My dear friends, I need to ask you all to keep the positive spirit up.

Yes, we are disappointed. Yes, we believe the team should do better. Yes, Van Marwijk is too rigid and headstrong. Etc…

But… Our players bleed orange. They do. I am 1000% certain. Has to be.

Remember how Robben played with pain at the World Cup? How hard he worked to get back? How Huntelaar is swallowing his pride tournament after tournament?

Van Nistelrooy was in the studio the other day and said he had intense contact with some of his buddies in the squad (Bommel, Boulah, Mathijsen, Robben) and said with conviction “there are no cliques in the team, there are no ego clashes!”. He was convinced this team was mentally focused on this tournament but tactics and maybe physical condition are lacking.

I think it’s painful to see how heroes like Robben, Van Bommel and Van der Vaart are crucified on this blog.

Van Persie is all professional and played some good game for us this tourney. But sadly missed too many chances. I’m sure he suffers like we all do.

If you saw Arjen Robben sing the anthem while prepping himself mentally, you could have seen he wants to give his right foot (useless anyway) for a good win.

And the reason why we have Robben in the first place is because he has that skill: taking on people, coming inside, taking a shot… This is how he bailed us out many times. And now he has difficulties getting to his normal level. Support the lad!

Mark van Bommel has been our fierceless leader for years. And him being Bert’s son in law was never a problem. I don’t think it’s now either. I expect Bert to bench Mark for the Portugal game.

Stekelenburg got us into the semis two years ago. He hasn’t yet won games for us this time around, but give the guy a break, please.

At times like these, it’s the Al Pacino “inch by inch, we claw ourselves out of this hell” monologue that springs to mind! And this is where we need to support our boys.

If we suddenly burn our orange jerseys and start insulting our players, we are doing the thing we accuse them off… Our task is to support. So, maybe if we start doing our job, they will do theirs….