Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals [R]

Continue ladies and gentlemen. As our next tournament will be a Euro I will try to warm you up for it:

WHAT WE DO IN LIFE ECHOES IN ETERNITY

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_8YMVKf6mQ&hd=1&list=PL3033D7447C1D9E48&t=1s"]Euro 2012 Poland & Ukraine Promo - YouTube[/ame]

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

I have to say sorry to Fer, but if I look at this last game of young Orange, than there is only one conclusion possible. His operational speed is too low. His one and that of Clasie is light years away from each other. Next game I would go with this midfield:


van Ginkel-------------Clasie-----------------Maher


I'm sorry that all our guys have to be 2 feet tall, but apparently that's the way it has to be.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

There is an issue with van Dijk that could drastically improve his career. He should start a training course where he exercises his jump. His vertical Jump needs to improve in a big way. This is very doable. I'm stunned nobody is seeing how bad he jumps. He is tall, so wins confrontations, but that's despite his jump, not thanks to it.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

You don't expect anyone within the football profession to be familiar with exercise technique such as plyometrics do you? Most of them, with the exception of Verbeek, are just doing what their trainers were doing 30 years ago, don't they?

idle hope my friend. Look at Ajax right now, a series of muscle and fatigue injuries while people have been warning for overtraining in the pre-season already. Doesn't ring any bell anywhere though.

What is the point of having six threads on the same subject (oranje)??

The way I see it this is how you have to look at it:

1. The main thread (This one) where there is an ongoing discussion about the team. Here we discuss everything between games and games we deem as business as usual, unimportant or both. Here we also discuss the future of the team and with that the youth prospects and what is coming our way. General tactics and general observations.

2. From time to time there will be games that need our special attention. For that, match threads are called into existence. Now with Germany that is the case.

3. How the players perform at their clubs often spins into a foreign club discussion, that has little to do with Orange. We had many discussions about how Real Mardrid plays, or Barca or whatever. That's why it is sensible to have a thread for players playing outside of Holland. It would be logical to also then to have one for the players in Holland, but they are often touched on in the separate club threads here. Dutch NT players will mostly come from Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV and Twente.


So the 3 threads are justified IMO. I would even say that a separate youth thread could be possible. Have seen that in many other country sections as well. Even seen separation to U17 and U19. On top of that there could also be a thread about the players operating in Holland. We had a discussion in the PSV forum about Jetro Willems in the future Dutch NT and Paga experienced that as slightly off topic. So I would say we still run a pretty conservative number here.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

I personally don't rate Fer that highly based on his club performance last year and this year.

It's weird given the average height of Dutch citizens that our footballers (other than keepers) are on the smaller size. Even our central defenders are not that tall. Other than Oojier and Stam can anyone point to a defender that was taller than 1.55M (I think that translates to six feet in English units)? Curious.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

You'll find that up from the age of 12, pretty much everybody in the Netherlands is taller than 1.55M - hehehe. You've got your metrics wrong Orange. Wesley Sneijder is 1.70 I think.

Also: why do you think Van Marwijk wants Douglas!

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

Same thing happens everywhere; trainers are reluctant to embrace new approaches to conditioning. We see this in American professional sports as well. Too much time is spent on building explosive muscle mass and not enough time on improving flexibility. A lot of years ago, I was in graduate school at Indiana and the swim team coach was also the coach of the US Olympic team, Doc Counselman. He revolutionized the whole training of swimmers in the 1960s, building both strength and flexibility. He had a PhD in exercise physiology/kinesiology and had studied what swimmers needed to do in order to improve their performance. As I recall about 1/2 of the 1972 men's Oliympic team had trained at Indiana (including Mark Spitz who won 7 gold medals).

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

I like Fer, there is no denial that he's been dipping in form as of recently. Maybe because of the adjustments he has to make when moving into Twente. Hopefully he can regain his form soon.

I am banking on Fer to grow as a well-rounded, box-to-box central midfielder, in mold of Yaya Toure/Alex Song for example (some compared Fer to Viera when he first emerged, it was waaay to generous ). He can run up and down pretty fast. The offense seems to come natural for Fer, he often throws himself in front of goal scoring opportunities and can capitalize. His passes are not terribly bad, though it needs more consistency. Defense-wise, he certainly has the height and muscles to compete. The area he needs to work harder is the anticipation and aggressiveness.

Strootman is undergoing the same development phase. DRB mentioned about Clasie on the other thread. I've only watched playing a couple times this season, and he struck me as a player with an over-sized engine... he never seems to get tired. Ruud Vormer has been pretty consistent for Roda, maybe he's an option some time down the road. We've got more 'seniors' like Afellay or De Guzman who can fill in the center role as well.

I really hope the next generation of Oranje central and/or defensive midfielders can be involved in attack in a greater deal. I think the board is pretty much in agreement that N. De Jong and Van Bommel are rather useless in attack, so this has to change.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

truly remarkable, just googled and saw this article on the top:

Dutch are the world's tallest - it's official

Or this one:

Top 10: Tallest Countries


Yet the soccer players are all this size:

Fer has actually improved quite a lot in his last two games with Twente. He's very young still, he can only improve.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

I'm afraid Vormer will be a Brama class player. Good for a Dutch top club, consistend, but no higher ceiling. When Brama had to play against Benfica or recently against Wijnaldum he's played off the pitch.

Fer is strong, can score, but his passing and operational speed is pretty bad. In the end that is where we want to go. If you have 3 players with a very high operational speed it starts to rock. If you put a destroyer between them or behind them, that does not possess this quality, it will disrupt. At Barca pretty much all players have a high operational speed of the ball. Clasie has it. Maher has it. Van Ginkel I think too, but have yet to see more games of him. When you have those kind of players, someone like Fer really starts to stand out. Yesterday because we had Maher and Clasie on midfield it all off the sudden jumped out to me and I have seen him play now quite some time. He has perks that compensate (scoring ability being one of them), but it's a very serious flaw in his game. It's why a guy like Fellaini plays for Everton and not Arsenal, Chelsea, Unieted, City or even the Spurs.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

If Messi had to play as a one man midfield against Benfica he'd be played off the pitch too.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

That was also your excuse against Wijnaldum, but it was very personal what I saw. Against Benfica he turns open and then he is caught. Counter -> goal. He had more operational speed errors. Against Wijnaldum I have looked back the images as you said he was all alone, but I was right in what I saw. He just was outplayed one vs one. Not talking about him being left in 2 vs 1 situations. Not talking about him being left swimming. I'm talking about Twente in defense and Wijnaldum had to be tracked and Brama was outplayed again and again. It can happen to a top player so now and then, but not in the whole match by someone like Wijnaldum.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

Look think of Brama what you want, that's all subjective anyway. I myself have doubts about whether he'll cut it at a higher level. But zeroing in on games where Adriaanse played kamikaze football with a one man midfield and five forwards is highly unfair on Brama. Brama has played MASSIVE games in Europe, against Inter, against Olympique Marseille, in Russia at twenty degrees below zero. Years ago I remember him being the only Twente player who performed well against Arsenal both home and away. It would be nice if you took those games into consideration too.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

Good point.

However he could not win the competition from de Zeeuw, Schaars and now Strootman for the NT. Withing 2/3 years Kyle Ebecilio will knock on the door. de Jong and Strootman will be the first choice for WC 2014. It's not like van Bommel and van Basten that there is something weird going on, but van Marwijk just deems him not good enough. All that while he is the leading man in the Twente's surge of the past years (including the championship). It's not liek he has found himself in a bad patch of his career. I think that if he goes playing for Schalke like Engelaar (and Brama is certainly as good as him) he comes short.

He should stick with Twente. He 25 years 2 months and 25 days old. He can make a move, but I don't know if it will make him happy. The fact he was totally owned by Wijnaldum recently (talking about the 1 vs 1 situations) just doesn't sit well with me.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

We don't know how he'd perform in oranje as he's never had a real chance in it. Fact of the matter is that he has already proved that he can play on the highest level when he's played in the right role in a well functioning team. He has marked international midfielders more highly rated than Wijnaldum out of the game. With all the midfielders we've had over the past three years at Twente, and with the three coaches, Brama has always been the first on the teamsheet. Ask yourself why that's the case even with someone like Adriaanse.

And as I've said before, Brama has a quality that no other Dutch midfielder has: he has no ego. You can give him the job of marking an opponent out of the game and he will do it, without trying to win points from the jury. Unfortunately this is a quality not at all popular in Dutch football, modesty that is. Brama knows what he can and can't do, he doesn't have ideas above his station. It is a shame that he doesn't get more respect for it if you ask me.

One more thing: Theo Janssen owes his move to Ajax to Brama.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

Oh but he has. He has 3 caps on his name. Van Marwijk has looked at him on the training, in the game and he was too light. He lost from Schaars, de Zeeuw and now Strootman has gotten past him in what .... one year? You bring in that Twente played with 5 atackers but don't mention PSV also had 5 attackers. PSV had for most of the game a 17 years old kid on the field. PSV defense is pretty poor. The difference in that game was Strootman-Wijnaldum. Beautifully describes the picture. Strootman having out grown Brama in one year Eredivisie football (he also played it before of course) and Wijnaldum being an nice talent from Feyenoord, that just owned him.

I agree with you that it is a bit spotlight-like to zoom in on one or to games and disregard past good games vs Arsenal and Inter. I have not seen all those games or if I have it's hard to remember how he exactly played in them. It's just that in the big games I watched of Twente this year, while he should have been growing, he came off as limited. Good in the smaller games, weak in the big ones.

Could be. I also learned yesterday that Rivaldo owes his WPOTY award to Cocu.

Re: Brilliant Oranje - The smallest nation on earth to have ever reached 3 WC finals

I think the comparison holds no ground. Strootman is a MUCH MUCH higher level talent. To be pushed into a match against teams like Brazil & now a strong Uruguay & do pretty well is commendable. The Finland game I thought he was the best guy for Oranje,outshone Sneijder & Van Persie,The goal was pure class.

Anyways I thought PSV's defense will crash because for me Strootman is a CM who should be paired with a DM & considering how average PSV's defense is I though playing Strootman as the only slightly defensively minded guy would lead to a huge disaster. He has surprised me again.

Brama,I dont see that quality. Maybe he will be like Jansen,a good Eredivisie player but not good enought for Oranje,I just dont see that class. Even Fer I have got higher hopes since he is so young & he is slightly different to a conventional DM/CM.

Strootman is way more talented than Brama I agree, but they're not the same type of player.

In other news, apparently Elia has retweeted a comment saying how "wack Kuyt is." This will be the 2nd Dutch player after RVP to speak out in public that Kuyt shouldn't be starting..

He has since then deleted the tweet (no doubt will be in trouble again though), but Dutchies are going rampant over it on Twitter. A lot of people tend to agree with Elia.

it would seem that BvM's decision to play favourites is threatening the harmony that has brought this team success.

I'm happy at least one guy in the Dutch media world payed actually attention to the game and looked where the goals also came from today as I did yesterday:

Ik schrok wakker van Van Bommel: gaat die het op het EK wel redden?