Genius begins great works; labour alone finishes them. Twente 2012-2013 Season

Well van Ginkel ran past him like he stood still. I also think Bony should have scored that easy tap in (so he got a big chance), plus it was Brama often doing work on Bony. Bony often dropped and Brama was handling him then.

Anyway, the game against Vitesse was a good example of what you get when defenders only defend and don't use their football ability to initiate let alone create something. Anti football. PVA was actually the best defender from both sides. Neutralized Tadic and also had some attacking intention here and there. He is neither in the NT. Douglas is better than Mathijsen, but Douglas is right footed and will be used on right center back and Mathijsen is left footed and is used for left center back. Douglas competes with de Vrij (who was pretty good this last game and not to blame for the conceded goals), Vlaar (one of the best against United) and Heitinga (played for Everton this weekend). The last two players compete week in week out against better teams and de Vrij is head and shoulders better in the football department. Look back Feyenoord's first goal. Besides, in EL Douglas missed the biggest chance of the EL tournament so far and in the away game against Levante he made huge defensive errors.

 

3 times. All in the away game and in that game Douglas made huge blunders again.

I am not, but you repeating that between 8 and 12 times now on this forum has installed that association with me by now. That is the aim and effect of ad nauseam.

They are not bad.

I think that is because it is his "thing" to defend. If your "thing" on top of that is to give a 50 meter opening "op de stropdas" then you spread the things you have going on for yourself. If your handling speed is high and you are always able find the football solution you have another thing going on for yourself. If you are able to let a team build up under whatever kind of pressure is coming at you, then you are a player that is aligned with Dutch defensive philosophy and van Gaal is an exponent of that. Now I think about it .... , it's even in his contract. Douglas is weak in the last two category's. Strong in the first one (I have always admitted that). However van Gaal is forced by his contract to play the good football and that is bad news for Douglas.

Simple. Greece has been able to win the Euro with the same tactic. Defensive discipline. Compact game play. Choose your compact grouping from a low line on, close to the goal and then every line close to the next line. Vitesse did the same, as they did against Ajax and it resulted in a sh*t game Sunday. I Saw the whole game and was not a happy camper.

No it all makes perfectly sense. You of all people was first to admit that Twente's failure last season (with FC Groningen relative speaking the worst performers, rated to available budget IIRC) was due to lack of creativity. Those midfielders are just boring ball stoppers/runners that don't have the creative pass forward. As you know I am a fan of Clasie exactly for this reason (that and his handling speed, which was recently nicely underscored by a Dutch pundit seeing every training of Oranje and telling how Clasie was almost the only one able to keep up doing rondo's with the best 4 of the team in this regard). So the non rating comes from the fact of many of them (not all) being sober ball stoppers. When they have to do something with ball, it's not special. It's by the way better you say defensive record in Eredivisie. In EL it's 7 conceded and almost as bad as HIF (last in the group and the worst record) who have 8 goals conceded. FC Twente even lost against a second division team conceding another 2 goals. Douglas was in the field already when those 2 goals fell IIRC.

 

Not to mention that Douglas conceded 46 league goals last season.

As for Blind and Siem. I really couldnt care less. They're not good enough. Some of us have less trouble being realistic and unbiased.

 

Same.

Again, you have 2 teams now that at many occasions pull a Greece. FC Twente and Vitesse. They also both have conceded least amount of goals of all clubs in Eredivisie. Should we start to select PVA or even vd Heijden?

How is it that you want to refocus a whole piece I have written on a point I have just addressed? Why equating FC Twente with Feyenoord, when both teams play differently and Douglas is competing with Heitinga, Vlaar and de Vrij? Not with Mathijsen (who sucks these days). It blurs the discussion going by clubteam. I still remember when Bert van Marwijk came just into power and it was beyond you how Brama was not selected. Same reason why he never made it eventually after a few caps. No creativity and no handling speed. The moment Brama is confronted with teams like Benfica he loses the plot. Even an in form Wijnaldum turned him inside out. He and Douglas neutralized Bony well. I will give you that. Point in case is that van Gaal needs to go back to Dutch football by contract. I heard Bert was already trying to get him on board in 2010. If Bert would have been a coach then he probably would have given Douglas already 2 or 3 caps easily. However when you choose for a certain setup, you need to choose players that can carry it out the best. What is the point of building up from the back when you have a player not able to carry it out? It's like a weak link that makes the chain snap. It's like a house of cards. The whole house collapses very easily. He is found out in seconds and then he will be targeted to pressure by the strong teams or left open by the weak teams as he will mess up anytime soon and that's the moments they prey on. Then the whole team is only busy cleaning up and being nervous. Then we start playing long balls and the opponent has us where they want us, in our allergy. Us not being able to play to our quality's. Was it not last game or the game before where Douglas just blatantly passed the ball right into the feet of the opponent? We can't have that and certainly not on regular basis.

And about the supposed realism of going for Douglas and the football that goes along with his kind of players. Have you seen Ajax vs City? There you see what training on football can evolve into. A team with far less resources outplaying a team of hundreds of millions in 3 of the 4 halves they played eachother. Now you will point to the beating of 1-4 against Madrid and yes, it's true that happened. However those are investments. With playing the position game and nurturing the passing game within a team you eventually get to a level where the football automatism's become of such high level, that it overpowers even teams with greater individual quality's. Also once it is installed, it goes on as a machinery. Remember how Ajax went on a long winning streak last season? You can keep it up for much longer then work football. It also looks better and feels more rewarding as you are the one making the game. The constant "realism" you have called for and want to spread now also to the NT had your team underachieving massively last season. However it is waved away as if nothing has happened. You are pretty much out of 2 very important competitions and in the last one, the Eredivisie PSV is now ahead of you. So my point is, why not take a fresh look at how a game can also be played and accept that for that for another game type than FC Twente and at a higher level, a defender must possess handling speed and build up quality's. Douglas misses both. Plus the mindfarts. Don't forget the mindfarts. His main strength harbors an important weakness.

It's also funny that I more or less have predicted that Douglas under van Gaal would get a tough time getting into the team. Yet it was me being biased vs Douglas as he was clearly what we missed. How many competitive games have we won so far? How many goals have we conceded? Dutch NT are flat track bullies, but so far we did a good job on the less gifted teams. These games have now bought us time to go further down this path and try to get to that point where we are able to beat better opponents as we can play the ball around in a better way then they can. Douglas does not belong to that method. He is a lower paradigm footballer. He would probably do excellent at Newcastle. Hoofing the ball away, playing 4-4-2 and just winning duels. You also see how Anita is struggling in such a team. Vice versa story.


On a side note. Do you know who is doing excellent in EPL at the moment? Ruiz.

 

As always you react on something I didnot say/posted. The above argument is on something that only exists inside your head.
What I tried to bring over to you is the question why you are always so negative and in the need to put down others, just to satisfy your misplaced feelings of inferiority. Your club has been performing admirably the last 5 years, as to my club only last and hopefully this season. If I had your look at the world, I would be on medication, because I would be in far bigger need to feel frustrated. But I'm not, because I have a positive view on the world, what ever it brings me. That's why no one will catch me posting such posts as you do. I can feel good when the sun shines on somebody else, and when it does on me I'm not immediately linking my good fortune to bash something else. Lighten up and enjoy life.

 

After FC Twente's championship year, Douglas has stood still and at times regressed. Douglas is climbing now again somewhat in the rankings and you made sure pointing to it when that was the case. Good for him. However every time I see him, there are mistakes. Look at de Vrij running up the field and being the factor setting things up for Feyenoord to score within 30 or even 20 seconds in last game. I primarily look at what defenders do with the ball at their feet. That's why I watched a game against amateurs from Ajax to see Denswil. We need to have some complete players again. I am equally principal on the box wonders of these times like Huntelaar. I hate them. At PSV we have Locadia popping up, another one (though a bit more complete). At youth levels there are 3 high profile ones I believe. They are like attacking Douglas's for me. They possess excellent box intelligence and finishing capability and therefor score many goals. People say: "They do what a striker is supposed to do: score goals". Douglas is a defender and that is exactly what he does. You put him at the back and he will take out his man. People say: "He does what he is supposed to do: defend". In both cases I say: Not in my book. I demand far more from attackers and I demand more from defenders. I am very consistent in my view in this regard. Where the Huntelaar kind of striker does not allow you to go for high level football solutions, the Douglas kind of defender does not allow you to do the same at the back. It's also connected. With adding in every line better footballers, you enhance the solution power of "the grid", more then in a linear way. You get major synergy benefits. A team truly becomes more than it's individual parts. It reaches much higher then adding work footballers in every line. It's just a higher paradigm. Therefor it is also harder to get to that state. It will take dedication and patience to get to that level and the "realism" people don't have that.

I have bought and read the van Gaal biography some time ago and the best page was about how he in 1995 had created this world class passing level at training with Ajax. He described the process of building this machinery to keep winning. To buy and select players after the season that were better at executing this (doorselecteren). Obviously Douglas is not in the plans for the future to get this installed with the Dutch NT. NT is also different. You need to do best with the short time you get the players from their club. Remember that video of van Gaal with stopwatch in his hands a few weeks ago, trying to get the team in possession hold it for 1 minute against the chasing team? "Gaan we het meemaken?" he screams. How would Douglas do in such games? We both know the answer and when new and better footballing defenders will stand up he will start to select them.

It's also good to know that McClaren went to Wolfsburg and did not want to take Douglas with him. Did not regard him as good enough. That's publicized. He will work with him in Eredivisie but after becoming champs with him he did not want hin his new team. Go figure what that says about Douglas. Douglas has yet to play a season as good as that champion year.

I actually think your first bit is true. Hence the words I used "at many occasions". At home FC Twente is indeed more attacking. Against Ajax and Vitesse they were very defensive. These where 2 away games. As for wingers doing well at Twente, why would I go by a "the proof is in the pie"argument when I see the whole games. I don't need to figure out game play by the well functioning of wingers. You can play 4-3-3 hanging around the box and looking for moments to break away. 4-3-3 is a very versatile system. You still have to watch the games to judge how it is executed. McClaren is a very conservative coach. Those are not my words, but your words.

 

Oke well this means you don't read what I say. All other people on this thread face the same problem, but I will now try to make my point as short as possible:

• Van Gaal has brought him with the group. He has watched him in training. Van Gaal saw confirmed what he gets from scouts watching FC Twente and his own two eyes looking at the club. Douglas is not a valuable asset to carry out his philosophy. Saying he is wrong, means you disagree with his philosophy. Handling speed and build up are sub par with Douglas.
• Douglas is not competing with Mathijsen. So stop pretending he is. If you want to continue to use this point, address it. He is competing with de Vrij.
• Douglas has stood still or regressed since the champions year of FC Twente.
• If you want him to stay intact for you club, why pressing for his playing minute's?
• If you like to put forward FC Twente's stats so much, you can't do that without adressing those under van Gaal. How has he been doing so far without Douglas?

Developing? Since when are Chadli and Tadic Twente products? They are good and letting them play to their quality's. The Greece reference was placed in the context it was placed in and I have explained clearly what i meant with it.

 

What do they do at NT training sessions that they don't do at regular training that causes so many players to get hurt? It seems that the number of players injured on international duty is comparatively high relative to player injured playing or training for their clubs

 

Twente does well is letting their transfers succeed. I think many would agree to that. Twente is often good at letting a footballer play to his quality's. The Ola John affair was shameful because of the misinformation about the sequences of events that had happened, which shed another light on the case. I also think FC Twente should have gone further to keep their own youth product. I find it important a team plays with many youth products.

I think it was you that complimented the new Ajax strategy of not buying for big money and saying no against transfer targets that cost more money than they plan to spend. Sticking to their budget. So is it lalaland or is it financial sound policy? Anyway hyperbole's do not cover the truth. FC Twente in my eyes has sold out on Ola John. I think financial strategy must be in place to keep exactly those youngsters, not use them to buy more expansive transfer targets. It's very normal for the masses to jump on the growth train and loose their skeptical mindset. I don't believe in growth at all cost and that's why I don't buy into words as "realism". It's easily used to sell unethical behavior and talk choices straight that make a club more unauthentic. Not buying it.

In a 4-3-3 system where you want to play with typical wingers that possess speed, who would you have called up for the right wing?

 

Red part: Here you lie again. and again and....That's why I posted about your Calimero attitude, you say the one thing and do the other. As DRB remarked, you have trouble reading/understanding what is posted and twist it into your frame of mind.

 

That's good to hear.

I have a metric for authenticity and FC Twente does not qualify for it. Has nothing to do all with the big words you use here. You want me to buy some kind of distorted view that a club can be called the NT of Twente with 11 people from Madagscar in it. Your irritation stems from holding on to this distortion, not from me saying something strange or taking a unreasonable position.

Irrelevant. The validity of what I am saying does not stem from them caring about my words or not.

• Van Persie has sucked from the wing when tried.
• Kuyt is too slow.
• Elia is a left winger
• Ola John is a left winger, but could play right wing. Is only just a starting player all of the suddon and played at Benfica from the left.
• Afellay is an option, but plays left wing/midfield for club.