis, Lionel Messi, Vidal, Chicharito Hernandez…. none of them scored.
Feyenoord will do well financially this summer. It has bagged 20Mio euros already from the sale of Pelle, Janmaat (Newcastle) and Martins Indi (Porto). There is a fair chance De Vrij and Clasie will leave too.
Only eight years ago, Feyenoord had a negative equity position of 35 mio Euros. Today, they need to get rid of 6mio euros debt and then it’s all good. Tech Director Van Geel is allowed to use one third of the incomings on new players.
With Bayern Munich, Feyenoord had the most players active in this World Cup. If you would add the Feyenoord developed players to the mix or players with a Feyenoord background, the list is longer and Feyenoord is recognised as the current benchmark of Dutch youth development, surpassing Ajax.
With 11 former and current Feyenoord players in Netherlands’ squad for the World Cup, including nine Academy graduates, the club from Rotterdam had a massive influence on the surprisingly good performance of Oranje in Brazil.
Current Feyenoord Academy players: Bruno Martins Indi, Daryl Janmaat, Stefan de Vrij, Terence Kongolo and Jordy Clasie and former Feyenoord Academy players: Robin van Persie, Jonathan de Guzman, Leroy Fer and Georginio Wijnaldum, while Ron Vlaar might not have been developed in Rotterdam (AZ player), he has worn the skipper band in Rotterdam, as has Dirk Kuyt. Salomon Kalou of Nigeria is another player with a Feyenoord background.