Tag: Vlaar

September 9, 2015 by Jan

Oranje: where to from here….?

It could be worse right? Eh… well… can it? We are now in the same league as Andorra, Slovenia, Kazachstan, Albania and Finland.

The thing I had to think of (a lot!) was the comment by the media when the draw for this Euro qualification was published. The top 3 go through. We are in a group with Turkey, Czech Republic, Iceland… The media went “It will be harder for Oranje to NOT qualify, hahahahaha!”. Well…we never shy away from a challenge and we did it! We did it!! We are failing to qualify… Reaching the last four in the World Cup 2014 was easier….

Well, I needed a break of a couple of days after the Turkey game. And not because I had to watch it at 2 am with Spanish commentary and delay… :-(.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on the game.

I mean, you saw it. First 10 minutes. Oranje has 6 men before the ball. Turn around comes. Turkey whacks ball foreward. Quite blind, really. De Vrij wins the essential header. But Turkish midfielder is there before Klaassen. More desire. De Vrij is out of position. Bruma doesn’t step up. 1-0.

Narsingh gets similar opportunity. Misses.

Blind looks up while ball is coming his way (Dutch throw in). He needs to shift his weight as ball comes on right foot. Bad touch. Bad throw too. Bruma was facing the open pitch as last man and Narsingh was available too. Turkish playmaker picks ball up and defeats Cillesen near post. Three big mistakes in a row. Throw of ball to Blind, Blind’s touch. Cillesen. No coaching going on. Just bad, weak, sloppy defending.

Third goal I don’t even rate. Was a foul on Van der Wiel. But everyone had stopped playing by then.

Sneijder gets a shooting opportunity on the edge of the box. He, in particular HE, should bury that ball.

Wijnaldum scores crazy header for Newcastle only weeks back. Now he has a free header and mishits the ball totally. Ball bounces of his shoulder.

If this is the way you play, it doesn’t matter who the coach is or who you field… It was a total shocker.

No confidence, no speed, no automatisms, no desire. Midfield was outplayed. We have too many “nice guys” in midfield. Blind, Klaassen, it was all too soft.

Danny Blind, again, made some weird subs. At a certain stage, it was Sneijder playing on the right wing, crossing balls in with Promes (?) playing behind Van Persie/De Jong. Why not use Huntelaar? The Schalke 04 striker was Thursday good enough to be #1 striker and on Sunday, he isn’t even good enough to play pinchhitter…

I think the final conclusion, even though we still have a small chance to make it, is that Holland simply doesn’t have “it” at the moment and doesn’t deserve to go to France…

Sad but true. We lose twice against Iceland! ICELAND!!

In Holland, one can easily speak of a crisis. The fans are devastated, the media disgusted and the sponsors and retailers see 50 bio euros disappear. The only ones who don’t see the crisis, is the KNVB. A poll under Dutch football fans says that more than half of the people believe KNVB CEO Bert van Oostveen is the one to blame. Him, and the players. Both Hiddink and Blind seem to have the sympathy of the people.

But the KNVB has positioned itself into a difficult position. CEO Van Oostveen has publically and loudly stated that he supports Blind and Staf unconditionally. He is not going to send Blind away after two games, and also not after 4 games. The CEO has signed Blind until 2018 and has previously sacrificed Hiddink to allow Blind the reigns. No way that Blind will be fired by Van Oostveen. But should the board of directors sack Van Oostveen, then Blind and co. will most likely follow suit.

Which leaves the question: if this happens (and it might, as Bert van Oostveen was also responsible for the unelegant exit of Bert van Marwijk), who will be the ideal team manager? Most candidates have committed to their clubs.

Hiddink’s demise was inavoidable. And it left Blind with a difficult inheritance. Only four games to sort things out. Four finales, with only one practice session before the first game. And Blind will have had his plan, but Martins Indi and Arjen Robben destroyed that plan. A cheap penalty made it even worse and that first game was lost in a freaky way. But there is no excuse for the dramatic loss against a mediocre Turkey. As Ruud Gullit said in an emoti0nal analysis after the game. “There was nothing, no desire, no cursing, no yelling, no dirty challenges, no provocations, there was nothing you would expect from a team that does not want to lose. It feels as if these guys can’t give all they have. It’s all too soft.”

The crisis is complex. Danny Blind might become the man to bring Oranje into the biggest qualification shame in the history of Dutch football while also being the man who is to lead Oranje into a new future, with a transformed team as the big guns (Sneijder, Robben, De Jong, Huntelaar, Van Persie) are getting slowly too old for Oranje.

What went wrong?

In my view, the first mistake was made by Bert van Oostveen by selecting Guus Hiddink as successor to Van Gaal. The second mistake was Hiddink proclaiming that he would restore the Dutch school, with 4-3-3. Louis van Gaal did very well with Oranje. Why not build on these foundations and use a coach who thinks and works like Van Gaal: Danny Blind! And instead of wanting the Dutch School, the KNVB should have realised that the 5-3-2 is currently the best tactical set up for Oranje. As it can become 3-4-3 in a turn around situation just like that. Hiddink and Van Gaal aren’t friends. Hiddink is a totally different coach. What a change of protocol and work approach for the players. Why would Van Oostveen want this??

The next big thing that went wrong was the post-WC disease that most successful teams have after long stint in the World Cup. The players had a ahort holiday, they want to focus on their spot at their clubs and the first qualification games do come very quickly in the new season. The Dutch see games vs the Czechs and Iceland as necessary stumbling blocks on the road to new Euro success. The Czechs and the Icelanders however, see the game against us as the biggest game of the year! They weren’t at the WC and finally have the chance to play against a big team. Their motivation is 110%, ours is 90%. And suddenly, we have a game on our hand… Individual mistakes (concentration, arrogance?) and lack of sharpness resulted in losses in the start of the series. The Iceland game away was a big one. We lost 5 points already and needed a result. Two moments of lack of concentration and we lost that match, which prompted the KNVB to put the pressure on Hiddink which undermined his authority and led to his demise. By then, Arjen Robben was not available for half of the games and Hiddink stuck with old hands like Van der Wiel, Nigel de Jong and Ibi Afellay… He even mentioned Nigel as his “captain of midfield” only to snub the captain months later, saying he needed more football in midfield.

Guus was on a losing streak. He got into a rift with the KNVB CEO, the media jumped on him, pundits started to wonder what was happening and it all got into the heads of the players who seemed to be playing without any confidence, adding mistake to misfortune.

Certainly, a trend to take heed of is the fact that our players might not be that good anymore… Dutch football in general seems to losing it’s way. In 1988, the Dutch clubs battled for top European trophies. In 1998, Ajax had just played two CL finals. In 2010, most of our top players played at big clubs (Inter Milan, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City, Bayern Munich)… Today, our big guns are getting more tired and less fit (RVP, Robben and Huntelaar battled with injuries while Rafa van der Vaart is no longer on the radar). And the young guns we have are all playing for mediocre teams (on a European level) like Watford, Newcastle, Basel, Ajax, Feyenoord and Sunderland with Memphis and Daley Blind as the main exceptions. But… consider this… Would Blind and Memphis play at Man United if Louis wasn’t managing there? Probably not!

So, post World Cup blues in combination with bad management (Van Oostveen/Hiddink) in combination with lesser quality.

The perfect storm.

Some people think Danny Blind is also a problem and not fit to manage Oranje. I used to believe he was good enough. Simply due to the way he presents himself. He is a good communicator. He knows all the talents on the fields in Holland as he keeps track of all that is going on. He used to be a very tactically savvy player who has demonstrated to know what it takes to win trophies. He has worked on all levels in football. From assistant coach to technical director. From head coach to youth coordinator. And on top of that, he worked with Louis van Gaal for many many years. Doubts have arisen though, with his two games at the helm. Losing against Iceland in the way we did can happen to any coach. A quick loss of Robben, a Martins Indi red card. A silly penalty. No coach can stop that, most likely. But why did he play BMI and Van der Wiel in the first place? Why did he put so much emphasis on Robben as leader? Why was RVP on the bench “unfit” while starting three days later? Why subbing Huntelaar so early in the piece? Why using Blind as left back and not centrally in midfield? So many questions.

The Turkey game offered up even more questions… Why Riedewald? The youngster, over Pieters? Why Klaassen in midfield who proved to be too light vs Iceland? Why sticking to Narsingh who didn’t dazzle vs Iceland? Why keeping Huntelaar benched? And Blind has one Marco van Basten and one Ruud van Nistelrooy next to him on the bench? Would they have agreed to sub Narsingh for Promes, moving the youngster centrally and letting Sneijder play right wing??? Is Luuk de Jong (PSV and failed at Borussia) really a better pinchitter than Schalke 04 striker KJ Huntelaar? Really?

But most importantly… His master Louis van Gaal decided more than a year ago now, that 4-3-3 was not working for Holland. We do not have the quality (yet) to do this. Hiddink proved the point with his abysmal campaign. Why didn’t Blind immediately go back to 5-3-2? He had four games to grind out a result. We didn’t need to entertain the world. We just needed points. Why not use Janmaat and Pieters out wide. With De Vrij, Blind and Bruma centrally. Blind moving into midfield whenever possible… We could have had work horses Van Ginkel and Wijnaldum in midfield with Sneijder and Memphis and Robben up front, using Hunter as pinch hitter!

In possession, Janmaat would always move up and be the right winger Robben isn’t. And fill that space. Marathon man van Ginkel as right mid would have covered ground on that flank. Pieters is more a defender which would work well with Sneijder who likes to own that left space.

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken, but clearly Bert van Oostveen felt “5-3-2” means the system needed fixing…

The analysts are ruthless in their analysis. You read what Gullit had to say above. Johan Cruyff pointed out that all of Oranje’s mistakes are basis flaws in quality and it is all trainable. “The defending was shocking. Weak. Positioning was totally wrong and the challenges were ill-timed. The penalty we conceded against Iceland is a typical example. Positioning: all wrong! Most of our movement in defence and in particular in and around the box is naive. The second thing that gets me is the lack of passing capabilities. The through pass forward. Only a couple of players see it and can give the pass. Sneijder, of course, but he is playing high up the pitch. From behind, it’s only Blind and Clasie. The rest rather play square balls because they don’t see it or they don’t have the skill. And it’s all trainable stuff.”

Willem van Hanegem laments the lack of quality. “The reality now is, that we need help from Iceland and the Czechs to qualify. That sums up how poor we have become. Having said that, Turkey wasn’t that good either and the only thing they were better in against us was team spirit and desire. Oh, and the fact that they converted their chances and we choked at the crucial moments. Hiddink was told he was too old or too weak and had to go. A new young coach played two games and has zero points. Well done KNVB! We think we are very good but the reality is different. A lad like Memphis is playing and acting as if he is a demi god but he spent most time on the pitch moaning to the ref. If he gives a back heel the commentator orgasms but the effectiveness of all his dancing and twinkletoes is simply not there. The player who impressed me was Van Persie. He tried to play as a team player. He was always looking for the combination. We are too soft for our youngsters. The hat, the scarf, the golden boots… Start with performing, with making a difference before you behave like a movie star. For me, criticizing Danny Blind is too easy. He started his first game and was confronted with the epitome of bad luck: losing Robben, red card, penalty… What do you do? Sure, he made mistakes but we all make mistakes. That is part of the game. But I’m telling you, Turkey will make mistakes in the last two games. They probably lost their qualification against Latvia, when they could have scored 12 but ended up drawing.”

A telling statistic, one we can’t ignore, is the fact that out of the 8 qualification games, Oranje conceded first in six!! Six times, at home and away, the opponent scored first. Six times, our lads have to play to get back into the game. That is a telling stat. It happened again against Turkey. All tactical plans can go into the shredder. The idea was to let the Turks come out and play, as they needed a win. And we would counter our way to our victory. Hence Narsingh, hence Van Persie. After seven minutes, the Turks could play that game with us… In six out of eight games, the opponent can sit deep and make the field small and give us the ball. In all these games, we had serious trouble playing our way to chances. Spain, as an example, has more than enough players in midfield able to play the through ball. They have Iniesta, Fabregas, Isco, Silva, Mata in midfield. And fast full backs using the flanks when they can. A top striker like Costa is actually not even needed in the Spanish team, that is how well they break down opponents from midfield.

Our midfield does not have that quality. It’s predictable and slow. As Cruyff said, we don’t have enough players with the sharp through ball… And therefore, we might have enough possession, but we don’t do enough with it. We don’t really dominate the game.

Another issue we have: our top guns hardly make the difference. Robben was not as instrumental as he was at the World Cup. Van Persie looks quite bland these days and Sneijder misses opportunities he would have scored back in 2010. We don’t even remember who Van der Vaart was, by now.

There are now two options:

1. Turkey fails and Oranje wins the last two games….

This option doesn’t sound like the obvious one to me, to be honest. I think Turkey has the momentum and we clearly don’t. But it we do get through, I think Blind will need to focus on the 5-3-2 system. With players like Willems and Janmaat as wing backs, with Memphis and Robben upfront. Depending on form of the day and opponents, we could play with players like Sneijder, Strootman, Clasie, Van Ginkel or Wijnaldum in midfield while Daley plays center back. The other CBs are not that key. Bruma, De Vrij, Veltman, Rekik, Van Dijk, Van Beek….

2 Turkey finishes the job and Holland is out!

The more likely scenario. I think in this scenario, Blind needs to stay on and work on a new Oranje. Time to slowly phase out Van Persie and most likely Sneijder. Time for an exciting new team to be build. And I think we have the quality.

We have decent goalies…

Our back line is not that shabby either. I believe in Tete, Van Beek, Blind, Kongolo, Riedewald, De Vrij, Rekik, Bruma, Van Dijk, Willems… I also believe in Janmaat by the way and Van Rhijn will not have unlearned how to play….

With midfielders like Clasie, Maher, Wijnaldum, Fer, Ake, Van Ginkel, Strootman, Bazoer, Ziyech, Tannane, Klaassen, Blind, Vilhena, Sinkgraven and Propper we surely should be able to field some quality there

Upfront, Memphis seems to be the man, with El Ghazi coming through, Sinkgraven, Promes, Boetius, Berghuis… The only missing player in all this is the central striker… Van Basten, Kieft, Bosman, Kluivert, Bergkamp, Van Nistelrooy, Makaay, Huntelaar, Van Persie…where is the next one? Maybe it’s Vincent Janssen….

In 2011 and 2012, Alfred Stuivenberg won the European Championship with the Under 17s. The current Man United assistant coach had players like Rekik, Ake, Hendrix, Vilhena, Willems, Depay, Kongolo, Kyle Ebicilio and Anas Achahbar under his wing. He said: “The trophies were great but it is youth football. It is different. At top senior level, different skillsets are important and there is no telling where these players will end up.”

Statistieken EK-kwalificatie | Create infographics

Statistically, Oranje is one of the more dominating teams in Europe. Holland has 67% possession over 8 qualification games. Only World Champs Germany and former Champs Spain come to the same percentage. In terms of attempts on goals, Holland is in the top 3 as well. We had 151 shots on goal. Only Germany and Belgium had more attempts. 60 of these attempts were on target. Only Germany had more precision. But… out of the 60, we score the least goals. Only 13 goals out of 60 with 6 of the 13 in one game ( Latvia 6-0). England is top with 24 goals and Poland is number 2 with 21 goals…. End conclusion is: the opponent goalies are playing sensational against Oranje or the quality of the shots is wanting…

June 16, 2015 by Jan

Oranje secures crucial points but will change coach….

The Dutch overly cricital analysts said it before the game: “If we really need to lose sleep over an away game against Latvia, than we have sunk really deep…”. And obviously they are correct… Holland needs to play all finals now, to secure enough points to reach the Euros. For the current #3 in the World, that is actually quite disappointing.

But, at least we are still in it. Guus could breath relaxed after the game, as I am 100% convinced he would have been fired with any other result.

The team did what it had to do. Put pressure on. Create opportunities. Win. The Latvians played pretty solid actually. Their positioning was excellent and their will and desire was present too. Paired with a Dutch team as opponent which wasn’t able to fire on all cylinders. Depay on the left was very active and involved in the first half, as was Wesley Sneijder. But Luciano Narsingh and Klaas Jan Huntelaar, in contrast, were sub par. Huntelaar did not get an inch in the box and didn’t get good service while Narsingh simply seems to lack form (or quality). He is particularly strong when he can explore space and against Latvia away, obviously there is not a lot of space to be found. This is where Promes or even Berghuis would have been a better option.

The pairing of Sneijder and Blind in a 4-2-4 set up worked fairly well although Clasie with his fast passing and vision would have added a dimension to the game, I’m sure. Depay could have scored a couple in the first half (should have even?) and that would have opened the door to a strong victory for sure. But lack of sharpness, and a good goalie prevented a bigger loss for Latvia.

It was one moment of briliance from sub Wijnaldum that sealed the fate of the Latvians. A good turn, a Kluivert style toe poke and Oranje was 0-1 up. Another good moment of Blind finding space (!) for Narsingh and the winger did the only thing right in his game. Hopefully the goal will help him shrug off his burden. Interestingly enough, Narsingh jumped into the arms of his rival Promes while Wijnaldum sought assistant coach Van Nistelrooy who had instructed Wijnaldum where to look for space and how to time his run. Van Nistelrooy had told the PSV midfielder that he would be the one scoring the crucial goal. Four minutes later, he did.

And so Oranje did what it had to do.

Having said that, the 67 year ol sly fox will probably make way for Danny Blind, this summer already.

Lucky Gus seems to have lost his touch. There are grave concerns within the KNVB while the players also shared their confusions in small circles about some of his decisions and communications.

Now, I think Guus deserves a respectful farewell as I don’t think there is more work for him after this. And he has had a sensational career. Quite good as a playmaker but not good enough for the big guns. He played for PSV for 1 season but preferred to be a big fish in a little pond. He coaches PSV to the European top and since that feat he has done really well for himself, coaching all over the world, with a mixed bag of success.

The team manager’s stint for Oranje from 1994 to 1998 was a highlight for sure. Rising like a Phoenix to the semi finals in France after the 1996 ashes with Davids as co-star.

But this time around, Guus thought he could do it half-arsed. He figured that with 1) the top 3 progressing to the Euros and 2) a mix of talent and experience he would be able to bring the Dutch School back into existence while winging it a bit. Well, he made a mistake. For starters: the World Cup as per usual left a negative inheritance for Oranje’s Euro qualifications’ start. This seems to happen always. Players are either tired (the young ones), overly extended (the older ones) or maybe a bit complacent (the rest).

So a series of mistakes, lack of desire and absence of big star names resulted in a horrific start of the series and all through this first year, Hiddink was vague and somewhat mentally absent during press conferences. Deer in the headlights comes to mind. He wasn’t consistent and his communication was questionable. After the second loss against Iceland, the KNVB general manager immediately pulled the power card which probably didn’t help in the relationship department with Guus who normally would refuse to deal with minions like Oostveen.

And if you are in a rut, things don’t go your way. The many missed opportunities against the Czechs and Iceland, the Janmaat mistake, the defensive uncertainties, the Robben injury, it all seemed to be a logical result of the Law of Attraction.

He is not longer the fearless leader. Her accepted too much and was too weak in his communications and directions. He has been changing and shifting players. De Jong in center midfield… Two months ago, he called him “my captain in midfield” and now De Jong wasn’t even needed. Clasie gets the nod. But suddenly Clasie is sacrificed for Blind. Van Persie and Huntelaar cannot play together against strong opponents. Fine. But which of the two will need to go? I think Huntelaar will know that it will most likely be him. So the Schalke striker is playing less for the team but more for himself. Janmaat in, Van der Wiel out. Van der Wiel in, Janmaat out. When the US came to play a friendly, Hiddink said quite resolutely he wouldn’t play Sneijder (who just arrived from Turkey) but the little playmaker wants to break van der Sar’s record and convinced Hiddink to allow him to come on as a sub. Or the game against Mexico. Hiddink had said Robben would be used only for half the game. But Robben enjoyed himself and decided to stay on the pitch. These are all not too smart things to do for a coach.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that Danny Blind will fix this all. But at least the players highly respect him for his craftmanship. And it seemed in the run up to the Latvia game that this decision was already made. The 53 year old ex Ajax coach was coaching dominantly at the practice sessions while Hiddink kept his distance. During the game, Blind also made a passionate and driven impression, coaching actively, while during the first matches, he sat next to Hiddink, somewhat apathically. But it is his big ambition to coach this team, and he decided to not join Van Gaal at Man United after the World Cup for this reason.

Despite the lack of satisfaction concerning Hiddink’s performance, the KNVB will most likely not sack the seasoned coach. The former Real Madrid coach will probably step into a mentoring role or advising role which will lead to Blind taking the reigns and most likely a new assistant coach being added to the mix at Oranje.

And while Hiddink immediately went on holidays, Blind and the KNVB will get together to find a modus to give the former success coach the ending he deserves. It will be a busy summer in Zeist, but also for a lot of the Oranje internationals. Some of whom are not yet certain where their next home will be. Depay is home and hosed at Man United. Huntelaar will remain at Schalke 04. Usually, Janmaat, De Vrij, Martins Indi and Blind will not move away (although De Vrij might be snatched up as he had a tremendous year with Lazio). But Jetro Willems has signalled he is ready for a next step. “If a good club in a big competition comes, I might be tempted.” There is rumour that Paris St Germain might be that club.

Van der Wiel is most likely on his way to AC Milan. The Italian behemoth is looking at re-establishing themselves and hope to get Zlatan back to the fashion capital. Jordy Clasie is ready to move away from Feyenoord and both AS Roma and Southampton seem to be the most likely candidates for him. Sneijder has a solid contract in Istanbul, where he makes 6 Mio euros per season and lives like a movie star in a penthouse overlooking the Bosporus. He will play CL next season and any board member at Galatasaray suggesting to sell the midfielder might want to hire some bodyguards. But… it’s football. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is tempted to play in the EPL for once. Liverpool could be a candidate. Wijnaldum is another player whose name is on many scouting lists. He had a good World Cup and this last goal will definitely help his status. I think Narsingh will be happy to stay at PSV, but Promes and Lens are both in demand. Lens would love to join Advocaat at Sunderland while Promes might have different clubs to choose from. Robin van Persie is a question mark. The 31 year old is probably too old to make a big transfer although AC Milan and Juventus are mentioned through the grapevine as well. In an interview recently he said that his family’s needs will be very important in his next step. And from more recent quips it seems that the Man United striker might stay at Old Trafford and battle for his position.

Steven Berghuis is almost certainly on his way from AZ to PSV which might bring more pressure on Narsingh, as Jozefzoon is also an option for Phillip Cocu on the right flank. Leroy Fer got relegated with QPR but is too expensive for the Championship and might be on his way, finally, to Everton. Karim Rekik might either be loaned by Man City to a club in France or Italy or he will be sold to PSV. Ron Vlaar is at the point in his career that any offer from a big club will be appreciated… The veteran defender is injury prone and will not yield a return from an onsell, so it is questionable whether a big name club will actually come for him. This is different for Virgil van Dijk at Celtic who actually has the clubs to pick from. Sunderland, Arsenal, Southampton… which ever it will be, it seems Van Dijk will play EPL football next season and will aim for a spot in the orange jersey.

Lastly, it seems the keepers carrousel will commence soon too, with De Gea moving to Real Madrid and Cillesen being touted as a potential successor. Interestingly enough, people close to Van Gaal say it is a nonsense story.

Sorry guys I could not find a decent video of highlights….

June 12, 2015 by Jan

Preview Latvia – Oranje

Tonight is the big night for Oranje. Another finals to play. Oranje will face Latvia in Riga with a new defence and mostly a new midfield, with Jordy Clasie a shock absentee for the game, as the Feyenoord player returned to Holland with a bowel syndrome situation. He won’t be playing against the Latvians and Daley Blind will now definitely play in the central midfielder role.

Hiddink does not seem to have many secrets. “We need to attack and score goals, so we’ll play Robin and Klaasjan together. It works well enough and with those two we will definitely keep their defence busy.”

Depay will play on the left and Narsingh on the right. The back line will consist of Depay’s team mate Jetro Willems, former partners BMI and De Vrij and Greg van der Wiel on the right. Van der Wiel is a surprise for me. I felt Janmaat was a better option, as he has played well with De Vrij for quite a while. But Janmaat and Hiddink seem to have lost it in their relationship ever since the former Feyenoord man was blamed for the loss against the Czechs and was even ignored by Hiddink for a number of games.

It’s quite interesting that last time around, when Oranje played two matches and Clasie was surprisingly ignored in favour of De Jong, the little Feyenoord midfielder also bailed with an injury. Now, after he played in the starting line up in the US friendly, he has to make way for Blind again and suddenly he is injured again. And returning home. Coincidence? Or is Clasie fed up with the antics of his coach?

We’ll find out some time I suppose.

Hiddink did not mention a rift at the press conference and further confirmed that in his eyes, the defence (and defensive midfielder) were not the only ones to blame for the defeat against Team USA. “Defence starts up front. If the forwards and midfielders don’t join in, any defence is helpless.” But…despite these words, all defenders and the defensive mid are being replaced.

The only reason BMI is back in the team is because Vlaar is injured and BMI and De Vrij work well together. Hiddink wanted to focus on the offensive side of the game, as it is a must win match. “If we don’t win we will lose control and don’t have our future in our own hands. We can get 15 points in total, and if we do, we will finish second and qualify for the Euros.”

The Riga stadium wouldn’t be fit for a Jupiler match, with stands lacking behind one of the goals. That is now a parking spot. It won’t be the first time a missed goal attempt hit a car and took a side view mirror.

Daryl Janmaat lost his spot in the squad after the Czech game but doesn’t want to discuss that situation. “I made a mistake. I can see now that I had to have handled that situation differently. You need to make those decisions quickly and I was doing something on impulse that belongs to the Eredivisie but not at this level. I paid my dues. But I was happy that the coach invited me back for the Spain game. I think we need to stop looking at that game now. We lost. We are in a position where we need to get our act together and make this happen. I don’t want to look back but forward.”

Daley Blind will move from left back to centrally in midfield. The former Ajax prodigy: “I get that question a lot. What spot do I prefer. I don’t mind where I play. I want to play. I’ll play wherever the coach needs me. And tonight it’s midfield.” Blind will play with RVP and Sneijder on one midfield and will need to guard the balance in the team. Against Team USA this didn’t work out too well and the Americans had a free road towards Cillesen, at times. “The US Game was tough. The space was too big, the space between the lines. We simply couldn’t play compact and we failed to keep possession. Once we can play compact, we are a tough team to play against.” Asked whether Latvia could be a banana peel for Oranje. “Well, we already slipped enough times… We played well at home against them, but this is a different game. We need to be 100% focused because these days you can lose against any team, it seems.”

One player who impressed Hiddink and his staff but who won’t start is Steven Berghuis. The lanky AZ midfielder/winger was a revelation, said Hiddink. “That is a good lad. Normally young players need some time to adjust to the pace with Oranje. But he did very well when the foreign players weren’t yet here. Usually, when the likes of Van Persie and Huntelaar join in, the pace is pushed up even more. But Berghuis didn’t seem to care. He was one of the best players at times.” The seasoned coach will not start Berghuis, but the youngster has a similar threat as Robben, playing as a lefty from the right and scoring many goals after drifting inside. We might see the former Twente and VVV player make his debut.

Robin van Persie could score a record 50 goals for Oranje tonight. This has never happened before. “It might help even, scoring a record goal. We are under pressure and can use a lift. But to be honest: I love it! I love the pressure. We all feel this is a key game. Bring it on.”

I think we will tear the Lats apart and prove to the world and ourselves this was all an incident. I think we’ll be 3-0 up at half time. Sneijder, Huntelaar and Van Persie scoring. We will add two more in the second half, with Depay scoring one and Huntelaar adding his second to the tally.

Iceland and Czech Republic will draw 0-0.

June 8, 2015 by Jan

Oranje Latvia dessert of the 2015 season

After having been served a sumptuous main meal last Saturday with the brilliant Iniesta, Messi and Mascherano winning another Champions League at the expense of Juve, we are prepping ourselves for Oranje’s last game this season.

It was a great game. Happy for Barca and all the Barca fans. Happy for Xavi who leaves the club as a legend and realised last Saturday that Messi is only 27 years old so we probably have another 5 years of Messi to enjoy…

But from Iniesta, we go to Klaassen, from Messi we move to Promes and from Mascherano we focus on Bruma…. And co….

Latvia is our next opponent. We played them twice before, both times we won. We scored nine against them, and conceded none.

This is what we need to do again! Score and not concede. We are currently #3 in the group. Winning vs Latvia will get us closer to #2 ( 2 points) while we still have a game to play against them (Iceland). We also have the Czechs at home, so in theory, we could and should simply get to that #2 spot without too many problems.

Guus Hiddink has basically the same squad as LVG had in Brazil. Sure, Arjen Robben is injured and RVP is not 100% fit, but still. We played the World top in Brazil (well….Costa Rica…) and I do believe we should be able to beat Latvia sans Robben as well.

So what do we have now? A new coach and partly new staff. We lack Robben. We have a new team tactics (4-3-3, with emphasis on having possesion and playing “Dutch”). We have players like De Vrij, Janmaat, Depay and Blind whom all have improved over the year (one can expect).

So there is no need to not win.

Guus Hiddink made the decision about the players who will have to make way. Groningen midfielder Chery, Vitesse midfielder Propper and Ajax defender Veltman will be packing their bags. Ron Vlaar is still not 100% and has been training alone but Hiddink seems to believe he will be ready for the game. The Oranje Defense was seen as the culprit for the 3-4 loss against Team USA and it might be that Hiddink starts with a complete new line up in the back. Janmaat-Bruma-BMI-Blind out, and Van der Wiel – De Vrij – Vlaar – Willems in. Blind will most likely move up to midfield in the Clasie role.

I would personally use Janmaat as he has experience playing with De Vrij and Vlaar but I would certainly pick Willems as left back. The decision Clasie vs Blind will have to be made on the basis of their form and the type of opponent. If we need quick passing to take the few opportunities handed to us, we need Clasie who has very quick feet and a quick mind. But I am biased of course :-). Hell, I’d even advise Barca to buy Clasie :-).

It does look like Hunter and RVP will start again up front, in a 4-4-2 style system which will result in a 3-3-4 in possession. Huntelaar was one of the few who could look back with some satisfaction to the US game. “Well, I did score two but that is a poor consolation because we gave the game away. I am disappointed. We didn’t defend well but at the same time should have scored more. The US is stronger than Latvia and I do believe we will do the job.”

Huntelaar and Van Persie will both start under Hiddink, something the predecessors were not keen to do. “I am happy with this test, we did well. Robin van Persie played a lot of games behind the striker in his youth and early pro years. He can play like that and I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to play together,” says the Schalke striker.

In transfer news, Rafa van der Vaart is talking to Betis Sevilla. The second club from Sevilla promoted to La Liga this season and wants to become a big rival of Sevilla FC. Rafa seems keen to move to Spain, as he is part Spanish and his grandparents live in the Sevilla region.

Some people claim to have seen RVP at Roma airport and a link to Lazio is easily made (RVP and De Vrij are good mates). Who knows. If I was Juve, I’d sign both Sneijder and RVP.

June 6, 2015 by Jan

Sloppy Oranje loses again in open game

I keep on repeating myself… I don’t like friendlies. Because you can lose a friendly, while the coach has a wry smile and thinks “Great! Learned a lot. I have a lot of stuff to work on with the lads.” And if Oranje beats Latvia without a problem (thanks KJ) than Hiddink could easily hint that the US game was key for him to make some changes and brief the players….

And we will all have forgotten the US friendly when Holland opens the Euro2016 tournament with a superb win over Italy….

But….

We haven’t beaten Latvia yet and we haven’t qualified for the Euros yet…

So all eyes on Hiddink….

The comments on my earlier post already said it. Shocking defending!! And as you will agree: defending takes more than four defenders and a goalie. I literally had to stop the video (see below) at times and play it again to see what went wrong… But with the first goal of the US alone for instance, you’ll see a series of horrible decisions being made by the likes of Wijnaldum, Clasie, Blind, BMI and the not so well versed football fan will end up blaming Janmaat for the goal… In my view, the problem already was there way before Janmaat could have done anything about it….

And on it goes. The intensity wasn’t there. The only ones with something to show were Depay (on a high after winning the title, the golden boot and the ticket to Manchester) and Huntelaar (keen to topple Kluivert on the all time scoring list).

The work rate and intensity weren’t there. You can’t play the US thinking you’re better when you do not put in the work shift. Closing down players, following the runs, going into the challenge whole-arsed (as opposed to half-arsed)… Basic principles of defending and containing the opponent. And this starts up top, with RVP and the Hunter. The first opportunity the US got should have woken the team up (but didn’t). The high light reel shows it… Huntelaar attempting to head the ball away where his right foot should have done it and then lack of coaching and communication between RVP and Bruma (RVP did have a better position to head the ball away, but how could Bruma know if RVP didn’t yell at him?)…

The US got two opportunities with the goal framework denying them while Klaas Jan had a good chance on the other end of the pitch to make that sort of even…. The first goal was a cracker. A superb cross in by Depay with his right (it is possible for a right footed left winger to cross balls in!) and the header was a goal Hunter would have scored while asleep. That US equaliser I already mentioned… weak defending from the forwards, the midfielders and lastly the defenders with Janmaat and Cillesen as the least culpable…

In the second half Janmaat was exchanged for Van der Wiel and his first real move was to assist Huntelaar in scoring another great goal. An outswinger this time, presented by the PSG full back and another typical KJH goal. Van Persie had a heading opportunity and a back heel blocked on the line and was a bit unlucky there. That particular move showed Blind on the overlap and a decent attack.

The 3-1 was a bit of a lucky after a good move from the right (Narsingh for Promes) and a weak header by Wijnaldum. The latter playing in the Sneijder role as the little Gala man had just joined the group after winning the double in Turkey. Huntelaar took a shot to make his hat trick but Depay flicked it into the other corner, unbeknownst to him, and made it 3-1.

Any team, in any competition, in any country, in any era, on any planet would know that with 30 odd minutes to go and one goal up, you make sure you win the game. You absorb some pressure from the US who would try and force something and you would go and counter attack your way to 4-1 and 5-1. Two late goals in the dying minutes is usually what you get. But instead of Luuk de Jong keeping his composure and scoring, he decided to go for a thunderbolt and he hit the woodwork, offering Team USA to counter… And they were the ones making us of total chaos in the Oranje ranks to score some goals. The 3-3 was a lucky (deflection via Luuk de Jong) but the other two goals were wonderfully created as the Dutch midfielders and defenders played like amateur juniors and allowed the US a way back in….

Cynical viewers might have thought “matchfixing?”… But we know better than that, I suppose….

Robin van Persie, captain but of the pitch when the US scored their winning goals, was a bit shocked. “I admit, I am a bit shocked by the level. But…this is merely a snapshot of our process. The US deserved this. They kept on going, when we switched off. We usually score 4-1 you’d expect. And kill the game. But we didn’t and they fought back. It’s easy to criticise our defense now, but defending starts up top. And we made this happen as a team. But we have some homework to do for Latvia. Let’s hope we can learn from it.” About his own game, he was not dissatisfied. “I am not 100% still. Match fitness takes a bit of time, but I played 70 minutes and I think I could have played on actually. I’m feeling good.”

Guus Hiddink was definitely not happy and muttered under his breath that this team cannot kill games off. “We were playing Santa Clause. When it was 0-0 we even handed them opportunities. These didn’t go in, luckily, but it was a sign. In this temperature, when you are 3-1 up you need to finish the game off. And be smart. And pace the game down. Pick your moments. We should have made it 4-2 instead we lose 3-4.”

Hiddink went on to question the side’s desire to win and the ability to put it all out there on the pitch. “The US like Australia always fights till the end. We became complacent and didn’t want to suffer to much. Well, this is the result you get. I do believe we can defend decently, normally but we were outpaced at times and that needs to improve.”

Wesley Sneijder can look back at a good season with Gala. Winning the double and back in the starting line up (normally, but not against the US) with Oranje. He is aiming for the record of Van der Sar in terms of Oranje caps and is well on his way. That is probably the only positive for him, as Hiddink allowed him 10 minutes or so, late in the US game.

Another couple of positives: Daryl Janmaat received the silver scale for playing 25 games in Oranje while Davy Propper of Vitesse (and most likely PSV next season) made his debut, after having sat on the bench twice before. He came on for Robin van Persie but failed to make an impression. A good one that is.

Lastly, Hunter will be happy with his two goals and his fair share in that third one (he’ll get the “assist” honour). The rest of the players won’t be too happy. In particular the defenders can expect a rest. Bruma was shaky and nervous, BMI lacked intensity and offered the US acres of space and Blind seemed uneasy with his positioning and role in the team and looked tired. Clasie, normally always decent, wasn’t able to boss midfield and he might lose his spot when Jetro Willems is fit coming Friday and might force the coaches to put Daley in the mid midfield role.

Vlaar and De Vrij are both expected to be fit coming Friday and will most certainly play alongside each other against Latvia.

April 8, 2015 by Jan

The Big Guus Hiddink Interview

Guys, it was good to be back! Enjoyed our actions re: Turkey and Spain. Will keep the blog going I think. I have had some highly generous donations from some of you, and wouldn’t mind just reminding the others to push the donate button on the home page and drop in what you can spare, ok? Every $ counts as it does take some budget for me to run the blog.

We’ll be on slow pace for the next 2 months but then in June we’ll see some key action again, all the way to October 2015! Exciting!

Here’s the interview with Hiddink:

Every team manager we had has been interviewed at length for this blog. Well…not really for this blog. I made that up. But we had MVB, we had BVM and we had LVG. Now we’ll put Guus on the spot.

The ol’ sly fox, terribly highly rated abroad, has seen his leadership challenged and his choices at times ridiculed.

The man with the Midas touch might have lost it… 2 wins out of 7. And that with a team that finished 3rd at the World Cup, only 8 months before…. In the autumn of his career the happy go lucky coach, formerly of PSV, Real Madrid, South Korea and Russia, finds himself in a big storm.

Bert van Oostveen (left) not happy with Guus dropping points….

Lets ask the man some questions.

After the loss against Iceland, the man who only reaped kudos and compliments for his way of working got vicious attacks to fend off… A first for you?

Guus Hiddink: “Well, I haven’t been reading the media for months now. Nice, peace and quiet. But obviously friends and family do feed you the headlines and the gist of it all. I’m a bit over the media guys who call me up and say “sorry mate, I’m not in charge of the headlines…”. That is cowardly to me. Hiding behind the editor. I think that is lame. It’s like when I let Ruud van Nistelrooy practice on the set pieces and corners, and whenever we concede from one of those situations I say “hey, I’m not responsible”. Bullshit. I am responsible for the team and a journalist should be responsible for his article. So don’t come to me for end-of-year stories of christmas interviews or whatever. There are journalists I share a whole history with, so I tend to be generous to these guys, but those days are over….”

After the Cech defeat you seemed even over the top angry in Jack van Gelder’s tv program….

GH: “I saw that a day later and I have to agree with you. I had trouble putting things in perspective. But we were not on the same page. The whole interview was a mess. I was waiting in some room for them, they were waiting for me. The organisation didn’t work out and we were both agitated.”

The principal idea that came across was “Guus is not in control”….

GH: “Correct, and I wasn’t. I was still trying to get everything to work out for us. After Iceland is when I noticed things started to go like I wanted it to. Not just on the pitch. But on the pitch, I want to see a team with balls. With teeth. Like at PSV when we won the Europa Cup. We had players like Gerets, like Kieft, who would say “This is where it stops!”. You gotta show an opponent you won’t give anything away. That is your attitude. The Lithuania game was a turnaround. The swagger was back. I saw their willingness and commitment. I missed that spark in the first games.”

Guus as player and as coach…..

Did you threaten to quit for that reason?

GH: “No? Threaten? No, someone asked me : if you lose this one, what then? And I basically said: It doesn’t make sense to keep on being the man in charge if I only lose games…. That was all.”

But now, you get that question before every game?

GH: “That is not needed. I have made the decision now. I am going on with the job. I couldn’t say that before, as I was not settled in. I had a number of meetings to book, a number of talks to do. Internally. Like I said, it’s not just what goes on on the pitch. Also in the organisation around the games, with my staff and with the KNVB… I needed to make it all work like I want it to work. We have been through all that now and I am happy.”

Oh, with whom did you talk?

GH: “With everyone who has a role to play.”

That is cryptic?

GH: “I don’t need to name names do I? Everyone that plays a role in the inner world of Oranje. Everyone that I have to deal with. Team manager, management, staff, medical staff, press people, players…. As a team manager you are like the CEO of a company. All departments need to function in service of the key activities: winning football matches. And I needed to make sure everyone understands what I want. Simple. But everything I say will be magnified and interpreted…”

Still, you can give an example?

GH: “There were meetings that I would do differently. And the responsibilities weren’t too clear. My predecessor was more a top-down dominant leader. I am more bottom up. So I need my staff to take matters in their own hand. So just do what you think you must and if I don’t like what you do, I’ll tell you and we can discuss it. Louis probably was more dominant in instructing. This also applies to on pitch antics. I need players to start thinking for themselves.”

Guus, captain of De Graafschap

Danny Blind has been working in the LVG style for years. Whenever you see the two of you, it doesn’t exude warmth….

GH: “I have no complaint about my relationship with Danny whatsoever. Danny is doing a marvelous job. I told him from day 1, I am happy to be the senior mentor guy, you can do the work you want to do. The KNVB wants to move forward with him, great. I have a good or better, excellent relationship with him. It is working like clockwork and I said it really fast into the process, I am happy to let Danny do the team talks and press conferences.”

Bert van Oostveen, general manager of the KNVB, said after Iceland he wanted to evaluate sharply?

GH: “And we did. This is what I said earlier. I spoke with everyone that has a role to play. And after these talks the major impulse is: let’s go for it! The key thing was to find common ground in the way we play. With all due respect: we can keep on going like “we have two top players up front, lets park the bus and let them sort it out” but if the defence is not good enough, it’s like a cake foundation that is faulty, with Robin and Robben being the cherries on top of the cake. But the cake implodes… what good does that do? So the key is: pushing forward, high line of defence, high pace and supporting our attack as much as possible. We can only utilise the quality upfront by offering a foundation for them. That foundation is a strong and solid defence and a smart, fleet of foot midfield. We need to build smarts, a killer mentality and physical strength. We cannot let ourselves be played out that easily. The lads need to learn, really fast now, when to put pressure on, when to drop back, when to give support, etc.”

Were you shocked with what you saw?

GH: “A bit. I thought they’d progressed more. It’s what I call their ability to get themselves out of a situation. Even when you don’t play well, you need to make sure you don’t play bad… This is a Cruyff quote. Player bad is ok, but you still gotta grind out the result. Against the Cech’s we didn’t even play that badly, but we gave the 3 points away. Unnecessary.”

Janmaat realises his mistake against the Czechs….

Was it your time spend abroad? You didn’t assess Dutch football properly?

GH: “Oh no I saw all the games. I did a lot of research. I saw that at the World Cup even with 5 in the back our defence was vulnerable. It was more a question of too many players so the players think “he’ll take care of it”. And so you do have two players there in a situation but they’re both too late…If you have more space to defend you tend to be on your toes. Four men at the back breeds more responsibility and alertness. This is what we are working on. The biggest issue is the post game talk. I love prepping the team in training, but to drive the point home, you need to be able to get the guys after the game and do a de-briefing. In our case it sometimes takes weeks before that can happen.”

Is it a disadvantage for you to get this team after they reached the 3rd place at the World Cup?

GH: “That World Cup was quite amazing. There is nothing to discount the result. I have complimented Louis and his staff and the lads on this. Well done! But, once you analyse the individual games afterwards you need to realistic. The coach was looking for ways to find a foundation for a result. The qualifications were fine but the friendlies against France and Belgium were a disaster. Even briefly before the World Cup Oranje didn’t play flash in their prep games. And without cynicism I say this: shortly before the World Cup Louis changes the tactics for the first big game. Versus Spain. The team concedes one goal, almost concedes a second. Louis said he was ready to go 4-3-3 in the half time break as it wasn’t working. And then Robin van Persie scores that wonder goal…. And suddenly the team has the confidence and understands how it can hurt strong opponents. There are examples where you can see that Oranje conceded with that new system.”

Lucky Gus working for the Socceroos

The Australia game. Holland is 1-2 down and Australia creates chances…. Depay comes in and is responsible for two goals….

GH: “If I say this, people will say I’m jealous on Van Gaal. Bullshit. If you analyse it, you will see this. It looks like the World Cup was one sensational high point, but the Australia game could have gone the other way. The Chile game was irrelevant. The Mexico game, we need a penalty late in the game to win it. And with Costa Rica and Argentina, it came down to penalties as well. We did have little hurdles in our gameplay and we did see players of the opponents slip through at times… Moments where you thought “Oooh…there is a little angel on our side….”. But, Oranje had Arjen Robben, who is or at least was in the form of his life. The power, the speed… what he did was phenomenal. Any game, he had energy left at the end of the game for his sprints over 60 yards. He wasn’t the small difference in a very good team but he was the big difference in a mediocre team.”

So what was the plan, in September 2014?

GH: “Well the man who made the difference, Robben, wasn’t available due to injury. We had that friendly against Italy. It was our intention to play more offensive. To use some other players and go back to our more dominant playing style. But an early red card made that impossible. In hindsight, that game against Italy should not have been programmed. We came back from the World Cup, with a new coach- me- and new intentions. You ideally want a week to work together on this new playing style. If you can focus on it with 5 tactical talks and 5 focused training sessions you can make good progress. We didn’t have that time and then the Czech game was looming….”

And you went back to 5-3-2?

GH: “But with reason. Our intention is to play 4-3-3 but Czechs play with 2 forwards and 5 at the back. It made sense to play 3-5-2. We weren’t oozing with confidence after Italy and the team surely knows how to play 5-3-2. We also missed two players that normally give us backbone: Vlaar and Robben. The first away game in a qualification series against a relatively strong opponent. If you don’t play well but still get a point, that would be considered a good result. Like the first game at a big tournament. You don’t want to lose that. And there was no need for us to lose that. But we did. It was 1-1 until the final minutes and we gifted them the win.”

Iceland better than Holland

The idea was to make Sneijder the free man in midfield but that didn’t work?

GH: “True. It has to do with the execution. The whole debate about systems is overrated. People in Holland love those discussions but you can play counter football with 4-4-2 or you can play dominant, attractive with 4-4-2 (like AC Milan in the early 90s). You can play counter football with 5-3-2 or dominant like Italy does. We didn’t execute it properly. It all starts with defence for me. The Italian defenders push up and defend at a high line. This supports midfield enormously and would give us opportunities to get the ball to Sneijder. You get opportunities on the flanks and you can provide service to the strikers… But in our case, we almost always conceded within the first 15 minutes! Incredible. And not because our system failed. And never because we were outplayed. No, simply making silly mistakes. Bad execution of the gameplan. Our players make the wrong decisions at the wrong times. It’s all about decision making.Take Iceland. We concede twice: once from a throw in and once from a corner kick! You cannot make these mistakes in the final third. You can not! Like Janmaat’s mistake against the Czechs. That needs to be ironed out. And I was quite disappointed to see that we still play naive and dreamy, despite the World Cup results. Innocent and too sweet. We need to know when we show and use our teeth!”

Apparently, Robben has had a number of group pep talks between Mexico and Lithuania?

GH: “True. He did that really well. It was quite heavy too. But it needed to happen. We took the time. We had a number of sessions together and were very open. Using video images too. Showing it is a good thing. This team has no reason to be cocky or arrogant. The World Cup is history. We need to learn how to draw a line in the sand and say “No. More!” And don’t get me wrong, the players also made us, the staff, accountable. There were things we promised we’d do and didn’t do, and they have every right to call on us. If Oranje fails, we all fail. Including the technical staff.”

What was the key learning point?

GH: “A confirmation of what we knew: that we need to play better organised. We need to be aware of the role we play in the team and we need to execute our tasks with 100% commitment and focus. Only then are we capable of achieving a result. We are vulnerable any other way. We believe that to be dominant you need to be able to base your dominant play on a well organised and alert defence. Playing high up the park and reading the game well. We need that balance. And we need the lines in the team to operate as one organism. You can’t have three defenders moving up and one going back. The decisions a team makes are important. As a whole. Do we accelerate the pace? Or slow it down? Do we go for a long ball? Or pass back and wait for the full back to move up? Do we go for the pass through the center or the ball over the top? The playmakers need to read the game and need to be on the same page as the defenders and the forwards… Barcelona is the example of a team of players who know each other so well… A national team is harder to get to play like this. We have players now from at least 6 different clubs. A goalie of Ajax. Defenders of PSV, Lazio, Porto, Newcastle…midfielders of Galatasaray, AC Milan, Feyenoord, PSV or Man United. And forwards from Bayern, Schalke, Man United, PSV…. We need to work hard to make this work well together.”

When Guus won the Europa Cup 1 with counter football and parking the bus 🙂

And playing counter football against smaller nations won’t work….

GH: “No not really. This is not our intention as it won’t work. Counter football is not something weak teams only can do by the way. It is sometimes said in a way as if counter football is inferior. It’s not. It takes certain skills. Particularly upfront, you need 3 players with speed. With the ability to run 60 meters at full speed maybe 8 times in a match. Our forwards are amongst the older players… We don’t want to play this game. We think we are able to push up high, take possession of the ball and then maybe use 2 or 3 passes to get a player in a good position. I don’t like the game where we possess the ball and then pass back to the center back and he passes to a defender, gets it back, pace goes down and he plays it predictably to the central midfielder etc etc. It is needed at times, but rather not….”

Still, it looked like this against Turkey

GH: “Of course it did. We were not able to execute our game plan too well. Some cogs in the machine had trouble delivering, without me naming names. And I am proud of Nigel de Jong and the patience he had to have. He is smart enough not to force anything. Turkey didn’t come to play. They parked the bus. I told the lads to try and get Turkey to react to what we did. We invited them in, they didn’t come out. Nigel had to be patient and he is now being punished for it. Turkey was organised well. And we were totally in control. Our problem, again, is that we conceded first. Again, we were chasing down the facts, as we say. We were chasing the game. Had at least 5 clear cut opportunities. In any other version of this match, we would be 2-0 up after one hour of play. The Turks needed 2 chances to score 1, we needed 7 chances to score 1. In the end we are happy with the point, as it looked grim. But normally we put this game away.”

Respect for each other, Del Bosque and Hiddink, both former Real Madrid coaches…

You said you’d use the same players in hindsight…

GH: “That is theoretical though. There is no hindsight. You will never get me to say “in hindsight I should not have played Player XYZ”. I will not let the lads down publically. But it was clear that some players didn’t perform as I wanted them to. That does happen. Sometimes when a game doesn’t go your way, it might look like it is all bad, but in our case we simply lacked that final ball. In the first 15 minutes or so Depay had a couple of good actions and it could have worked out differently. The goal we conceded was a comedy of errors. Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Sneijder playing left back. De Vrij positioned to far forward. Van der Wiel hypnotised. De Jong marking on the wrong side…. A coaching nightmare. But the lads deserve our respect for their fighting spirit.”

The Spain win was nice at least.

GH: “It helps with our confidence. You can see that it doesn’t take much to get the team going. A couple of changes and it can suddenly work. But Spain helped a lot. They want to play football too. It does take two teams that are willing to create a good game. I do hope people realise this.”

August 14, 2014 by Jan

The Future of Oranje is Lucky

While the umptieth war is waged (I am not talking Israel – Hamas, but Laurent vs the rest, which I choose to ignore) lets have a look at our future…

When Louis was signed I was cynical. I thought it was all about Louis’ ego and personal ambitions (and it was, actually) and feared he would screw up in the social realm (media, clubs, some players) but he actually did remarkably well. And that is an understatement.

I have said it here and will say it again: he did an amazing job. With Three World Beaters, one World Beater fighting back to top form and a group of young talents and/or mediocre players, he was able to squeeze the maximum out of the orange. And if Robben took that chance to shoot in the dying minute of the Argentina game, we could have gone all the way.

So Louis has taught us some things. 1) Preparation is everything. Working hard on tactical discipline, game plan and physical fitness brings dividends. 2) It’s not about the individual names, it’s about the team! 3) Good changes / substitutions can alter the game and affect the result. 4) Focus and believing in the mission allows athletes to rise to the occasion and exceed expectations.

To me, this means that there are no more excuses possible in the future. Germany for instance, has a great team. But they do not have a Messi or a Robben. They have many great team players and a number of players who are more than a team player (Kroos, Muller, Lahm, Ozil) but none of these will be remember in 30 years, like a Beckenbauer, Muller or Netzer. Only Klose, as a result of his record. Depending on how long that will stand.

It’s the TEAM that wins it. Brazil was all about Neymar. Argentina was all about Messi. Oranje was definitely leaning on Robben a lot but we did have that massive team spirit. Vlaar. De Jong. Blind. De Vrij. And those wonderful subs: Huntelaar. Depay. Wijnaldum. Fer.

I was not too happy with the choice of Hiddink but I now believe it is not a bad move.

Lucky Guss will not add a lot of tactical wizardry to Holland. But he will bring his typical toolbox. He will bring a sense of “relax, it will all be good” charisma to the table. His pizzazz and cool will deal with the media and some of the big boys (Van Persie, Sneijder) while Blind will continue the work of Van Gaal.

And when RVP, Sneijder, Robben move on, Blind will be the man with the authority before a new group from 2016 onwards.

And with all the talent that is emerging, and with Blind’s skills in managing and prepping teams (assuming he has learned a thing or two or three from the Master) we should be VERY confident.

The key thing is: how and when will we move from the reactive style to the more dominating style we like to play. Ajax, Feyenoord, Twente, Heerenveen, AZ and PSV all tend to play that game. So does Bayern. We can only hope LVG will do the same with Man United and I guess Galatasaray will not play reactive football in Turkey?

Guus is not as adventurous as I would want him to be, but in the lead up to the EC, in that qualification group we’re in, I cannot see Holland play like we did in Brazil.

When Guus Hiddink was introduced to the media the other week, and he praised the work of Van Gaal. “Louis has add a dimension to Dutch School football. I will pursue that avenue myself too. Sure, playing creative and playful is fun but we need to watch out that we are not just being world champions playing nice football within the borders of our own country! It’s key for our talents to learn how to perform under pressure. The pressure of winning! We have many talents but they need to be transformed to players who can win games.”

Ruud van Nistelrooy, assistant of Hiddink and Blind: “I never listened to the assistant coach…”

Hiddink emphasized that winning is important. Silverware is important. He also stressed that Danny Blind will have an even more dominating role. “Danny will be in charge as field coach but will also be involved in the media and press conferences. He is a very astute coach and we will jointly manage this two years, as we both bring our specific qualities to the fore.”

Blind is an astute tacticus and I hope he will find a way to have Oranje play the Dutch football style we see being played by Bayern and Germany. (Ouch, I didn’t expect THAT to come out of my keyboard!!!).

But when you have the likes of Promes, Boetius, Robben, Depay, Kishna etc up front and the likes of Maher, Wijnaldum, Clasie, Klaassen, Van Ginkel, Siem de Jong, Strootman, Blind, Fer, Sneijder, Afellay in midfield and wing backs like Janmaat, Van Rhijn, Van der Wiel, Willems, Kongolo and Van Aanholt you cannot but play attractive attacking football…

The only worry I have is the center forward of the future…. Is it Castaignos? Or Luuk de Jong? Or Van Wolfswinkel? Or is it a player that has yet to be spotted? Or will we play without a real center forward…..? We were spoilt for choice in the past (Van Nistelrooy, Kluivert, Makaay, Hasselbaink, Van Hooijdonk, Van Basten, Van Vossen, Gullit, Kieft, Bosman, Gillhaus, Houtman) but we seem to not develop any real killers anymore… Is our development to blame? Or is there no more space for strikers…

Klose doesn’t seem to agree with us but most other goal scores at the World Cup are more attacking midfielders (James) or false strikers/wingers (Muller, Robben, Messi).

I personally don’t mind. Because whatever the need: we have Dirk Kuyt.

July 16, 2014 by Jan

Oranje has 2 players in Top 3 of World Cup

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.

July 13, 2014 by Jan

Oranje 3rd of the World after 3-0 Brazil win!

What an amazing end to an amazing campaign!

The Dutch National Team has knicked the 3rd spot of the 2014 World Cup, against all odds, in the process beating World Champions Spain and hosts Brazil! And brushing aside Mexico and Chile and beating minions Australia and Costa Rica. Without suffering defeat in open play.

What an achievement!

I think it is quite something…. In 1974 we finished second after a disappointing loss in the finals but also after teaching the world to play. In 1978 we got unlucky and we might even got screwed as Argentina might have paid their way to the finals back then… In 1998 we could have gone all the way but lost the consolation finals versus Croatia and in 2010 that frickin’ toe stopped us from winning.

In ’74 and ’78, expectations were low. In 1998 and 2010 we knew we had a chance. Now, in 2014, most experts felt we would be extremely lucky and successful if we made it out of the group!

A bunch of oldies (but goldies) and a bunch of youngster, led by an intense and highly strung coach.

And we were a split second decision by Robben away from a place in the finals…

That moment in the last minute of the Argentina game…. let’s not go there.

So, Holland vs Brazil. A classic poster! Played 11 times against each other. Holland winning 3, Brazil winning 3. The rest you can guess.

Last time we lost, was with quite some drama (1994, 1998). Last time we won, we cruised to the WC finals in 2010.

The Canary Yellow agains the Orange.

There are many cool stories and angles to pick when talking about this match, but in this case it was all about: will Brazil be able to win the fans’ hearts back after the abysmal loss against Germany, 1-7?

Some said “expect a totally fueled up and foamin’ at the mouth Brazil”, while other said “Brazil is simply overrated and will be needing diapers when they come up on the pitch vs Holland”.

I think the truth was in the middle. But I also believe this is one of the worst Brazilian teams ever. The 1974 one was quite shabby, and this one, sans Neymar, is not much better.

Sneijder: “I was really annoyed I couldn’t play. I first was bummed out we missed the finals, and then my hamstring gave way during the warming up.”

Fred? Jo? Hulk? Seriously?? Willian and Oscar are very decent players and as a simple defender, Thiago Silva is pretty good too. But once David Luiz thinks he is Beckenbauer and Paulinho thinks he is Socrates you know you are in trouble.

Against Germany, the defence was absent. Against Holland, they weren’t much better.

In the first minute, Maxwell and Maicon and Luiz were a bit too lacklustre when Silva had to check a run by Robben after Van Persie launched the former Groningen man into space. Robben one v one the goalie is not a good idea in the first minute so Silva did what he thought was the best solution: pull him back outside of the box and pray he’d get away with it. Well, he did. He was allowed to stay on the pitch, but the ref did point at the spot.

With only 2 mins on the clock, captain Van Persie took the opportunity to do what Vlaar failed to do in his place versus Argentina (or did he…..). The Brazilian fans – to their shock – saw their team behind once more and when Oranje pounced again in the 17th minute via a beaut by Blind, the fans surely felt it was one of those days again!! Would their team again get trashed? The horror was visible on the faces of the onlookers.

And I have to say, being biased and all…. Holland was on top of the Canaries all the time. Sure, they had their chances and their spells… As they are surely no slouches going forward but in terms of team cohesion and discipline and tactics they played 1970 style football against a team that took a page from the ~~Barcelona~~ Dutch book of gameplay and the Atletico Madrid book of gameplay.

Holland had to deal with a setback when Sneijder grabbed his hamstring in the warm up and Jon De Guzman was told to prepare for the match, which saw us play with Robben an Robin upfront, De Guzman, Clasie and Wijnaldum in midfield and a five man back line with Blind and Kuyt out wide and De Vrij, Vlaar and Martins Indi as the three central defenders.

Blind hardly scores. And now he gets on in the consolation finals vs Brazil

That central block played tremendously well. De Vrij and Vlaar grew into the Men of the Match while Martins Indi, Wijnaldum, Clasie, Kuyt and Blind fought for what they were worth, with Blind regularly offering the team an outlet on the left and Clasie and Wijnaldum being crucial in midfield dominance, against players who play for European top teams ( Bayern, Spurs, Chelsea, Man City).

Sure, Brazil had some opportunities to get back into the game but for me it seemed more likely that we would get a third, as opposed to Brazil getting back into it.

Unlucky Daley Blind had to be subbed in the second half, which brought attacking full back Janmaat to the mix and Holland was the most likely to score the next goal. It seems like Brazil wanted it to end while Janmaat and Robben in particular seemed keen to get their names on the score sheet as well. Wijnaldum was also playing more adventurous, and even clashed with Robben at a certain point in the Brazilian box trying to dish out the final goal. And it would end up being the former Feyenoord man Wijnaldum who’d get his goal, finally, with Janmaat again delivering the assist (like with Gini’s buddy Leroy Fer vs Chile).

By then, Joel Veltman was given his final minutes to replace a cramped up Jordy Clasie while Van Gaal allowed Michel Vorm, the only one without minutes, his claim to fame. The Swansea man was allowed the last 5 minutes and had two goal kicks to his name when finally the ref put Brazil out of its misery.

Van Gaal’s mission has been accomplished. He reached the semi finals with Oranje and was able to do so without having suffered a defeat and using all 23 players. The Dutch have scored prolifically and with the most different goal scorers while we only conceded two goals from open play (Australia and Mexico, both crackers of goals).

I actually believe that we would have beaten Germany in the finals but hey…. I’ll take this.

The best thing for me, is the vindication of the Eredivisie. Many people, national and international (and here too) believed the Eredivisie is a crap competition.

Some Eredivisie quality (and Villan Roncrete Vlaar)

I think the facts speak for themselves: the player development and talent development in Holland is still top notch, if not better than ever. We now clearly also develop defenders! With a good coaching staff and a clear football vision, these lads can get somewhere.

Where Dutch clubs get unstuck internationally is the sheer fact that clubs in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, England, Germany have more money to spend. So they can assemble more good players. That is why Dutch clubs suffer outside of the Eredivisie. But in terms of development, we clearly hold our own!

July 12, 2014 by Jan

Holland cheers and Holland mourns…. Oranje out!

Dear friends, I am writing this a full 48 hours after the game. The reason, work had me traveling and I wasn’t able – in amongst my meetings – to sit and write a deserving post. I was happy I was able to watch the full game and read your comments here…

So, with that time in between I was able to give it all some good thought, and reflect on the game.

Which I will summarize as: 89 minutes of cagey play by two 5-3-2 playing teams giving nothing away until Robben in the 90st minute has a chance to score, takes one touch too much and gets thwarted. Extra time. Penalties. Bad luck (bad penalties). Loss.

This post needs to start with a big thumbs up and a big thank you and shout out for the boys! What they have done this tournament, what they have achieved and brought us is sensational. It’s actually on par for me with 1978. It’s a better performance almost than 2010, if you compare it. Breathtaking, really. What a rollercoaster ride.

And therefor, we also need to congratulate the staff and Louis van Gaal in particular.

He has achieved what no one expected him to do. Apart from us, probably :-). I do know that I have been critical on LVG and his antics, but he did really really well. Who knows, we might start to actually like him, 3 years before he retires, hahahahaha.

He wasn’t perfect though, he made some mistakes. Just like Sneijder, Blind, Van Persie and Cillesen weren’t perfect. But man, did I love this team and what they achieved.

We will celebrate the performance of the team in the days/weeks to come and I am sure the Dutch fans will give the lads a real heroes welcome once they return home. As number 3 or number 4, who cares…

In the words of Louis: “I wish they cancelled this consolation finals. What a bad idea. Who cares about that. You don’t want to lose twice in a row after having played such an amazing tournament. We should be going home now.”

And I agree: Third or Fourth. Who gives a samba? Poor Brazil was humiliated by Germany. What will they do? How will they cope? Will they be on the top of their game? Or foaming at the mouth of aggression and adrenaline? Or will they be stressed out to the max? Will be beat them too? Then what will happen over there? Will Louis allow the veterans their last WC game? Will he rest the top guns to allow them their much deserved break?

All these questions.

However, now…. with the game in less than 24 hours, Van Gaal has changed his tune: “I want to write football history for the Dutch. Never ever before did we finish a World Cup campaign without losing a match. In 1974, 78, 98 and 2010 we lost at least one game. This tournament, I want Oranje to be able to say: we went to the World Cup, played 7 big games and didn’t lose on single game in normal open play.”

I will watch the game and I will cheer for Holland but if Brazil beats us 5-0 I wouldn’t care. It’s a stupid thing. I do hope Louis will allow some of the benchwarmers to play. I think it’s time for Vorm, for Veltman, for Kongolo and Clasie for instance.

I will get back to the Argentina game for a bit here, still.

Brilliant defending header by Janmaat

I read Willem van Hanegem’s column before the game. And I was hoping to have time to put it here. Because I fully agreed with Willem. He basically said:

“Now we have reached the semis, we have formally reached our objective. We have also shown the world how good we can be. But we have not yet played our beloved Dutch style football, bar some periods in games where we had to. Lets take this game against Argentina and do it. Forget about 5-3-2. If you play that against Argentina who do the same, it’s almost as if you’re asking for penalties. Lets take the game to them. If we get past them, we’ll have a chance against Germany to put some pressure on them too. If we do not win against Argentina, we will at least leave the tournament with a good last hurrah! Dutch lose playing attacking football! Better than hearing “Dutch sneak into finals with negative play” again…. So play Clasie from the start. Make sure we have quick feet and quick passing. Put three forwards on and put pressure on their back five. Because there is nothing that can take the pride I feel for Oranje away anymore. You guys cannot lose anymore.”

Heartfelt message from De Kromme.

But Louis didn’t believe. For the first time in his life, Louis lost his bravado and wanted to squeeze out a win with another 5-3-2 “all balls on Robben” tactics. This is the drama for me, of this Tournament.

When I talked about Vlaar’s penalty yesterday ( a fluke as I have now seen footage from another angle, Vlaar touched the ball), I was in need of some drama. Losing games is ok, as long as there is drama attached to it.

1974 – The Swimming Pool Incident; Holland having 24 opportunities to score, German Dive got them penalty
1978 – Rensenbrink hits the post in dying seconds
1982 – Van Breukelen – Krol – Platini – nuff said
1984 – Spain – Malta 12-1
1986 – Grun scored in the last 5 minutes to launch Belgium to the Mexico WC
1990 – Beenhakker, Michels, Cruyff, Gullit
1992 – Van Basten misses penalty
1994 – Brazilian offside goals, winner scored from free-kick which was supposed to be an Oranje ball
1996 – Davids/Hiddink
1998 – Van Hooijdonk fouled in the box; no penalty but yellow for Pi-Air
2000 – Holland – Italy semi finals, Holland miss 12 penalties
2002 – Louis van Gaal
2004 – Robben substitution Advocaat
2006 – Battle of Nueremburg
2008 – Personal Tragedy Boulahrouz
2010 – Casillas’ toe
2012 – Zero points, Van Persie missing 34 chances to score
2014 – …….

I was hoping it was “Penalty goal Vlaar overseen by ref” but it most likely should be “Van Gaal sticks to defensive tactics too long”.

But of course, always easy to criticise in hindsight. In Dutch we say, “Hindsight is like looking a cow up her arse”… I do not know who made THAT up (not Cruyff!!) and why he / she made it up…. But if there is one thing I wish LVG hadn’t done, it was playing 5-3-2 against the masters of 5-3-2.

Also…. with what I saw of RVP and heard about him having stomach and bowel issues… I think LVG should have left Van Persie on the bench and only use him as a supersub (for instance, to score a penalty).

The signs were ignored. Van Persie’s body gave clear signs of exhaustion. The misses against Costa Rica. The stomach pain… Clearly an immune system response, saying “I am done”.

In hindsight, we should have gone Kuyt – Vlaar – De Vrij – Janmaat. Midfield: Sneijder – De Jong – Wijnaldum. And up front: Depay – Lens – Robben.

With Depay dropping back and Lens as deep striker.

During the game, we could bring Clasie for De Jong, as LVG did.

And bring Huntelaar AND Van Persie when / if the game needed it.

Btw, I just saw that a rumour has been going around saying that Sneijder, Kuyt and Robben asked Van Gaal to use Huntelaar instead of skipper Van Persie as Robin didn’t look too fresh. Van Gaal and Kuyt at the press conference said that was bullshite. Kuyt: “I have played on 5 major tournaments and never ever have seen so much team spirit and cohesion in the squad a snow. And Robin is our captain. There is no foundation to all of this.”

But….. Easy to say for the steering people standing on the shore. Another Dutch expression for you :-).

All of this is not to say, that I am proud, extremely proud of our team.

If I already can give you a headsup of my upcoming rating for the Squad, I think Vlaar was sensational, I think De Vrij was great, Wijnaldum played a bland first half but ended the game on a high. Clasie had a good turn as a sub, and Janmaat was at his usual high level. Sneijder was not too shabby either, but Robben and Robin, the special ones, were not special enough for us against Argentina…

What actually is a fun statistic: Wesley Sneijder is the player who ran the most kilometers on this World Cup. Of all players. If you would have said this to Louis van Gaal last year, he would have done this:

Robben is short listed for the title Man of the Tournament and if he does well against Brazil and Muller / Messi do not well in the finals, who knows. Memphis Depay is mentioned as the Talent of the Tournament title. Maybe LVG will get coach of the World Cup, who knows…

Anyway, enough musings. We’ll have some Samba time tomorrow.

Lets finish with some fun. This is how the English viewed Holland-Argentia: