We have had this debate here (and elsewhere) about the Mickey Mouse Competition or the BoyScout Competition as Rinus Michels called it… Well, we’ve started again. And it does look like we have seen a junior warm up game until the big guns start (EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A, Primera)…
PSV is 3-0 up in 30 minutes and almost drops two points against ADO Den Haag.
Ajax is up 2-0 without a worry, only to concede a penalty (luckily for Ajax, Roda can’t score) and Vermeer needs all his abilities to stop Roda from scoring the 2-1. At the end of the match, Ajax scores the third and appears to win without a problem… But who saw the game (Roda’s defending in particular), will have seen that Ajax did not have real opposition for most of the game. And when they did, the opponent was close to scoring.
Feyenoord, however, was the worst of the bunch. Losing away against PEC Zwolle. It’s always possible to drop points on the road. Last season, all top 6 teams had issues in Zwolle. But in your first game? And to allow to ex-Feyenoord players (Fernandez and Mokotjo) to be the henchmen…. No… Not good. The second goal Zwolle scored was in the dying minutes. De Vrij can’t stay on his feet and BMI is imitating a wax doll. And these two are our central defenders in Brazil??
Willem van Hanegem said in his column: if these two lads play like this in Brazil we will be the joke of international football.
Another sort of freak result was Heerenveen’s home win against AZ. Now, Heerenveen is a good side. But the way they put AZ under pressure and got their goalie Esteban to blunder in the first phase was astonishing. Icelandic goal machine Finnbogason scored three but could have had 7 goals.
Heerenveen playing fresh and playful
Vitesse won their game and are in the top 6 as has FC Groningen. Twente and Utrecht both drew somewhat disappointingly.
At least PSV played with playfulness, with intelligence and forward thrust. The youngsters showed what class they have and with a bit of luck, PSV could have been 6-0 up at half time.
Ajax had good spells but is very dependent on Eriksen and Siem de Jong. The former is probably too hard to hang on to. If any big club is still not 100% sure of his skills, they will be soon as he determines everything at Ajax. Lasse Schone can surely play in Eriksen’s role but will not be that good…
Anyway, maybe this is what Feyenoord needed to wake up and maybe Ajax gets lucky and the Dane might stay after all. PSV will most likely be the toast of the season and somehow I believe Vitesse will be a cool side to watch too.
In the Meantime…. In England, RVP is the most popular player of the EPL based on the jerseys sold. Gareth Bale dropped out of the Top 10 as the fans expect him to leave.
Our good friend Royston Drenthe had a tremendous debut for Reading and his coach stated that Roy Drenthe will show magic on the fields of the Championship this year. Drenthe: “I love football in England. I was born to play here.”
Feyenoord depressing
In the meantime, PSV won their away game against Zulte, 0-3. With Stijn Schaars as midfield engine as Man of the Match. Zulte had a good start but wasn’t able to convert. PSV took the reigns in the game and after Depay and Maher missing chances, it was Depay who got close to scoring. His attempt was blocked by a hand and Tim Matavz scored from the spot for the Philips team. The 17 year old Bakkali scored the second with a zinger and Adam Maher scored the third goal late in the game.
PSV is now looking at a tough draw for the next stage: they could get AC Milan, Lyon, St Petersburg, Arsenal or Schalke 04 as the next opponent. PSV does hope to have Ji-Sung Park in their squad. Other Dutchies in this play off stage: Kuyt at Fenerbache, Huntelaar with Schalke, Van Dijk and Boerrigter with Celtic, Emanuelson and Nigel de Jong at Milan.
It will be a real test for Cocu to keep the PSV youngsters grounded and playing consistent voetbal. Dynamic they can do- but playing smart and focused, whether they’re playing Boy Scouts at home or real competition abroad, will be the real challenge. If he can pull that off, it will be a real boost for each of these young players and of course for the national team. I have high hopes and believe they have at least a fighting chance against each of the teams in the next round of CL play (though its hardest for me to imagine them beating AC Milan).
Also watched the Chelsea ‘final’ tournament/friendly last night, at least until van Ginkel came out. Very disappointing- not van Ginkel’s play but the way Chelsea played as well as how he was used. He seems a strange fit for a Defensive Center Mid, but clearly the ‘special one’ has told him to stay home on top of the defense and told the entire defensive and midfield lines to pack themselves tight in the defensive half. Not the least bit enjoyable to watch, other than to see Marco get some time at this high level.
As DRB noted, he had a few very solid tackles and, when he moved outside, had some great runs off the ball but wasn’t seen by the man with the ball, for the most part, despite being open in space in the box. I like this player but hope he gets to play more dynamic football this year.
Aanvalluh,
Maybe in this light, it is valuable to look at Mikel. I read an article the other day about how Mou transformed him into a DM while being an AM by nature.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/kydetvs
Some interesting bits:
* The more cynical might suggest that Mourinho, in fact, is most at fault for the current predicament Mikel finds himself in. It is easy to forget, but John Obi hasn’t always been the lumbering, bumbling defensive midfielder often spotted waddling around the centre of the pitch at Stamford Bridge. Once he was a glorious attacking talent, striding around the turf with a near-delirious uproar. Back in 2005, at the FIFA Youth Championships, Mikel outshone stars such as Sergio Aguero and Cesc Fabregas and was, with the exception of the imperious Lionel Messi, the outstanding attacking talent of the tournament. Imagine that the next time you see him huffing and puffing in the Premier League, clumsily letting the ball bounce off him, or struggling to keep pace with another nimble attacking talent.
* Mourinho, aware of the attacking menace already provided by Frank Lampard and Michael Essien; realising the imminent need of replacing defensive stalwart Makelele; seduced, possibly, by the pervading paradigm of the imposing West African midfielder, sought to redevelop the Nigerian into a far less provocative talent.
* If not, we may be destined to forever view Mikel’s career with regret, to remember those majestic touches simply as isolated moments and to lament the loss of the player he might have been .
Mou has sacrificed Mikel for his plans and van Ginkel could be his next victim. Van Ginkel did “nothing” attacking wise in the first half except that one run that resulted in a miscommunication with Lukaku. Is that the van Ginkel we will increasingly start to see more at Chelsea? just sitting there on top of his defense? There are now Chelsea fans saying that he should develop the attacking side of his game. Are they joking? Van Ginkel at Vitesse and in the u21 Euro had great attacking contributions. Van Ginkel added more win points to his his team than any other midfielder in Eredivisie including Maher, Eriksen and de Jong. However all pre season games van Ginkel played he was most of the time the most defensive one without me seeing him having any freedom to do his attacking bits. At Vitesse he cleaned up a lot as well for a lazy Janssen, but he at least had the freedom to do some fun stuff forwardly.
I do not like the early signs that I am seeing at Chelsea. Not getting playing time is one threat to his development, now another one rises to the surface for me.
Totally agree. What I find to be encouraging, on the upside, is that MvG is clearly an intelligent player who is able to take instruction- he played a very disciplined and consistent game, it just had no excitement and no forward thrust, but that was obviously the game plan. As you say though, likely not the best course for him.
It will be interesting to watch his development over the course of this year. Hopefully Mourinho will feel inclined to play a more dynamic style in league play. The game plan against Real Madrid looked like nothing more than an acknowledged fear of RM’s superior offense. Not sure how you could expect to win that way, I guess you just hope for a fluky counterattack, which is basically how they scored.
Well , I didn’t watch Chelsea game but from the fans’ comments , i noticed that dutch fans are kinda disappointed , meanwhile , Chelsea fans and even some of Madrid fans are very pleased with MVG. Some of them even say he was best Chelsea player in the game aside with ramires, so it means he played good but not as he used to play for vitesse or where he used to play for Vitessse.
My 2 cents
I think Van gaal has to start with MVG against Portugal and uses him as he was used in the u21 tournament , Mourinho will definitely watch the game. LVG will show Mou how to use MVG.
It’s very good MVG is doing great defensively on such high level. With him ,Strootman and Sneijder “hopefully in top form” , I think we can have a hell of a midfeild in Brazil.
Btw, Strootman played in the 2nd half yesterday with AS Roma , and he was great according Roma to fan pages too :P.
Mohamed,
Are there any Roma fan pages you would recommend to keep taps on Strootman?
@DRB ,
I’m sorry Bro , but the pages are in Arabic since the admins are Egyptians. Not sure if this is ok with you.
Anyway , in case you wanna check
AS ROMA Lovers
Roma 4 Ever Network
Calccio probably comes 3rd in Number of views in Egypt after Egyptian league and CL 😀 , so you can find many Roma fans here .
Thanks anyway Mohamed.
Jan, I think it’s a disservice to call the Eredivisie Mickey-Mouse. Sure, the overall talent level isn’t nearly as good as the bigger leagues, but if you look at the net transfer revenue over the years, the Eredivisie punches well above its weight. In reverse chronological order: +92M, +65M, +55M, +33M, +29M. Pound for pound, it’s arguably the best developmental league in the world.
I’m sorry, i meant it ironically of course.
Vitesse lost againt Rumanian team.
Last year Ajax lost against another Rumanian team.
I REALLY can´t understand it.
Please, someone explain me!
Nothing too strange for me. Romanian football is quite good and developping every year, you put an hungry romanian team against an average one like Vitesse (which still didn’t replace Bony and Van Ginkel), and that’s the result.
I mean who were Vitesse players tonight ? Chanturia, Pedersen, Qazaisvhilli…Guys who are young and come from Georgia or from sub danish clubs (I still don’t get why Chanturia was considered as good with Barcelona young team), why should they be better than romanians experimented guys ?
I only watched first half tonight, Vitesse was playing better but only had one real chance, in first game romanians deserved to win.
Pedersen comes from Norway *
and Ajax last year?
am pissed off!
Ajax last year didn’t even try, playing in a disgusting pitch, with a biased referee in both games.
Vitesse out of the EL after an embarrassing performance. The Romanians were clearly the better team. Not good for the Eredivise’s UEFA coefficient points. In 2-3 years we may lose our Champions league spot. So dissapointing. Let’s hope for some miracles from Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord
Utrech and Vitesse out of EL. They lost against Luxemburg and Rumanian teams.
Yeah, Strootman played well last night against TFC. But it was a friendly, and it was against TFC… 🙁
I really don’t follow Eredivisie, But im only keeping tabs this year because of PSV. They hav players who are in the making of future stars of NT and also hav the potential to make huge impact for NT in WC 2014. Rekik, Bruma, Maher,Wijnaldum to name a few, maybe Deepay too. It is always good see the young guns playing against top clubs of Europe as much as possible before the WC 2014.This will extremely motivate them to the level they might expect at WC 2014, if they make it into NT in 2014.
As for UFEA Championship Playoff. Even if if they lose ,I think they will gain a lot from it especially in terms of maturity, self motivation and bonding and if they do qualify for CL, then it will be a added bonus for them given the young and talented squad they currently hav.Hats off to Cocu. I really should say this, if PSV qualifies for CL , Van Gaal seriously needs to open his third eye for selection of players for the WC qualifiers in September.
News on Internationally friendly. (big ones) August 14th
Portugal – Holland
Belgium – France ( check out Belgium squad )
Brazil – Switerlanad
Italy – Argentina
I really don’t follow Eredivisie, But im only keeping tabs this year because of PSV. They hav players who are in the making of future stars of NT and also hav the potential to make huge impact for NT in WC 2014. Rekik, Bruma, Maher,Wijnaldum to name a few, maybe Deepay too. It is always good see the young guns playing against top clubs of Europe as much as possible before the WC 2014.This will extremely motivate them to the level they might expect at WC 2014, if they make it into NT in 2014.
As for UFEA Championship Playoff. Even if if they lose ,I think they will gain a lot from it especially in terms of maturity, self motivation and bonding and if they do qualify for CL, then it will be a added bonus for them given the young and talented squad they currently hav.Hats off to Cocu. I really should say this, if PSV qualifies for CL , Van Gaal seriously needs to open his third eye for selection of players for the WC qualifiers in September.
News on Internationally friendly. (big ones) August 14th
Portugal – Holland
Belgium – France ( check out Belgium squad )
Goalkeepers Koen Casteels (Hoffenheim), Thibaut Courtois (Atletico Madrid), Simon Mignolet (Liverpool)
Defenders Toby Alderweireld (Ajax), Laurent Ciman (Standard), Guillaume Gillet (Anderlecht), Vincent Kompany (Manchester City), Nicolas Lombaerts (Zenit Saint-Petersburg), Sebastien Pocognoli (Hannover), Daniel Van Buyten (Bayern Munich), Jelle Van Damme (Standard), Jan Vertonghen (Tottenham)
Midfielders Nacer Chadli (Tottenham), Kevin De Bruyne (Chelsea), Steven Defour (Porto), Moussa Dembele (Tottenham), Marouane Fellaini (Everton), Eden Hazard (Chelsea), Timmy Simons (Club Brugge), Axel Witsel (Zenit Saint-Petersburg)
Attackers Zakaria Bakkali (PSV Eindhoven), Christian Benteke (Aston Villa), Romelu Lukaku (Chelsea), Dries Mertens (Napoli), Kevin Mirallas (Everton)
Brazil – Switerlanad
Italy – Argentina
oooooooooops double trouble
Steve Bruce is lining up a £2.2million swoop for FC Twente ace Willem Janssen – on the recommendation of Steve McClaren.
The Hull City chief is desperate to strengthen his midfield after letting Corry Evans and Tom Cairney join Blackburn, and losing Ireland star Stephen Quinn to a hamstring injury.
He has also been linked with a loan deal for Marseille midfielder Morgan Amalfitano and a permanent swoop for Eric Tie Bi of another French club, Evian.
Paul Scharner, the versatile defender or midfielder who played for Bruce at Wigan, is also on the Tigers’ radar.
Janssen played for former England manager McClaren during his second spell in charge at Dutch outfit Twente and proved to be a key player in the side.
McClaren has informed Bruce that the 27-year-old, a former Hollland U-21 international, is suited to English football and would be a huge asset on Hull’s impending return to the Premier League.
Fear not, Tigers fans. We’re sure Janssen is much, much better than he looks in this particular clip…
As much as i hate seeing failure of the Eredivisie clubs i think the reason why we loose to these teams from European leagues such as Romania and the like is due too the fact that the bigger dutch sides seem too loose there top players each and every year which unsettles the whole side meaning tevery year its a new side who need to get too know how to play with eahother unlike the team in romanian who have probably played together and gelled over the years without losing two many players
Oke guys, the final selection for the friendly against Portugal:
Keepers:
* Jasper Cillessen (Ajax)
* Kenneth Vermeer (Ajax),
* Michel Vorm (Swansea City)
Defense:
* Daley Blind (Ajax),
* Daryl Janmaat
* Bruno Martins Indi
* Joris Mathijsen
* Stefan de Vrij (Feyenoord)
* Paul Verhaegh (FC Augsburg)
* Ron Vlaar (Aston Villa)
Midfield:
* Marco van Ginkel (Chelsea)
* Jonathan de Guzman (Swansea City)
* Stijn Schaars (PSV)
* Kevin Strootman (AS Roma)
* Rafael van der Vaart (Hamburger SV)
* Georginio Wijnaldum (PSV)
Attack:
* Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Schalke 04)
* Dirk Kuyt (Fenerbahçe)
* Jeremain Lens (Dynamo Kiev)
* Robin van Persie (Manchester United)
* Arjen Robben (Bayern München)
* Ruben Schaken (Feyenoord).
We can see that Wijnaldum and Schaars have made the final cut and that van Rhijn, Siem de Jong and Clasie are left out. Nigel de Jong of course as well, but that was already the case in the preliminary.
Another absentee is Maher who has started a bit pale at PSV.
I dont remember schaars and wijnaldum were in preselection squad?
Suddenly they get called into the final.
I am really excited with schaars, he is a good player, but he is not what we need in DF position which strootman, de guzman, and clasie can filled the role.
You are right jake, van Gaal has done that before though with BMI IIRC. I guess he sees the preliminary squad more as a photo of the current situation at the time than as a promise that restricts him to choose from.
And PSV will play AC Milan for the CL group round ticket. These are the games of that draw:
Olympique Lyon (Fra) – Real Sociedad (Spa)
Schalke 04 (Dui) – Metalist Kharkiv (Oek)
Paços Ferreira (Por) – Zenit Sint-Petersburg (Rus)
PSV (Ned) – AC Milan (Ita)
Fenerbahçe (Tur) – Arsenal (Eng)
damnit! AC Milan is one team I would not want to play. Too defence oriented – they will play for that 1-0 victory. PSV will not get many chances to score and not having good finishers won’t help them either. ACM to advance 1-0 on aggregate.
Shit, really shit.
the worst thing happened.
Well, I feel really good towards Milan game. The young talented PSV will make it ! They really have a chance , but Cocu needs to do a lot of work.
Wijnaldum was really great in the holding midfeilder role against Zulte , I think LVG likes to turn good or average playmakers into excellent holding mids 🙂 . Last one i remember was Schwinestiger.
Cocu may do the same with Wijnaldum.
What makes you say that Wijnaldum played holding midfield against Zulte? Just curious.
I think there was a big difference between Wijnaldum role in the home and away games.
In the away game , Wijnaldum had more defensive duties and didn’t contribute in most of the attacking plays . He was more of a box-to-box player actually. unlike the home game.
I think Cocu exchanged his position with Maher , who was more free to play upfront with less defensive duties. This is why Maher was kinda better in the away game imo.
At least this was what i noticed 🙂 . I could be wrong.
Honestly , Rekik , despite his lack of experience , is far better than Mathijsen !
Rekik can make a big statement if he does well against Milan for 180 minutes. If he does that and reaches the same level in the Eredivisie games that follow until the next selection period, then he makes a good chance. Has more proving to do.
However I share your excitement about Rekik.
Pretty cool clip. It’s in Dutch though, but amazing examples of how these two players played in their younger days…. Robin van Persie (Feyenoord) and Nigel de Jong (Ajax), good mates but also rivals in those days. Pretty cool
http://amazingvideos.co.in/robin-van-persie-en-nigel-de-jong-5-mei-2003.html
For the friendly against the Czech Stuivenberg has selected the following names for the U21 squad:
Keepers:
* Warner Hahn (FC Dordrecht)
* Stefan van der Lei (FC Groningen)
Defense:
* Joshua Brenet (PSV)
* Stefano Denswil (Ajax)
* Mike van der Hoorn (Ajax)
* Ruben Ligeon (Ajax)
* Karim Rekik (PSV)
* Mitchell Dijks (sc Heerenveen)
* Jetro Willems (PSV)
Midfield:
* Joeri de Kamps (Ajax)
* Adam Maher (PSV)
* Tonny Trindade de Vilhena (Feyenoord)
* Hakim Ziyech (sc Heerenveen)
* Thomas Bruns (Heracles Almelo)
* Kevin Jansen (ADO Den Haag)
* Quincy Promes (FC Twente)
* Timo Letschert (FC Groningen)
Attack:
* Luc Castaignos (FC Twente)
* Memphis Depay (PSV)
* Jürgen Locadia (PSV)
* Luciano Slagveer (sc Heerenveen)
* Guus Hupperts (Roda JC)
Some midfielders can also play in more attacking positions like Promes on the right wing. The game will be played this Wednesday.
Qincy Promes is a big talent. Had a great season last year in erestevisie.
Let’s see how he will do this season.
Next month U19 will play Germany and Italy in some friendly’s.
Just read this on ESPN… That is way under value for eriksen alone
a double bid for Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld. Eriksen has long been a target of Liverpool, but talks between the Reds and Ajax have stalled on a number of occasions due to personal terms and a transfer fee. But Andre Villas-Boas is hopeful of securing the pair for just £15 million – despite the Reds reportedly bidding £18 million for Eriksen last month.