Still hurt by this Arjentine team,I hope Germany teach them a lesson or two..Humiliation like brazil got vs France 1998 would be perfect. Why the hell we couldn’t score a goal for 240 minutes??i would add mexico 88 minutes too.it was mainly due to sneijder and persie.they didnt do well. Arjetines decide to play physical game and we should have started with LEnz and Depay upfront with Roben.433 Depay—-lenz——-Roben —-kuyt——Clasie—— ———-wijaldum——— Blind—-Vlaar–Devrij–Janmaat ————krul————?? RVP and nijel shouldnt have played with half fitness,that cost us a lot that limited LVG with his tactics..
is there some kind of time limit after the shot was initially saved? I never heard of anything like this before….was the whistle blown? I’d love a clearer angle.
From the shitty video you can (1) see that Vlaar tries to dodge the ball as it falls down and (2) that Vlaar sees the rolling towards the goal and even talks to the ref, pointing to the ball in the goal. My guess is that the ref understood that the touched Vlaar. If so doens’t count.
I’m disappointed by the loss but at the same time extremely proud of the team. A lot of young, inexperienced players and we made it to the semi-finals. It’s clear that we lacked the “umph” to win the trophy, but we came pretty close. I think Van Gaal made a few mistakes in the last game but overall he did very well.
I’m very excited to see what Hiddink has in store for the national team. He is one of the best coaches in the world and the team he coached in 1998 played like magic. Even with weaker sides like South Korea in 2002 and Russia in 2008 he played really attractive and fast paced football.
I think Robben will definitely play in 2016, but I’m not sure about Van Persie and Sneijder. Huntelaar’s position depends on what kind of formations Hiddink wants to play. I think we should give the midfield over to our next generation. Strootman, Clasie and Van Ginkel seems like a pretty delicious combination of speed, energy and creativity.
I think the goal should be to win the trophy in 2016. I think this team has what it takes.
What IS shocking is that apparently neither Sneijder, Robben, Kuyt nor Huntelaar wanted to take the first penalty kick. Mind you, I don’t know that the two players LVG were among those four–but one assumes they were, no? After all the balls we showed in the tournament, our top offensive players get weak in the knees? Shameful, really. I’m sure they were tired–and Vlaar wasn’t?
@ miguel rosado, I give you a lot of credit. every time we are down and in the dumps, you have something positive to say about oranje. i am proud of you for always sticking up for us and looking for the silver living even when it’s tough to get over a big loss. as a hardcore oranje fan living in miami, this was a tough one to take because there are plenty of argentineans here and seeing their cars with the blue and white flags really pissed me off.
by the way, i have a bunch of mexican friends and we are having Facebook war. they still hate on us for the robben penalty like cowards. they are looking for excused. even the rock band mana posted in support of argentina to avenge mexico’s elimination. Screw mana!
@bitterballen: thanks for your comment. Yes this team gives me a good feeling especially because Hiddink will take over.
Before the WC I was disappointed by how badly Dutch teams performed in European competitions and started to doubt the talent in Holland. Now after this WC I have a huge belief in this new generation. Also I believe at 32 years old you can play another tournament (Robben, Nigel,etc).
Yes, here in Mexico people criticized Robben as if no Mexican player ever dived before and even the Mexican coach complained about it too much. My friends knew I would support Holland even though I am Mexican and are all the time complaining about Robben and wanted Holland to go out.
Anyways I know a better future will come for the NT.
still mourning..too devastated to write a coherent worthwhile comment…but very proud…we defied expectations…made new fans out of sissy post 2008 glory hunters and ignorant so-called football enthusiasts..but the hurt is deep when we come so close and deserve so much more!
I feel very sorry for Jasper. I think, he is very good goalkeeper. Not every goalkeeper is good in catching penalties…Every hour I promise to myself not to read articles about that game, still they like magnet attract my attention.
i know exactly what you’re going through..i turned off the tv as soon as that last penalty was hit and to which cillesen got both hands on…i didn’t wait to see scenes of robben consoling his inconsolable son (friends phoning in to console me let me know of this)….i promised myself to stay of those stupid negative articles on holland..that most people were just waiting to write…but can’t help myself drowning in despair..and resorting to the internet to look forward…some dutch transfer news…feyenoords next champions league opponent…anything that hiddink says or quotes that warms the broken heart even a little and fills it with hope again….i really feel for the older generation whose hearts have been broken and shattered time after time…for me this is my 6th tournament (euro 2004), and although i shattered ..i have this mixed feeling of pride that I just can’t explain becoz at the back of my head i know this squad achieved more than it was actually capable off…i know this is the end of an era…my life’s love arjen will never get to lift the world cup or the golden ball or the ballon d’or….i try making myself feel better by thinking we were actually going out against mexico…and every miracle moment after that was a godsent bonus..but then again i see the vlaar penalty going in..or krul’s helpless face which has “I cud have saved every argentine penalty” written all over….and i have the empty numb feeling again….laurent we appreciate ur cold hard analysis which prides on critique…but plz now is not the time…we are down to even insult u off this blog!
It is OK, that big “stone” of disappointment will melt soon out of your heart. That is a destiny of a real fan. For me the hardest moment was Euro 2000. I personally, could not keep my tears of anger when Dutch lost to Italy on penalty shoot out. Like you, I was also sorry for that beautiful generation of players like Kluivert and Co as well as Frank Rijkaard as a coach.
Think of future, and it is really bright. I adore van Gaal and Guus Hiddink. I think these two coaches are the best in the world. Luis has done the portion of the mission, and now Guus is taking relay. And the mission is to bring Dutch to the World Glory. I am very confident that our team is in excellent hands.
So, do not get depressed, cheer up and let’s finish this tournament on a positive note. I am personally looking forward to new Eredivisie season, and how my AZ Alkmaar will play under incomparable Maestro Marco 🙂
Cillissen was mad after being substituted for Krul. He kicked water bottles to show his anger. I do not feel sorry for him. Even the one he guessed the correct way bounced off his hands. He has to show he can do the job and he is not ready yet to save penalties!
I haven’t seen anyone on the Dutch team acting out when they got substituted. He is a rookie goalkeeper and should be grateful that LVG chose to start him ahead of other experienced goalkeepers.
Let’s put aside the penalty kicks for a minute, people here always complained about cillissen not giving them enough confidence feeling, they feel he is nervous always, but yesterday he proved us to be wrong, during the 120 minutes the guy was cool, his reactions were full of confidence and those couple of dribblings he did were perfect!
Cillissen had an awesome game. His distribution was fantastic but really he is not a great shot stopper. If the penalty shoot out lasted for one hour he probably wouldn’t have saved a single shoot out.
This game was always going to go to penalties. Its actually very rare for two top teams to win a game in extra time. By then both teams have nothing left in the tank and almost settle for pens. Van Gaal should have kept the ace up his sleeve in Tim Krul. Van Persie should have been forced to fight on, he was our captain after all and even if he had nothing left, he should have stayed on for the penalties. Huntelaar offered nothing more and he choked when asked to take the first penalty.
I’m just still in disbelif that seasoned veterans like Robben, Sneijder and Huntelaar refused to go first and allowed a defender to take probably the most crucial kick in a shoot out.
I got the feeling that this Dutch team and the coaching staff were content with a semi final place. That was always the goal from the start and the KNVB even booked Hollands hotels only till the Quarter finals! I don’t think they quite had the belief to go all the way and that is reflected on Robben and Sneijder/Huntelaar took the corwards way out. Once they reached the semi final the attitude stunk of job done.
That was really shameful! What happened to the man who took the penalty against Mexico?
Penalties are not luck! We just proved that against Costa Rica! What you need is skill and confidence! It’s not like flipping a coin and hoping you called it right!
If players were refusing to take a shot, you already know that they lost it before it even started. Sad!
These kind of things should be settled in advance. Get the players mentally ready so that they have enough time to think about it. Teams must practice taking penalties! Absolutely! Teams will go into crucial elimination games hoping to play for a penalty so it is imperative to approach it with the utmost importance!
So in the end it is Lvg who brought us up to semis and them stopped. It is his job to have players ready for penalties but before all it is his job to make sure our goal has a decent keeper in Krul. He subbed Rvp cause he was exhausted? Then why did you insert him in the first place. Why so conservative the whole game? Why not push the pedal when Argentina was on the back foot? Messi was nowhere to be seen yet his presence killed our game. I think we could have had a much better game if we conceded a goal. Tournament showed we played great when falling behind. The more I think about this game the more mad I get. We could/should have gone through. Lvg showed his limitations.
Cillesen couldn’t stop 2 easy penalties that went right through his hands. He looked like a schoolboy. I sympathize with him anyway. But Damn it Argentina was nothing special. And how can until before this stage the highest scoring team cannot find the net for 240 minutes.
I just read an article in the Italian paper “La Gazzetta dello sport” regarding Van Perise. According to the paper VP was in a bad physical shape and LVG made him play regardless, despite pleas of Robben and Snijder to have Huntelaar play instead. I suppose this makes it clear who must have been the players who declined to take the first PK.
If you look at individual qualities of all our backs then all of them had weakness. the 5 man defense is the main reason as why it was not exposed. they all provided cover up for each other. Blind was caught out on many occasion only for BMI to bail him out , same for vlaar and De Vrij. Van Gaal knew he had to sacrifice someone one in the attack to bring some stability in the Back. with Robben and Van Persie, Sneijder in front he was almost certain that there would no problems in front of the goal. Im pretty much certain if we play 4-3-3, their weakness will pop up as easy as small boy blowing the balloon.
Cillessen did make some good saves, no doubt about it, But then again the quality of De Santos and Cahill goal exposed his capabilities and showed where his weakness was. overall he was very much protected in front of the five man wall that why he didn’t get to see alot of ball but then again as for the back line I think it pretty much worked out for van Gaal given the No of goal that were conceded against NT.
As for the semi Final yes i think it was a delibrate move by him to play Cillessen in PKs after coping the heavy criticism for using Krul vs CR in PKs after subbing Cillessen in the last minute. I think it was jus to shut up the critics should NT would have won in the PKs vs Argentina. I think with that in mind he was also caught off guard with BMI unexpected injury. I think if it was not for that change we would have seen Krul come in for during the PKs
Other intresting point to note is whether Van Ginkle would have made any difference especially after watching Wijnaldum who was used in the all the games. He played as defensive midfield in a attacking midfield position. Now was it Van Gaal idea to station him as Defensive midfield is the question to be asked. What would have Van Ginkle brought in that particular position. I mean If you look at Khedira, who had the same injury as Van Ginkle is performing exceptionally as the games progressed
I was pretty much confident when the games went into the PKs especially after watching the quality of PKs vs CR. When vLAAR stepped up I also stood up and went outside. I knew what was coming. I know on everybody mind Hunter would have been on the top of the list but then gain I dont know why Van Gaal let Vlaar take the First kick. was that is ingenuity or simply a dump move.
Well Brazil is still left.. so lets see whats happens there.
If you consider that Cillessen has made a good WC, what about Stek in 2010, Van der Sar in 2008 ?
Cillessen didn’t make any GREAT save during this competition, he had like 2 saves to make per game, he made them, but that had nothing to see with Stekelenburg save vs Kaka which just saved Holland from losing 2-0 to Brazil, to Van der Sar multiples saves against Russia, Italy…
The simple reason is that Holland played really good in defence and didn’t expose him, if he had as many saves to do as Ochoa, Navas, M’Bolhi etc. did, then we would have seen what he really worth.
I did even read someone here saying “Cillessen was great, look at his save on Messi free kick”…Seriously ? That was a save that every keeper is supposed to do. Simple free kick to catch.
About his dribbles on Aguero and Lavezzi, they were great but it would have better if Robben did them.
Fact is that he had 6 PK in total in this world cup but caught none, I only keep in mind his save against Costa Rica, good one (not fantastic one though) but globally we have right to think that Krul could have done better.
For me Cillessen was another partial fail from Van Gaal
Thank you for your insight, captain obvious. Van Gaal’s fault or not, I think it is hard to avoid this. Let me tell you why:
Case 1: Situation 1: Van Gaal choose Cillessen, he lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault, Krul is way better than Cillessen” Situation 2: Van Gaal choose Krul, he lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Why did he change the goal keeper who did so great?”
Case 2: Situation 1: Van Gaal did not save a sub for Krul. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Why did he not save a sub for Krul?” Situation 2: Van Gaal try to save a sub for Krul. Ned is out run by Argentina in extra time and lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Did he see that RVP is walking on the pitch? Did he see that De Jong is playing through pain?”
Case 3: Situation 1: The genius wannabe said that “Ned will come to the World Cup semi-final”. Ned did reach semi-final. The genius wannabe: “You guys are delusional and know nothing about football. Listen to my insight analysis!!!” Situation 2: The genius wannbe said that “I will leave this blog if Ned go that far”. Ned did reach semi-final. The genius wannabe: “This is Van Gaal’s fault. If he did save a sub for Krul, we would win the WC. Listen to my insight analysis!!!”
You see. It does not matter what Van Gaal did anyway. There is always that guy that can foresee what happened because it already happened.
There is nothing about being a genius or not, I admit 100 % that I was wrong about Holland going as far, I give big credits to LVG for having made Holland to seem as solid defensivly.
Though, the responsability for that loss goes to him, if you save a man one day but kills another one the day after, you still go to jail, no ?
I would not have said anything if Cillessen would have caught PK’s, I would admit that I was wrong again. But fact is that I said just after the Australia game that we would be fucked up if playing PK with Cillessen. I can go to search it and post it if you want.
Any rationnal coach would not have given a WC semi final PK to Cillessen who just caught none for a long time.
LVG said himself that he wanted to put Krul but didn’t have changes enough. Fact is that HE decided to start with Cillessen,Nigel and RVP and realized that he should replace them after. That was his coaching, his fault.
And Cillessen shouldn’t even have started this world cup when Krul and Vorm were available, what he did to deserve that ?
There is nothing about being a genius or not, I admit 100 % that I was wrong about Holland going as far, I give big credits to LVG for having made Holland to seem as solid defensivly.
Though, the responsability for that loss goes to him, if you save a man one day but kills another one the day after, you still go to jail, no ?
I would not have said anything if Cillessen would have caught PK’s, I would admit that I was wrong again. But fact is that I said just after the Australia game that we would lose if playing PK with Cillessen. I can go to search it and post it if you want.
Any rationnal coach would not have given a WC semi final PK to Cillessen who just caught none for a long time.
LVG said himself that he wanted to put Krul but didn’t have changes enough. Fact is that HE decided to start with Cillessen,Nigel and RVP and realized that he should replace them after. That was his coaching, his fault.
And Cillessen shouldn’t even have started this world cup when Krul and Vorm were available, what he did to deserve that ?
WTF is the point of you posting all of this crap? It’s ridiculous, just stop already.
Van Gaal did an amazing job with the roster he had to choose from. The players did an amazing job of following the plan as a cohesive unit and the results were far beyond what was projected, including and especially by you. To try and put forth hindsight as if you have something figured out that van Gaal missed is both idiotic, annoying, and pointless.
Great cup, great result, great website, great future. Hup Holland!!! Very proud of my heritage and have truly loved reading the comments of Dutch and non-Dutch Oranje lovers on this site.
In case it wasn’t clear, that was for you, Laurent. Give it a rest.
Seriously, Laurent, just accept your mistake and everyone will welcome you back. I would not made that post against you if your behaviour did not raise this question to me “Does that guy really support Netherlands?”. I mean we are all stressed and empty after that game yesterday. I just went home immediately after my last meeting yesterday because I knew I would not be able to do any work after that. And you does not seem to have the feeling at all, you came here with all the irrational logic and blame the heroes on this loss? I wonder which team you support?
And it is not that hard to counter your irrational logic at all: 1. Van Ginkel over Wijnaldum? Non sense. Did you see that we lost because RVP can not run. Van Gaal already take a risk by getting an player with injury history into this WC? And you suggest to take bigger risk with 2 players with long injury period in the starting XI? What is that logic? And EPL > Eredivisie? Wijnaldum fight for this spot over De Guzman. Remember? And where is the England team anway? Now I am not saying that EPL is not better than Eredivisie. I am saying that your “cold fact” that because “EPL > Eredivisie” then we must choose Van Ginkel is utter nonsense. 2. Krul over Cillessen? Now they have different specialities and Van Gaal said that himself. And I totally understand the reason. How many times did we pass the ball back to the goalie in this tournament? How many times did Cillessen run out of the penalty box to stop their attack even before that happened? Krul is better at reflexes while Cillessen is better at ball distribution and playing high line. Your master plan is playing more passive and let them have more chances over our young defenders? 3. Your expectation for Cillessen and Wijnaldum is that they will be total idiots who will choke under the pressure. And when they did their job, you try to downplay their achievement instead of congratulating them. Your statement is basically this “Cillessen did fine but he did not perform at Van der Sar’s level in his first WC. Hence he should not start.” 4. My highest expectation for this team was to get out of the group stage and eliminated by Brazil. When they reach that far, I was so happy. If I were ever in your position, I would be happy to come to this blog and post “Guys, I was so dumb. But I am really happy that they prove to me that I was wrong all the way.” And I really believe every true fan should do so. Instead, wth are you posting?
Aanvalluh you’re point of view is total crap
Sometimes I understand why Holland never win anything, maybe it’s just in the genes of dutch people to be losers. I’m sorry if it sounds harsh but that’s how Holland is considered in France and in many other countries : eternal losers. And the way people react here just prove it.
I already suggested Holland to chose a foreign coach in order to heal that.
You’re point of view is really hopeless, Holland was in semi finals of a cup that they NEVER won, and because of a few coaching mistakes, they didn’t do it again. While they could, as Argentina wasn’t better.
Instead of discussing those mistakes and trying to get better next time, you guys are coming to write “proud to be dutch ! LVG was great” Wouaw. You just lost again in penalty kicks after 92,96,98,2000…But still didn’t learn from mistakes and are writing consoling positive crap.
Holland SHOULD be a top nation, so even if no one expected them to reach semi this year, when doing it, they should have fighted for the title. More than Germany, Brazil and Argentina which already have it in their museum.
Hilarious, Laurent, to watch how quickly the guy who’s purportedly all about factual analysis switch to “your opinion is total crap” and “you people have loser genes.”
Perhaps it’s just my loser genes talking, but I’m still proud and will continue to be. If you think I’m not going to remain proud because perhaps other decisions and selections could have been made than what van Gaal elected to do, you’re more ridiculous than I previously understood.
Claiming, with the benefit hindsight, that you know specifically what should have been done without any knowledge of player fitness, attitude, or what was happening in the camp is one thing- (we all do that and I certainly have a list of things that I would preferred to have seen), but to make van Gaal out to be a loser/idiot for doing things the way he did is what I find to be incredibly irritating and immature about your current posts.
You were wrong first and you pledged to stop posting here as a result- but instead you’re doubling down and posting more and more.
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
just ignore the dude the more you ignore the sooner he disappears
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
Khoi :
1- Maybe you didn’t watch football this season, but Wijnaldum almost didn’t play, just like Van Ginkel.
2- It’s not a question of specialities, Cillessen just proved nothing concrete with Ajax and NT to be the dutch keeper during WC.
3- Really ? Cillessen and Wijnaldum did good ? Here in France people say that Holland could have won with Krul, and many people said that Wijnaldum made the dutch play to look so slooow, which is true. Everyone on this blog, but really everyone noticed that he was much better as RW than when he was playing OM. We were all saying it before the world cup. The genius Van Gaal put him CM. He didn’t convinc.
4- I was wrong about my prediction but not about Holland losing PK with Cillessen and about Van Gaal not being a genius.
1. I was wrong. 2. I see no reason why it is not. You have no coherence if the player’s quality does not match. And why did you keep insulting Cillessen? He did prove his quality in this WC. 3. I did not say they did really good. I said they made their contribution. Your 2&3 points made me wonder if you ever play the game at all. Playing with teammates that can compliment your skill is so much important. Making no mistake alone is an achievement already. I did not see any costing mistake from Wijnaldum or Cillessen. And do you wonder who did make mistakes in this WC? Rafael Marquez, Luis Suarez, David Luiz, Thiago Silva, Casillas, … Big names you would choose over our players? 4. You keep posting negative comment every time, why did you not hit one time? Of course, I could do that to every single team in this tournament and I would have the chance of being right to be 31/32. 5. Talking about rationality, constructive criticism is good but this criticism is really irrational. Ok, I am the newbie, I am going to a company where everyone looks smarter than me on paper with their degrees. Then somehow, I achieved more than what they expected. And my boss and co workers said that I did not do well enough, otherwise I could have done much better. My rational reaction would be f… this company, I leave. It is no way constructive at all.
2- Why do you consider that Cillessen had a good world cup ? He had like two saves to make per game, and most of shots were on him. He did nothing special, he wasn’t guilty on Cahill and Dos Santos goal but he didn’t have any great game or whatever, for the simple reason that he wasn’t exposed. He could have made the difference with PK but he failed, after showing a childish anger when Van Gaal put Krul. Which makes to consider double that his world cup wasn’t good.
3- What do you call contribution ? I mean, what are your standards ? Of course Wijnaldum didn’t do any big crucial mistake, but is it a reason to consider he performed well ? He just brought nothing, the guy doesn’t know what is a through pass, didn’t give a single shot on more than 400 minutes as midfielder. He was just bad.
4- Sometimes people should just understand that I keep posting negative because we are on the blog of a nation that never won any world cup, though being among the top nations. You should see it as a compliment as I’m extern to Holland. Some people come here to look for friends and to feel dutch, even when they don’t even have 1 % of dutch blood, some like me just come to comment the games they are watching.
5- The point is subtile. Most of people didn’t expect Holland to go far, and all that because of the recent form and because of the level of eredivisie players. So reaching semi finals was already something positive for Holland. But for some people here, and I felt that it was the same for Van Gaal, it meant that Holland has already performed good in this world cup and could stop there. I felt Van Gaal took no risk in the game, creating nothing, just waiting for luck or something that would beat Argentina. They didn’t really play the game, and Van Gaal looked much more angry when Holland was doing 0-0 against Costa Rica than yesterday. It’s just a big lack of ambition and I can find it here on posters.
Laurent, once and for all , get it through your head. Krul is a better shot stopper, and maybe has a slightly better control of his area during dead ball situations (although Cillessen did very well on every dead ball occasion). But Cillessen distributes the ball way way better. The best goalkeeper of this world cup even in terms of distribution. And the way the dutch squad was set up to play at the back with all the back passing, you need a goalkeeper that can handle being under pressure, not make any mistake, and even more, actually still able to distribute when under pressure.
Krul might have done a better job at PKs. But could have messed up elsewhere, at some tricky back pass.
Either way we can’t know now, and theres absolutely no point in saying LVG should’ve done this and not that. You don’t know for sure, and theres advantages and disadvantages to both choices.
Stop lamenting, there’s still time for you to be proud of your Dutch national team, and change your rhetoric.
You’re calling the dutch eternal losers? The first thing you guys do is give up. Over here in Canada we view the French as nothing more than people who lack any remote form of fighting spirit. History and the recent game against Germany would show that you French are keen on bending over taking it up you know where once things get tough.
Aside from football what other sports do the French excel in? and im using that term loosely as you haven’t done anything spectacular in quite a long time. At the end of the day once holland is kicked out of the World Cup, we can always say I’m going to watch our field hockey teams win a WK or EC or count all of our speed skating medals because fuck, we have much more to be proud of with regards to our sporting pedigree than the French do. With that said, I think it is hardly realistic to be calling us eternal losers.
Take a seat you lousy French frog.
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
I don’t remember Cillessen having caught a penalty so far. Maybe he did in some eredivisie games but I do remember that against Celtic, Salzburg, Spain and Australia now, he caught none. So if we have to go to penalty kicks in the second round, be ready to have a bad taste in your mouth.
here’s why I think penalties are a lottery. First of all, no matter how well you train for it, its nothing compared to the real thing, in training there is no added pressure such as the fans, viewers, all the shouting etc.. Second, one has to consider the psychological circumstances of the players, are they drained out? did they play well during the 120 minutes? this factors into their confidence levels. I’m guessing that the dutch players confidence levels were low because they had not played a good game. Besides, Van Persie who was supposed to take the first kick, was out of the game. That alone is added pressure. That is why penalties are a lottery, guessing by the fact that Van Persie was taken out VG didn’t want penalties. But I think VG made the wrong call, penalties were always into consideration because of how tight each teams defense was. VP should have stayed and a fresh Krul with his menacing form towards opponents should have been the golie
You cannot blame yourself when you act rationnal but are wrong after. The rationnality would have been to put Krul as first keeper, an experienced PL keeper. Even if Krul would have done bad, there was nothing to be angry, that was the strongest dutch keeper according to most of people. And probably even for Van Gaal.
Just look at Van Gaal face during Costa Rica overtime, he was really angry and stressed, and he made the change Krul/Cillessen cause he knew that everyone would blame him if losing to Costa Rica with Cillessen. In the other situation, with Krul, he’ll still have 70 % of dutch fans who will say that Cillessen didn’t catch the PKS against Spain and Australia and that it was just a good idea to go for Krul.
That wasn’t a genius coaching, that was a coaching of fear, Van Gaal was so stressed and made the coaching that would give him less problems if he loses.
There was absolutly no reason to chose Cillessen since the beginning, why Vermeer never got this spot while he was titular 3 years with Ajax ? Cillessen is titular one year and he gets it…
Total nonsense. And Van Gaal is knows for acting irrationnally everytime.
Another proof is that he ignores Van Ginkel because he didn’t play enough, but he goes for Wijnaldum LOL, a guy who was also injured the whole season and who wasn’t even playing in his natural position…
Stop engaging with this fool. He doesn’t support Oranje and he knows very little about football. He is a master of stating the obvious and posts so often and at such length on a blog on which he is not welcome, that I can only assume he is ill. He needs to find some peace elsewhere.
Laurent be a man of your word and roll out of here like you said you would.. be a man and stick to your word… Aint no dutch give a f**k what you guys think In France You call us enternal losers or something ill give you a enternal loser to your nose chump F**k off
For those who bleed orange big up.. we do punch above our weight and the our young generation are showing heart…
big up depay, fer, de vrij, clasie, bmi, blind, de guzman, wiljiaman, and the rest of the young fellas this will be great for there future and big up Lvg for giving them the chance
dont respond to or read the troll just when we lose on pks he shows up, just waiting for us to fail. they said we wouldnt make it out the group, they said we would pull a euro 08, they said eredivisie players were garbage, we were garbage, i think our undefeated record proves otherwise. (argentina, costa rica are 0:0 draws decided on penalties)
by the way let me humble brag about de vrij i have faith hes gonna be a star and possibly end up in five years at either barcelona, bayern, arsenal, roma, or napoli.
So right!!! Guys do not read his posts and do not reply!!! It’s the only way to make him leave forever. Only if nobody pays any attention to his nonsense.
@Laurent, You raise some good points but I think you need to understand that nothing in life is perfect. Germany or Argentina may win the World Cup but if you put them under the microscope, they have flaws you can list until you get tired of typing them.
Stick to the subject and keep those opinions to yourself about Dutch are losers etc…other than Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Uruguay, Spain, everybody else is a loser by that definition. At least, Holland is always challenging and one day, will win the World Cup. You have to contend and create chances before you win. Yes, we came very close. LVG in the end could have done things differently.
Finally, understand the audience in here. Most people here are diehard fans and love the team despite all the flaws. You being continuously super critical will not change hearts and minds.
I don’t mind your criticisms at all, but please don’t tell us what the French think about the Dutch.
In last 40 yrs of WC history, Holland were 3 times finalists – France 2 times (yes, France won once but you know how close to winning we were in our 3 finals).
With regard to club football, French clubs do not even dream of having the trophies of Dutch clubs. No comparison. And Holland is a country of less than 20million. So please, stop the bull**** about being eternal losers. We’re much better than the French.
Laurent it’s obvious you love the attention of your negativity towards the Dutch team and staff, well what about Argentina, Brasil, Belgium, Fucking France, England Italy, all teams that you say are far better than the Dutch yet performed average. Why don’t you go on their blogs and give their supporters your insights into how they could have done better and how their coaches made numerous mistakes in the WC, because you seem to know everything about football, it’s tactics, it’s philosophy and which players can and can’t do certain things on the field. You obviously are an expert on all matters football, we would have won several world cups had you been our coach, you are a true genius!
Now fuck off you cowardly French loser, run away like France have done in every war they have been in, Napoleon!
If nothing else be a man of your word and leave this site like you said you would, and don’t reply to my comment I’m not interested in your rhetoric!
I think Cillissen is an excellent goalkeeper: his distributions are phenomenal and his reflexes are superb. He made 3-4 crucial saves. With respect to Cahill’s goal, I do not think that was a stoppable goal.
Now, one thing I noted about Krul vs. Cillissen. When Krul stands between the bars and spreads his arms, the impression is that entire gate is covered and there is no space to squeeze the goal. This is a huge psychological barrier for a penalty shooter as he gets panicky. Cillissen seems very tiny between the bars…..
I think Cillessen was one of our best players against Argentina before the PKs.
He is kinda similar to Van der Sar in 1998 “who also couldn’t stop any PK from Brazilian players” , and was far lesser than Van der Sar himself in 2008.
I think Cillessen will improve , he is 25 which is pretty young for a keeper. he will probably stay in Ajax , and will have time to learn from Vermeer and Sar ” I know VDS is not a coach but still he is in the club anyway” .
Also Competition from other keepers “krul , Vorm , Zoet and the young Warner Hahn in Feyenoord ” shall accelerate his development. Hahn btw can be a real candidate for the GK in the next EC and WC , although I am not a fan of changing keepers every tounament. It’s sad that we don’t have a keeper who has it all like Neuer.
What about Stek? I’ve always been pretty high on him. He’s coming off a bad season at Fulham, but that team was a mess from top to bottom. He deserves to go to a better club. How was he like on PK’s?
And he’s still only 31, so I wouldn’t be against using him at EURO 2016.
I think Laurent makes some good points. While we all agree that Holland went a longer distance than initially thought it doesn’t mean we can’t criticize what we perceive like glaring errors that if avoided could have taken us to the final. Read the link posted by Albo from Corriere Dello Sport and you will see that Lvg fcked up in the last game. It doesn’t take a football guru to understand that Krul should be between the sticks during PKs. I don’t care if he says he didn’t have any subs left. He should have made sure there was one left as it was obvious PKs were the most likely outcome of this game. Krul would have caught at least 2 of them. And I don’t buy it that he wanted to please media by letting Cillesen handle PKs. That’s not Lvg. I stand by what I have said before. Lvg did great with this team but could have done better. The last game he was an ordinary coach and couldn’t take us to the final. Missed chance. And NO. Pks are no lottery but are part of strategy of the game. It was clear against CR.
luuk de jong to psv eindhoven confirmed bas dost to feyenoord in the champions league confirmed luc castaignos will be most liekly confirmed in swansea city soon
Again we will have to wait for another 4 years to have a chance in winning the WC. LVG have all the tactics right even against argentina. We just still dont have the luck in penalties. Yes it could be a different scenario if krul was brought in. LVG was confident that we can score in normal or extra time, perhaps over confident this time. Having seen argentina play, they looked average even with messi. maybe they miss angel de maria. I really think that we have chance to score if we switched play to 4-3-3 with depay or lens on the left. something like against the aussie game. Anyway….I still hope one day oranje will win the WC while we still around…but first we need to win the euro2016 in order to get the right team and feel.HUP HUP ORANJE!!!
Hope that we can use the game against brazil as a redemption game in order to fly back with a better mood. Winning against brazil is allways special especially they are at home. In the meantime we can continue being sad, devastated, angry, disappointed etc.
Honestly, the fact that so many are sitting around here second-guessing LVG at this point (saying how back-up GKs, strikers and midfielders and even players not on the roster would have won us the World Cup), is not only amusing, but is a real testament to just how far this team has come.
Before the tournament, while hopeful, none of us seriously thought we would do anything. Yet, a few weeks later, there we are in the semi-finals against Argentina, with a potential final against Germany. We tied 0-0 after extra time and Argentina advanced via shoot-out. This team, with essentially no midfielders and an entirely unproven backline and keeper, did not lose a game in the World Cup!
But even knowing what we know now about our previously untested players and system, there’s still no way we should have any legitimate expectation that this team makes the final. We just aren’t good enough yet, and it’s a shame that the old guard (Robben, RVP, Sneijder, etc.) will be departing as the next generation is ascending. Yet, this tournament was a huge blessing in that it reignited true passion for Dutch football.
In reality, it was a thrilling run, with many amazing moments provided by both familiar and brand new faces on the international stage. We played in a very uncharacteristic style, yet avenged our 2010 loss with a complete evisceration of Spain, and gelled as a team to provide many dramatic comebacks and last minute heroics. This is why football is so much fun. The highs and lows, the risk, the glory, the moments of brilliance and the glaring errors. We try to make sense of why our nation has not yet won the title, but as I’ve said before, the best teams in the world now play with our style. Whether we have the trophy or not, we’ve already convinced the world that ours is the best way to play. There really is not a higher compliment that can be paid in football than that.
Hiddink I believe will restore that style (and will have the personnel to do so), and we’ll be a serious competitor in 2016 and 2018. If you want to start second-guessing things then, fine. But in my personal opinion, this team by far exceeded anyone’s expectations and I for one really enjoyed the ride!
I totally agree with you, JB. Let’s stop this crap about what LvG did wrong or should have done better. Entire team , including players, staff and his majesty LvG, have done wonderful job. Let’s now focus on the last game. LvG said that there was one more thing to do: win last game and make history for Dutch football. Apparently, Netherlands have always lost at least one game during all WC history. We have never been unbeaten in any WC tournaments so far. So, if we win Brazil, that will be a new record for Dutch football: seven games with no loss. That is a small achievement but still it is the pleasant one….
What about Afellay is he joining PSV? I hope he moves away from Barcelona where he’s been totally ignored.
Afellay would be the perfect replacement for Sneijder.
I remember Van der Sar wasn’t good at stopping penalties but when he got older he became really good at it. Cillessen must work harder on it.
Now it’s Hiddink’s time to take over. He is a coach who likes to play attractive football and with the help of LVG giving this youngsters so much experience Hiddink (as he said) is getting a present from Louis.
It was heartbreaking, nothing like 2000, but still… I still think Van Gaal should have “saved” Krul for penalty kicks, somehow. Only reason I still can not get over it, is that I was confident we had better chance when it would come to spot kicks, because of Krul, because of what happend with Costa Rica, forget skills, it would have been great mental advantage… And game was going to penalties, it was clear. And Vlaar going for the first penalty, it was over right there… Sad, sad, sad… I hope future is bright, but I do not see any superstars rising in new generation, I hope I’m wrong
Honestly, when I hear shit about players not wanting to shoot penaltys, asking for van Persie not to play, or being satisfied of being in semis and not really wanting to win, it makes me wonder if so much as changed…
Fer and NDJ are certain absentees for the game with Brazil. I guess, it was expected. Although LvG says that his captain has to play all the games, I believe RVP will join that list too.
That’s what I don’t understand with LVG. On one hand he says only 100% fit players will play for him, on the other the captain (RVP surely not 100%) has to play as well. This kinda of thing may have really hurt us.
Why would anyone criticise the team now? I mean it’s clear for anyone that we have massively overachieved. I mean: come on! Does anyone think that the class of 2014 was as talented as the classes of 1998 or 2010? No? Exactly. So to come within hair’s breath of the World Cup final is a massive achievement and needs to be celebrated.
Now and maybe never is the time to critice the team. We did well, enjoyed the ride, were positively expected that we lasted 7 games and were, statistically, only bested by Germany and Argentina. Which means that with the players at our disposal we are the 3rd best team in the world!
For crying out loud!!!! What is this?????? Is this the bleeding Orange blog of proud Oranje Supperters, fans of one of the top teams in the history of the WK or is it the blog of excuses to a silly sad racist troll???
Come on guys you can all do better than reply to that creep!!! Shut him up, do not even read what he vomits on the page!!!!
I will say this: Much as loved the way the Dutch played in the tournament, I can’t understand the cowardly display by some big players when it came to the first penalty kick against the Argies. We don’t know which players told LVG they didn’t want to take the first kick, but we can guess among a few names–and I really don’t get the lack of balls after everybody showed such steel for six games! I also feel like LVG should have ordered one of the forwards to take the first shot. As it was, the steely Vlaar said yes, and all credit to him for having the courage, but we saw that it was not a good shot. Maybe LVG, who had made some gutsy moves throughout the tourney, thought this contrarian move might work. But with the stakes practically as high as they can get–a trip to the final on the line–and LVG and the players allow a defenseman to take the crucial first shot. Rather inexplicable, really–leaves a bit of bad taste.
i think it is we didnt appealed….
Jesus, I came here because I just saw these images…
What says the KNVB? The press? Aloysius?
Please Jan, you read the dutch press, what’s happening?
This is SO freaking unbelievable!
Still hurt by this Arjentine team,I hope Germany teach them a lesson or two..Humiliation like brazil got vs France 1998 would be perfect.
Why the hell we couldn’t score a goal for 240 minutes??i would add mexico 88 minutes too.it was mainly due to sneijder and persie.they didnt do well.
Arjetines decide to play physical game and we should have started with LEnz and Depay upfront with Roben.433
Depay—-lenz——-Roben
—-kuyt——Clasie——
———-wijaldum———
Blind—-Vlaar–Devrij–Janmaat
————krul————??
RVP and nijel shouldnt have played with half fitness,that cost us a lot that limited LVG with his tactics..
is there some kind of time limit after the shot was initially saved? I never heard of anything like this before….was the whistle blown? I’d love a clearer angle.
F**k man, was Vlaars penalty in?.
Anyway I believe we most be proud of our boys, LVG was great.
Hiddink will have more mature players and more options than LVG therefore I believe we will play more attractive footbal.
From the shitty video you can (1) see that Vlaar tries to dodge the ball as it falls down and (2) that Vlaar sees the rolling towards the goal and even talks to the ref, pointing to the ball in the goal. My guess is that the ref understood that the touched Vlaar. If so doens’t count.
It would be great to have other footage…
🙁
* sees the BALL rolling…
* that the BALL touched Vlaar…
Jesus, I can’t even write a straight sentence…
Guys, seen from other angle. I think it’s clear that Vlaar touches the ball… 🙁
http://tn.com.ar/deportes/tremendo/lo-que-no-viste-del-primer-penal-holandes-y-te-hubiera-hecho-sufrir-mucho_515007
*another
I’m disappointed by the loss but at the same time extremely proud of the team. A lot of young, inexperienced players and we made it to the semi-finals. It’s clear that we lacked the “umph” to win the trophy, but we came pretty close. I think Van Gaal made a few mistakes in the last game but overall he did very well.
I’m very excited to see what Hiddink has in store for the national team. He is one of the best coaches in the world and the team he coached in 1998 played like magic. Even with weaker sides like South Korea in 2002 and Russia in 2008 he played really attractive and fast paced football.
I think Robben will definitely play in 2016, but I’m not sure about Van Persie and Sneijder. Huntelaar’s position depends on what kind of formations Hiddink wants to play. I think we should give the midfield over to our next generation. Strootman, Clasie and Van Ginkel seems like a pretty delicious combination of speed, energy and creativity.
I think the goal should be to win the trophy in 2016. I think this team has what it takes.
Silly to make an issue of that.
What IS shocking is that apparently neither Sneijder, Robben, Kuyt nor Huntelaar wanted to take the first penalty kick. Mind you, I don’t know that the two players LVG were among those four–but one assumes they were, no? After all the balls we showed in the tournament, our top offensive players get weak in the knees? Shameful, really. I’m sure they were tired–and Vlaar wasn’t?
agree 1000000% richarde, WTF was that about??! Hunter should have taken the first penalty
No no no, Robben, Sneijder, Kuyt and Hunter were to take 2,3,4,5.
LVG needed someone to replace RVP. Two players said no, Vlaar said yep!
@ miguel rosado, I give you a lot of credit. every time we are down and in the dumps, you have something positive to say about oranje. i am proud of you for always sticking up for us and looking for the silver living even when it’s tough to get over a big loss. as a hardcore oranje fan living in miami, this was a tough one to take because there are plenty of argentineans here and seeing their cars with the blue and white flags really pissed me off.
by the way, i have a bunch of mexican friends and we are having Facebook war. they still hate on us for the robben penalty like cowards. they are looking for excused. even the rock band mana posted in support of argentina to avenge mexico’s elimination. Screw mana!
@bitterballen: thanks for your comment. Yes this team gives me a good feeling especially because Hiddink will take over.
Before the WC I was disappointed by how badly Dutch teams performed in European competitions and started to doubt the talent in Holland. Now after this WC I have a huge belief in this new generation. Also I believe at 32 years old you can play another tournament (Robben, Nigel,etc).
Yes, here in Mexico people criticized Robben as if no Mexican player ever dived before and even the Mexican coach complained about it too much. My friends knew I would support Holland even though I am Mexican and are all the time complaining about Robben and wanted Holland to go out.
Anyways I know a better future will come for the NT.
still mourning..too devastated to write a coherent worthwhile comment…but very proud…we defied expectations…made new fans out of sissy post 2008 glory hunters and ignorant so-called football enthusiasts..but the hurt is deep when we come so close and deserve so much more!
watching videos like this to ignore the pain..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOyBASJ6zg
amazing srinjoy! please, more videos like this to heal the pain!
I feel very sorry for Jasper. I think, he is very good goalkeeper. Not every goalkeeper is good in catching penalties…Every hour I promise to myself not to read articles about that game, still they like magnet attract my attention.
http://www.espnfc.us/blog/world-cup-central/59/post/1942725/did-louis-van-gaal-undermine-his-dutch-squad-in-their-loss-against-argentina
i know exactly what you’re going through..i turned off the tv as soon as that last penalty was hit and to which cillesen got both hands on…i didn’t wait to see scenes of robben consoling his inconsolable son (friends phoning in to console me let me know of this)….i promised myself to stay of those stupid negative articles on holland..that most people were just waiting to write…but can’t help myself drowning in despair..and resorting to the internet to look forward…some dutch transfer news…feyenoords next champions league opponent…anything that hiddink says or quotes that warms the broken heart even a little and fills it with hope again….i really feel for the older generation whose hearts have been broken and shattered time after time…for me this is my 6th tournament (euro 2004), and although i shattered ..i have this mixed feeling of pride that I just can’t explain becoz at the back of my head i know this squad achieved more than it was actually capable off…i know this is the end of an era…my life’s love arjen will never get to lift the world cup or the golden ball or the ballon d’or….i try making myself feel better by thinking we were actually going out against mexico…and every miracle moment after that was a godsent bonus..but then again i see the vlaar penalty going in..or krul’s helpless face which has “I cud have saved every argentine penalty” written all over….and i have the empty numb feeling again….laurent we appreciate ur cold hard analysis which prides on critique…but plz now is not the time…we are down to even insult u off this blog!
Hey buddy,
It is OK, that big “stone” of disappointment will melt soon out of your heart. That is a destiny of a real fan. For me the hardest moment was Euro 2000. I personally, could not keep my tears of anger when Dutch lost to Italy on penalty shoot out. Like you, I was also sorry for that beautiful generation of players like Kluivert and Co as well as Frank Rijkaard as a coach.
Think of future, and it is really bright. I adore van Gaal and Guus Hiddink. I think these two coaches are the best in the world. Luis has done the portion of the mission, and now Guus is taking relay. And the mission is to bring Dutch to the World Glory. I am very confident that our team is in excellent hands.
So, do not get depressed, cheer up and let’s finish this tournament on a positive note. I am personally looking forward to new Eredivisie season, and how my AZ Alkmaar will play under incomparable Maestro Marco 🙂
Cheer up!
Cillissen was mad after being substituted for Krul. He kicked water bottles to show his anger. I do not feel sorry for him. Even the one he guessed the correct way bounced off his hands. He has to show he can do the job and he is not ready yet to save penalties!
I haven’t seen anyone on the Dutch team acting out when they got substituted. He is a rookie goalkeeper and should be grateful that LVG chose to start him ahead of other experienced goalkeepers.
Let’s put aside the penalty kicks for a minute, people here always complained about cillissen not giving them enough confidence feeling, they feel he is nervous always, but yesterday he proved us to be wrong, during the 120 minutes the guy was cool, his reactions were full of confidence and those couple of dribblings he did were perfect!
Cillissen had an awesome game. His distribution was fantastic but really he is not a great shot stopper. If the penalty shoot out lasted for one hour he probably wouldn’t have saved a single shoot out.
This game was always going to go to penalties. Its actually very rare for two top teams to win a game in extra time. By then both teams have nothing left in the tank and almost settle for pens. Van Gaal should have kept the ace up his sleeve in Tim Krul. Van Persie should have been forced to fight on, he was our captain after all and even if he had nothing left, he should have stayed on for the penalties. Huntelaar offered nothing more and he choked when asked to take the first penalty.
I’m just still in disbelif that seasoned veterans like Robben, Sneijder and Huntelaar refused to go first and allowed a defender to take probably the most crucial kick in a shoot out.
I got the feeling that this Dutch team and the coaching staff were content with a semi final place. That was always the goal from the start and the KNVB even booked Hollands hotels only till the Quarter finals! I don’t think they quite had the belief to go all the way and that is reflected on Robben and Sneijder/Huntelaar took the corwards way out. Once they reached the semi final the attitude stunk of job done.
That was really shameful! What happened to the man who took the penalty against Mexico?
Penalties are not luck! We just proved that against Costa Rica! What you need is skill and confidence! It’s not like flipping a coin and hoping you called it right!
If players were refusing to take a shot, you already know that they lost it before it even started. Sad!
These kind of things should be settled in advance. Get the players mentally ready so that they have enough time to think about it. Teams must practice taking penalties! Absolutely! Teams will go into crucial elimination games hoping to play for a penalty so it is imperative to approach it with the utmost importance!
So in the end it is Lvg who brought us up to semis and them stopped. It is his job to have players ready for penalties but before all it is his job to make sure our goal has a decent keeper in Krul. He subbed Rvp cause he was exhausted? Then why did you insert him in the first place. Why so conservative the whole game? Why not push the pedal when Argentina was on the back foot? Messi was nowhere to be seen yet his presence killed our game. I think we could have had a much better game if we conceded a goal. Tournament showed we played great when falling behind. The more I think about this game the more mad I get. We could/should have gone through.
Lvg showed his limitations.
Cillesen couldn’t stop 2 easy penalties that went right through his hands. He looked like a schoolboy. I sympathize with him anyway. But Damn it Argentina was nothing special.
And how can until before this stage the highest scoring team cannot find the net for 240 minutes.
In this World Cup, none of the teams are anything special, including Germans.
I just read an article in the Italian paper “La Gazzetta dello sport” regarding Van Perise. According to the paper VP was in a bad physical shape and LVG made him play regardless, despite pleas of Robben and Snijder to have Huntelaar play instead. I suppose this makes it clear who must have been the players who declined to take the first PK.
http://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/Mondiali/10-07-2014/mondiali-olanda-caos-van-gaal-impone-van-persie-incassa-no-2-rigoristi-801198743025.shtml
If you look at individual qualities of all our backs then all of them had weakness. the 5 man defense is the main reason as why it was not exposed. they all provided cover up for each other. Blind was caught out on many occasion only for BMI to bail him out , same for vlaar and De Vrij. Van Gaal knew he had to sacrifice someone one in the attack to bring some stability in the Back. with Robben and Van Persie, Sneijder in front he was almost certain that there would no problems in front of the goal.
Im pretty much certain if we play 4-3-3, their weakness will pop up as easy as small boy blowing the balloon.
Cillessen did make some good saves, no doubt about it, But then again the quality of De Santos and Cahill goal exposed his capabilities and showed where his weakness was. overall he was very much protected in front of the five man wall that why he didn’t get to see alot of ball but then again as for the back line I think it pretty much worked out for van Gaal given the No of goal that were conceded against NT.
As for the semi Final yes i think it was a delibrate move by him to play Cillessen in PKs after coping the heavy criticism for using Krul vs CR in PKs after subbing Cillessen in the last minute. I think it was jus to shut up the critics should NT would have won in the PKs vs Argentina. I think with that in mind he was also caught off guard with BMI unexpected injury. I think if it was not for that change we would have seen Krul come in for during the PKs
Other intresting point to note is whether Van Ginkle would have made any difference especially after watching Wijnaldum who was used in the all the games. He played as defensive midfield in a attacking midfield position. Now was it Van Gaal idea to station him as Defensive midfield is the question to be asked. What would have Van Ginkle brought in that particular position. I mean If you look at Khedira, who had the same injury as Van Ginkle is performing exceptionally as the games progressed
I was pretty much confident when the games went into the PKs especially after watching the quality of PKs vs CR. When vLAAR stepped up I also stood up and went outside. I knew what was coming. I know on everybody mind Hunter would have been on the top of the list but then gain I dont know why Van Gaal let Vlaar take the First kick. was that is ingenuity or simply a dump move.
Well Brazil is still left.. so lets see whats happens there.
is there any room for redemption…
If you consider that Cillessen has made a good WC, what about Stek in 2010, Van der Sar in 2008 ?
Cillessen didn’t make any GREAT save during this competition, he had like 2 saves to make per game, he made them, but that had nothing to see with Stekelenburg save vs Kaka which just saved Holland from losing 2-0 to Brazil, to Van der Sar multiples saves against Russia, Italy…
The simple reason is that Holland played really good in defence and didn’t expose him, if he had as many saves to do as Ochoa, Navas, M’Bolhi etc. did, then we would have seen what he really worth.
I did even read someone here saying “Cillessen was great, look at his save on Messi free kick”…Seriously ? That was a save that every keeper is supposed to do. Simple free kick to catch.
About his dribbles on Aguero and Lavezzi, they were great but it would have better if Robben did them.
Fact is that he had 6 PK in total in this world cup but caught none, I only keep in mind his save against Costa Rica, good one (not fantastic one though) but globally we have right to think that Krul could have done better.
For me Cillessen was another partial fail from Van Gaal
Thank you for your insight, captain obvious. Van Gaal’s fault or not, I think it is hard to avoid this. Let me tell you why:
Case 1:
Situation 1: Van Gaal choose Cillessen, he lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault, Krul is way better than Cillessen”
Situation 2: Van Gaal choose Krul, he lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Why did he change the goal keeper who did so great?”
Case 2:
Situation 1: Van Gaal did not save a sub for Krul. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Why did he not save a sub for Krul?”
Situation 2: Van Gaal try to save a sub for Krul. Ned is out run by Argentina in extra time and lost. The genius wannabe: “It is his fault. Did he see that RVP is walking on the pitch? Did he see that De Jong is playing through pain?”
Case 3:
Situation 1: The genius wannabe said that “Ned will come to the World Cup semi-final”. Ned did reach semi-final. The genius wannabe: “You guys are delusional and know nothing about football. Listen to my insight analysis!!!”
Situation 2: The genius wannbe said that “I will leave this blog if Ned go that far”. Ned did reach semi-final. The genius wannabe: “This is Van Gaal’s fault. If he did save a sub for Krul, we would win the WC. Listen to my insight analysis!!!”
You see. It does not matter what Van Gaal did anyway. There is always that guy that can foresee what happened because it already happened.
There is nothing about being a genius or not, I admit 100 % that I was wrong about Holland going as far, I give big credits to LVG for having made Holland to seem as solid defensivly.
Though, the responsability for that loss goes to him, if you save a man one day but kills another one the day after, you still go to jail, no ?
I would not have said anything if Cillessen would have caught PK’s, I would admit that I was wrong again. But fact is that I said just after the Australia game that we would be fucked up if playing PK with Cillessen. I can go to search it and post it if you want.
Any rationnal coach would not have given a WC semi final PK to Cillessen who just caught none for a long time.
LVG said himself that he wanted to put Krul but didn’t have changes enough. Fact is that HE decided to start with Cillessen,Nigel and RVP and realized that he should replace them after. That was his coaching, his fault.
And Cillessen shouldn’t even have started this world cup when Krul and Vorm were available, what he did to deserve that ?
There is nothing about being a genius or not, I admit 100 % that I was wrong about Holland going as far, I give big credits to LVG for having made Holland to seem as solid defensivly.
Though, the responsability for that loss goes to him, if you save a man one day but kills another one the day after, you still go to jail, no ?
I would not have said anything if Cillessen would have caught PK’s, I would admit that I was wrong again. But fact is that I said just after the Australia game that we would lose if playing PK with Cillessen. I can go to search it and post it if you want.
Any rationnal coach would not have given a WC semi final PK to Cillessen who just caught none for a long time.
LVG said himself that he wanted to put Krul but didn’t have changes enough. Fact is that HE decided to start with Cillessen,Nigel and RVP and realized that he should replace them after. That was his coaching, his fault.
And Cillessen shouldn’t even have started this world cup when Krul and Vorm were available, what he did to deserve that ?
WTF is the point of you posting all of this crap?
It’s ridiculous, just stop already.
Van Gaal did an amazing job with the roster he had to choose from. The players did an amazing job of following the plan as a cohesive unit and the results were far beyond what was projected, including and especially by you. To try and put forth hindsight as if you have something figured out that van Gaal missed is both idiotic, annoying, and pointless.
Great cup, great result, great website, great future. Hup Holland!!! Very proud of my heritage and have truly loved reading the comments of Dutch and non-Dutch Oranje lovers on this site.
In case it wasn’t clear, that was for you, Laurent. Give it a rest.
Seriously, Laurent, just accept your mistake and everyone will welcome you back. I would not made that post against you if your behaviour did not raise this question to me “Does that guy really support Netherlands?”. I mean we are all stressed and empty after that game yesterday. I just went home immediately after my last meeting yesterday because I knew I would not be able to do any work after that. And you does not seem to have the feeling at all, you came here with all the irrational logic and blame the heroes on this loss? I wonder which team you support?
And it is not that hard to counter your irrational logic at all:
1. Van Ginkel over Wijnaldum? Non sense. Did you see that we lost because RVP can not run. Van Gaal already take a risk by getting an player with injury history into this WC? And you suggest to take bigger risk with 2 players with long injury period in the starting XI? What is that logic? And EPL > Eredivisie? Wijnaldum fight for this spot over De Guzman. Remember? And where is the England team anway? Now I am not saying that EPL is not better than Eredivisie. I am saying that your “cold fact” that because “EPL > Eredivisie” then we must choose Van Ginkel is utter nonsense.
2. Krul over Cillessen? Now they have different specialities and Van Gaal said that himself. And I totally understand the reason. How many times did we pass the ball back to the goalie in this tournament? How many times did Cillessen run out of the penalty box to stop their attack even before that happened? Krul is better at reflexes while Cillessen is better at ball distribution and playing high line. Your master plan is playing more passive and let them have more chances over our young defenders?
3. Your expectation for Cillessen and Wijnaldum is that they will be total idiots who will choke under the pressure. And when they did their job, you try to downplay their achievement instead of congratulating them. Your statement is basically this “Cillessen did fine but he did not perform at Van der Sar’s level in his first WC. Hence he should not start.”
4. My highest expectation for this team was to get out of the group stage and eliminated by Brazil. When they reach that far, I was so happy. If I were ever in your position, I would be happy to come to this blog and post “Guys, I was so dumb. But I am really happy that they prove to me that I was wrong all the way.” And I really believe every true fan should do so. Instead, wth are you posting?
Aanvalluh you’re point of view is total crap
Sometimes I understand why Holland never win anything, maybe it’s just in the genes of dutch people to be losers. I’m sorry if it sounds harsh but that’s how Holland is considered in France and in many other countries : eternal losers.
And the way people react here just prove it.
I already suggested Holland to chose a foreign coach in order to heal that.
You’re point of view is really hopeless, Holland was in semi finals of a cup that they NEVER won, and because of a few coaching mistakes, they didn’t do it again. While they could, as Argentina wasn’t better.
Instead of discussing those mistakes and trying to get better next time, you guys are coming to write “proud to be dutch ! LVG was great” Wouaw. You just lost again in penalty kicks after 92,96,98,2000…But still didn’t learn from mistakes and are writing consoling positive crap.
Holland SHOULD be a top nation, so even if no one expected them to reach semi this year, when doing it, they should have fighted for the title. More than Germany, Brazil and Argentina which already have it in their museum.
Hilarious, Laurent, to watch how quickly the guy who’s purportedly all about factual analysis switch to “your opinion is total crap” and “you people have loser genes.”
Perhaps it’s just my loser genes talking, but I’m still proud and will continue to be. If you think I’m not going to remain proud because perhaps other decisions and selections could have been made than what van Gaal elected to do, you’re more ridiculous than I previously understood.
Claiming, with the benefit hindsight, that you know specifically what should have been done without any knowledge of player fitness, attitude, or what was happening in the camp is one thing- (we all do that and I certainly have a list of things that I would preferred to have seen), but to make van Gaal out to be a loser/idiot for doing things the way he did is what I find to be incredibly irritating and immature about your current posts.
You were wrong first and you pledged to stop posting here as a result- but instead you’re doubling down and posting more and more.
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
just ignore the dude the more you ignore the sooner he disappears
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
Khoi :
1- Maybe you didn’t watch football this season, but Wijnaldum almost didn’t play, just like Van Ginkel.
2- It’s not a question of specialities, Cillessen just proved nothing concrete with Ajax and NT to be the dutch keeper during WC.
3- Really ? Cillessen and Wijnaldum did good ? Here in France people say that Holland could have won with Krul, and many people said that Wijnaldum made the dutch play to look so slooow, which is true. Everyone on this blog, but really everyone noticed that he was much better as RW than when he was playing OM. We were all saying it before the world cup. The genius Van Gaal put him CM. He didn’t convinc.
4- I was wrong about my prediction but not about Holland losing PK with Cillessen and about Van Gaal not being a genius.
1. I was wrong.
2. I see no reason why it is not. You have no coherence if the player’s quality does not match. And why did you keep insulting Cillessen? He did prove his quality in this WC.
3. I did not say they did really good. I said they made their contribution.
Your 2&3 points made me wonder if you ever play the game at all. Playing with teammates that can compliment your skill is so much important. Making no mistake alone is an achievement already. I did not see any costing mistake from Wijnaldum or Cillessen. And do you wonder who did make mistakes in this WC? Rafael Marquez, Luis Suarez, David Luiz, Thiago Silva, Casillas, … Big names you would choose over our players?
4. You keep posting negative comment every time, why did you not hit one time? Of course, I could do that to every single team in this tournament and I would have the chance of being right to be 31/32.
5. Talking about rationality, constructive criticism is good but this criticism is really irrational. Ok, I am the newbie, I am going to a company where everyone looks smarter than me on paper with their degrees. Then somehow, I achieved more than what they expected. And my boss and co workers said that I did not do well enough, otherwise I could have done much better. My rational reaction would be f… this company, I leave. It is no way constructive at all.
2- Why do you consider that Cillessen had a good world cup ? He had like two saves to make per game, and most of shots were on him. He did nothing special, he wasn’t guilty on Cahill and Dos Santos goal but he didn’t have any great game or whatever, for the simple reason that he wasn’t exposed. He could have made the difference with PK but he failed, after showing a childish anger when Van Gaal put Krul. Which makes to consider double that his world cup wasn’t good.
3- What do you call contribution ? I mean, what are your standards ? Of course Wijnaldum didn’t do any big crucial mistake, but is it a reason to consider he performed well ? He just brought nothing, the guy doesn’t know what is a through pass, didn’t give a single shot on more than 400 minutes as midfielder. He was just bad.
4- Sometimes people should just understand that I keep posting negative because we are on the blog of a nation that never won any world cup, though being among the top nations. You should see it as a compliment as I’m extern to Holland. Some people come here to look for friends and to feel dutch, even when they don’t even have 1 % of dutch blood, some like me just come to comment the games they are watching.
5- The point is subtile. Most of people didn’t expect Holland to go far, and all that because of the recent form and because of the level of eredivisie players. So reaching semi finals was already something positive for Holland. But for some people here, and I felt that it was the same for Van Gaal, it meant that Holland has already performed good in this world cup and could stop there. I felt Van Gaal took no risk in the game, creating nothing, just waiting for luck or something that would beat Argentina. They didn’t really play the game, and Van Gaal looked much more angry when Holland was doing 0-0 against Costa Rica than yesterday. It’s just a big lack of ambition and I can find it here on posters.
Laurent,
once and for all , get it through your head.
Krul is a better shot stopper, and maybe has a slightly better control of his area during dead ball situations (although Cillessen did very well on every dead ball occasion).
But Cillessen distributes the ball way way better. The best goalkeeper of this world cup even in terms of distribution.
And the way the dutch squad was set up to play at the back with all the back passing, you need a goalkeeper that can handle being under pressure, not make any mistake, and even more, actually still able to distribute when under pressure.
Krul might have done a better job at PKs. But could have messed up elsewhere, at some tricky back pass.
Either way we can’t know now, and theres absolutely no point in saying LVG should’ve done this and not that. You don’t know for sure, and theres advantages and disadvantages to both choices.
Stop lamenting, there’s still time for you to be proud of your Dutch national team, and change your rhetoric.
You’re calling the dutch eternal losers? The first thing you guys do is give up. Over here in Canada we view the French as nothing more than people who lack any remote form of fighting spirit. History and the recent game against Germany would show that you French are keen on bending over taking it up you know where once things get tough.
Aside from football what other sports do the French excel in? and im using that term loosely as you haven’t done anything spectacular in quite a long time. At the end of the day once holland is kicked out of the World Cup, we can always say I’m going to watch our field hockey teams win a WK or EC or count all of our speed skating medals because fuck, we have much more to be proud of with regards to our sporting pedigree than the French do.
With that said, I think it is hardly realistic to be calling us eternal losers.
Take a seat you lousy French frog.
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
Well played.
Laurent
June 19, 2014 at 3:35 am
I don’t remember Cillessen having caught a penalty so far. Maybe he did in some eredivisie games but I do remember that against Celtic, Salzburg, Spain and Australia now, he caught none. So if we have to go to penalty kicks in the second round, be ready to have a bad taste in your mouth.
Laurent
June 13, 2014 at 8:58 pm
“…I swear I’ll stop writing if Holland go to quarter, copy this text and save it on your computer.”
To what degree does Van Gaal start the B Team on Sat? NDJ, RVP will be missing. Same with Lens.
here is some insight. NDJ will be absent for sure.I would not plat RVP either
http://www.elfvoetbal.nl/nieuws/359603_van-gaal-neemt-geen-risico-met-spelers
here’s why I think penalties are a lottery. First of all, no matter how well you train for it, its nothing compared to the real thing, in training there is no added pressure such as the fans, viewers, all the shouting etc..
Second, one has to consider the psychological circumstances of the players, are they drained out? did they play well during the 120 minutes? this factors into their confidence levels. I’m guessing that the dutch players confidence levels were low because they had not played a good game. Besides, Van Persie who was supposed to take the first kick, was out of the game. That alone is added pressure.
That is why penalties are a lottery, guessing by the fact that Van Persie was taken out VG didn’t want penalties. But I think VG made the wrong call, penalties were always into consideration because of how tight each teams defense was. VP should have stayed and a fresh Krul with his menacing form towards opponents should have been the golie
You cannot blame yourself when you act rationnal but are wrong after. The rationnality would have been to put Krul as first keeper, an experienced PL keeper. Even if Krul would have done bad, there was nothing to be angry, that was the strongest dutch keeper according to most of people. And probably even for Van Gaal.
Just look at Van Gaal face during Costa Rica overtime, he was really angry and stressed, and he made the change Krul/Cillessen cause he knew that everyone would blame him if losing to Costa Rica with Cillessen. In the other situation, with Krul, he’ll still have 70 % of dutch fans who will say that Cillessen didn’t catch the PKS against Spain and Australia and that it was just a good idea to go for Krul.
That wasn’t a genius coaching, that was a coaching of fear, Van Gaal was so stressed and made the coaching that would give him less problems if he loses.
There was absolutly no reason to chose Cillessen since the beginning, why Vermeer never got this spot while he was titular 3 years with Ajax ? Cillessen is titular one year and he gets it…
Total nonsense. And Van Gaal is knows for acting irrationnally everytime.
Another proof is that he ignores Van Ginkel because he didn’t play enough, but he goes for Wijnaldum LOL, a guy who was also injured the whole season and who wasn’t even playing in his natural position…
Guys
Stop engaging with this fool. He doesn’t support Oranje and he knows very little about football. He is a master of stating the obvious and posts so often and at such length on a blog on which he is not welcome, that I can only assume he is ill. He needs to find some peace elsewhere.
Laurent be a man of your word and roll out of here like you said you would.. be a man and stick to your word…
Aint no dutch give a f**k what you guys think In France
You call us enternal losers or something ill give you a enternal loser to your nose chump
F**k off
For those who bleed orange big up.. we do punch above our weight and the our young generation are showing heart…
big up depay, fer, de vrij, clasie, bmi, blind, de guzman, wiljiaman, and the rest of the young fellas this will be great for there future and big up Lvg for giving them the chance
dont respond to or read the troll just when we lose on pks he shows up, just waiting for us to fail. they said we wouldnt make it out the group, they said we would pull a euro 08, they said eredivisie players were garbage, we were garbage, i think our undefeated record proves otherwise. (argentina, costa rica are 0:0 draws decided on penalties)
by the way let me humble brag about de vrij i have faith hes gonna be a star and possibly end up in five years at either barcelona, bayern, arsenal, roma, or napoli.
So right!!!
Guys do not read his posts and do not reply!!!
It’s the only way to make him leave forever.
Only if nobody pays any attention to his nonsense.
@Laurent,
You raise some good points but I think you need to understand that nothing in life is perfect. Germany or Argentina may win the World Cup but if you put them under the microscope, they have flaws you can list until you get tired of typing them.
Stick to the subject and keep those opinions to yourself about Dutch are losers etc…other than Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Uruguay, Spain, everybody else is a loser by that definition. At least, Holland is always challenging and one day, will win the World Cup. You have to contend and create chances before you win. Yes, we came very close. LVG in the end could have done things differently.
Finally, understand the audience in here. Most people here are diehard fans and love the team despite all the flaws. You being continuously super critical will not change hearts and minds.
@Laurent,
I don’t mind your criticisms at all, but please don’t tell us what the French think about the Dutch.
In last 40 yrs of WC history, Holland were 3 times finalists – France 2 times (yes, France won once but you know how close to winning we were in our 3 finals).
With regard to club football, French clubs do not even dream of having the trophies of Dutch clubs. No comparison. And Holland is a country of less than 20million. So please, stop the bull**** about being eternal losers. We’re much better than the French.
Laurent it’s obvious you love the attention of your negativity towards the Dutch team and staff, well what about Argentina, Brasil, Belgium, Fucking France, England Italy, all teams that you say are far better than the Dutch yet performed average.
Why don’t you go on their blogs and give their supporters your insights into how they could have done better and how their coaches made numerous mistakes in the WC, because you seem to know everything about football, it’s tactics, it’s philosophy and which players can and can’t do certain things on the field.
You obviously are an expert on all matters football, we would have won several world cups had you been our coach, you are a true genius!
Now fuck off you cowardly French loser, run away like France have done in every war they have been in, Napoleon!
If nothing else be a man of your word and leave this site like you said you would, and don’t reply to my comment I’m not interested in your rhetoric!
I think Cillissen is an excellent goalkeeper: his distributions are phenomenal and his reflexes are superb. He made 3-4 crucial saves. With respect to Cahill’s goal, I do not think that was a stoppable goal.
Now, one thing I noted about Krul vs. Cillissen. When Krul stands between the bars and spreads his arms, the impression is that entire gate is covered and there is no space to squeeze the goal. This is a huge psychological barrier for a penalty shooter as he gets panicky. Cillissen seems very tiny between the bars…..
That is my personal impression…..
Feyenoord reject Newcastle €6 million bid for Janmaat.
Good news. He deserves a better club.
I think Cillessen was one of our best players against Argentina before the PKs.
He is kinda similar to Van der Sar in 1998 “who also couldn’t stop any PK from Brazilian players” , and was far lesser than Van der Sar himself in 2008.
I think Cillessen will improve , he is 25 which is pretty young for a keeper. he will probably stay in Ajax , and will have time to learn from Vermeer and Sar ” I know VDS is not a coach but still he is in the club anyway” .
Also Competition from other keepers “krul , Vorm , Zoet and the young Warner Hahn in Feyenoord ” shall accelerate his development.
Hahn btw can be a real candidate for the GK in the next EC and WC , although I am not a fan of changing keepers every tounament.
It’s sad that we don’t have a keeper who has it all like Neuer.
Also Vermeer can be considered if he moves to another club. He is still 28 years old.
What about Stek? I’ve always been pretty high on him. He’s coming off a bad season at Fulham, but that team was a mess from top to bottom. He deserves to go to a better club. How was he like on PK’s?
And he’s still only 31, so I wouldn’t be against using him at EURO 2016.
stekelenburgs days r over…he had a great stature but was a shit penalty killer!
I think Laurent makes some good points.
While we all agree that Holland went a longer distance than initially thought it doesn’t mean we can’t criticize what we perceive like glaring errors that if avoided could have taken us to the final. Read the link posted by Albo from Corriere Dello Sport and you will see that Lvg fcked up in the last game. It doesn’t take a football guru to understand that Krul should be between the sticks during PKs. I don’t care if he says he didn’t have any subs left. He should have made sure there was one left as it was obvious PKs were the most likely outcome of this game. Krul would have caught at least 2 of them. And I don’t buy it that he wanted to please media by letting Cillesen handle PKs. That’s not Lvg.
I stand by what I have said before. Lvg did great with this team but could have done better. The last game he was an ordinary coach and couldn’t take us to the final. Missed chance.
And NO. Pks are no lottery but are part of strategy of the game. It was clear against CR.
The ball didn’t cross the line. So we can all sleep better at night 🙂
http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/4/video/1944594/netherlands-train-ahead-of-brazil-clash
Looks like there was a disagreement between LvG and Sneijder + Robben regarding who should have played semis RVP or KJH. The latter voted for KJH…
http://www.elfvoetbal.nl/nieuws/359563_oranje-spelers-stemden-voor-basisplaats-huntelaar
Luuk de Jong is getting closer to move to PSV. It would great for him to get a playing time..
luuk de jong to psv eindhoven confirmed
bas dost to feyenoord in the champions league confirmed
luc castaignos will be most liekly confirmed in swansea city soon
According to Gazetta Dello sport Sneijder and Robben asked LVG to start Huntelaar instead of RVP due to his condition.
Again we will have to wait for another 4 years to have a chance in winning the WC. LVG have all the tactics right even against argentina. We just still dont have the luck in penalties. Yes it could be a different scenario if krul was brought in. LVG was confident that we can score in normal or extra time, perhaps over confident this time. Having seen argentina play, they looked average even with messi. maybe they miss angel de maria. I really think that we have chance to score if we switched play to 4-3-3 with depay or lens on the left. something like against the aussie game. Anyway….I still hope one day oranje will win the WC while we still around…but first we need to win the euro2016 in order to get the right team and feel.HUP HUP ORANJE!!!
Hope that we can use the game against brazil as a redemption game in order to fly back with a better mood. Winning against brazil is allways special especially they are at home. In the meantime we can continue being sad, devastated, angry, disappointed etc.
Your “master of tactician” made 3 great mistakes that cost us the final (de Jong and v.Persie in the lineup and Krul not). Football is always simple!
I thought that this was a surprisingly balanced assessment from ESPN:
http://www.espnfc.us/#blog/world-cup-central/59/post/1942945/after-losing-to-argentina-in-the-world-cup-its-time-for-the-netherlands-to-think-about-the-future
Honestly, the fact that so many are sitting around here second-guessing LVG at this point (saying how back-up GKs, strikers and midfielders and even players not on the roster would have won us the World Cup), is not only amusing, but is a real testament to just how far this team has come.
Before the tournament, while hopeful, none of us seriously thought we would do anything. Yet, a few weeks later, there we are in the semi-finals against Argentina, with a potential final against Germany. We tied 0-0 after extra time and Argentina advanced via shoot-out. This team, with essentially no midfielders and an entirely unproven backline and keeper, did not lose a game in the World Cup!
But even knowing what we know now about our previously untested players and system, there’s still no way we should have any legitimate expectation that this team makes the final. We just aren’t good enough yet, and it’s a shame that the old guard (Robben, RVP, Sneijder, etc.) will be departing as the next generation is ascending. Yet, this tournament was a huge blessing in that it reignited true passion for Dutch football.
In reality, it was a thrilling run, with many amazing moments provided by both familiar and brand new faces on the international stage. We played in a very uncharacteristic style, yet avenged our 2010 loss with a complete evisceration of Spain, and gelled as a team to provide many dramatic comebacks and last minute heroics. This is why football is so much fun. The highs and lows, the risk, the glory, the moments of brilliance and the glaring errors. We try to make sense of why our nation has not yet won the title, but as I’ve said before, the best teams in the world now play with our style. Whether we have the trophy or not, we’ve already convinced the world that ours is the best way to play. There really is not a higher compliment that can be paid in football than that.
Hiddink I believe will restore that style (and will have the personnel to do so), and we’ll be a serious competitor in 2016 and 2018. If you want to start second-guessing things then, fine. But in my personal opinion, this team by far exceeded anyone’s expectations and I for one really enjoyed the ride!
I totally agree with you, JB. Let’s stop this crap about what LvG did wrong or should have done better. Entire team , including players, staff and his majesty LvG, have done wonderful job. Let’s now focus on the last game. LvG said that there was one more thing to do: win last game and make history for Dutch football. Apparently, Netherlands have always lost at least one game during all WC history. We have never been unbeaten in any WC tournaments so far. So, if we win Brazil, that will be a new record for Dutch football: seven games with no loss. That is a small achievement but still it is the pleasant one….
What about Afellay is he joining PSV? I hope he moves away from Barcelona where he’s been totally ignored.
Afellay would be the perfect replacement for Sneijder.
I remember Van der Sar wasn’t good at stopping penalties but when he got older he became really good at it. Cillessen must work harder on it.
Now it’s Hiddink’s time to take over. He is a coach who likes to play attractive football and with the help of LVG giving this youngsters so much experience Hiddink (as he said) is getting a present from Louis.
It was heartbreaking, nothing like 2000, but still…
I still think Van Gaal should have “saved” Krul for penalty kicks, somehow.
Only reason I still can not get over it, is that I was confident we had better chance when it would come to spot kicks, because of Krul, because of what happend with Costa Rica, forget skills, it would have been great mental advantage…
And game was going to penalties, it was clear.
And Vlaar going for the first penalty, it was over right there…
Sad, sad, sad…
I hope future is bright, but I do not see any superstars rising in new generation, I hope I’m wrong
Honestly, when I hear shit about players not wanting to shoot penaltys, asking for van Persie not to play, or being satisfied of being in semis and not really wanting to win, it makes me wonder if so much as changed…
Hope this is only the press making stuff up.
At least we’ll always have Mexico:
http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2014/07/11/mexico-arjen-robben-pinata-flop-world-cup
Fer and NDJ are certain absentees for the game with Brazil. I guess, it was expected. Although LvG says that his captain has to play all the games, I believe RVP will join that list too.
That’s what I don’t understand with LVG. On one hand he says only 100% fit players will play for him, on the other the captain (RVP surely not 100%) has to play as well. This kinda of thing may have really hurt us.
Why would anyone criticise the team now? I mean it’s clear for anyone that we have massively overachieved. I mean: come on! Does anyone think that the class of 2014 was as talented as the classes of 1998 or 2010? No? Exactly. So to come within hair’s breath of the World Cup final is a massive achievement and needs to be celebrated.
Now and maybe never is the time to critice the team. We did well, enjoyed the ride, were positively expected that we lasted 7 games and were, statistically, only bested by Germany and Argentina. Which means that with the players at our disposal we are the 3rd best team in the world!
Isn’t that massive?!
List of contenders for three awards. See the link below.
Arjen is among Golden Ball nominees.
Memphis is among Yong Player nominees. I think he has much better chance than Pogba, unless some politics is going to be involved as usually.
http://www.elfvoetbal.nl/nieuws/359631_robben-kanshebber-voor-gouden-bal
Not a Brazil fan of course, but still thought this was sweet:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/you-champion-david-luiz-reveals-3844124
For crying out loud!!!!
What is this??????
Is this the bleeding Orange blog of proud Oranje Supperters, fans of one of the top teams in the history of the WK or is it the blog of excuses to a silly sad racist troll???
Come on guys you can all do better than reply to that creep!!! Shut him up, do not even read what he vomits on the page!!!!
guys chill and ignore the idiotic french know it all…who states the most obvious things that anyone can say after the game..what a joke!
I will say this: Much as loved the way the Dutch played in the tournament, I can’t understand the cowardly display by some big players when it came to the first penalty kick against the Argies. We don’t know which players told LVG they didn’t want to take the first kick, but we can guess among a few names–and I really don’t get the lack of balls after everybody showed such steel for six games! I also feel like LVG should have ordered one of the forwards to take the first shot. As it was, the steely Vlaar said yes, and all credit to him for having the courage, but we saw that it was not a good shot. Maybe LVG, who had made some gutsy moves throughout the tourney, thought this contrarian move might work. But with the stakes practically as high as they can get–a trip to the final on the line–and LVG and the players allow a defenseman to take the crucial first shot. Rather inexplicable, really–leaves a bit of bad taste.