We can measure this by a flawed system like this one: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/weltrangliste Just follow the money. If you sort out for team value, then Turkey is close, but the other 2 teams (Iceland and the Czech) are behind with quite a margin. Keep in mind that a Robben is not included in these stats as he did not play recently. I do think it is wise to take your story seriously. Clubs in the Netherlands must start to win games in Europe again. How Ajax was kicked out of the CL by Rapid Wien and how things continue like business as usual is unacceptable. At the same time, this also happens in Belgium and they are able to produce top talent. So it is not a necessary thing to produce top talent. It can not be used as an excuse to not produce elite is what I am saying. The thing about them using their players better (the teams in our group) than we do also comes down a lot to coaching. We just have had an over the hill, hands off coach in Hiddink, who is totally different than van Gaal in style, which translated in too much sudden freedom and Blind who is just a noob in the job altogether. However Blind looks, talks and thinks like a bureaucrat and so they see in him themselves maybe. If they had any football knowledge at the KNVB, they would have seen the stark difference between the game vs Colombia and the games under Blind. The first one was a clinic in compact game play, the games under Blind are examples of being stretched and where there is no cohesion, certainly not defensively. Dutch midfield is for me where we should start to rebuild. It does not longer add up. Blind drops to play between the center backs. Sneijder drops also, maybe even to where Blind should play, as he wants to distribute. Then there is Wijnaldum who is wondering around, who does not track back strongly and is relative unnoticeable. There is both no logic and balance in midfield. There are not enough off ball runs in midfield, too many people who want the ball in the feet and it does not protect defense enough. We had many different defenders this campaign. You are right, putting in some others and expecting vast different results makes no sense. They are all on the same level and will make their mistakes sooner or later. However in the dimension of configuration the right balance there is still something to gain. Then I am looking especially to midfield.
What I am also fed up with is this automatic thought process to think about the options within the Dutch pond. I hear so many Dutch suggestions. If I look at the work of Dutch coaches than I am not a fan of any of them. Purely looking at what they fabricate, I am not impressed. We need foreign influence. Now that does not have to be a coach. Now clubs suggest that there will come a technical director along van Oostveen. A guy that will focus more to develop Dutch football. Obviously I also hear many Dutch names again for that position (Adriaanse etc). Why not give that to a foreigner who has really proven to deliver inspiring work? Who will declare war on the U shaped procession football, where defenders pass the ball to each other until the crowd is bored to death. We need a guy who has proven to use midfield for build up and who allowed midfielders to turn around and do a dribble. Who sees crowded spaces as an opportunity, not as dangerous turnover areas. I just want a guy there who will rip that U form out of Dutch football and make us play ball again.
I know this will happen only in my dreams, but how I wish that Johan Cruyff takes charge of the situation!.
Well, he is semi in charge at Ajax right? It is still not what it should be. He needs to push out de Boer and then get it right. Have the right people executing what he wants. Not the wrong people so that he can blame the execution. If he does not want to take the full responsibility, then he has to prove to be a good spotter of coaching talent that can implement his ideas perfectly. If he is not able to do that, then there is no point. It is all nice and well, but after the whole revolution thing at Ajax, the football and results in Europe have not improved. I understand it is hard to throw out a Frank, but if that is what it takes, then that is what needs to be done. He will also come across resistance if he would take on this job at the KNVB. It is a recurring phenomena. Having good ideas but not being able to get through power structures and general resistance is no good. Wanting to do things from Spain is generally not a helpful either.
Cruijff wants de Boer out. That much is clear when you read his columns. Cruijff on the other hand thinks that Koeman is a good trainer. So I don't trust his ability to spot coaching talent, or at least he doesn't watch enough games. And at the KNVB would never work. He already gets quite a bit resistance from within Ajax and from a portion of the fans. The rest of the Netherlands would definitely resist him. And also the top of the current KNVB know they would be the first casualties and thus heavily resist him. And it has also proven true that you need to be on top of such things. And Cruijff is not willing to do that.
This is the second time you have attempted to personally attack my views First with Zeegelaar and now with a coach that has said he wants out of Russia who is 1st in the CL group, Who not only is very young but is accomplished a great deal of success in football with success in european competitions Also I bring up opinions that I think are good I don't just bring them up to talk about if I bring it up because I genuinely think it's a good idea if you don't like the opinions at least have the maturity like other posters in this forum to just ignore a simple opinion or better yet what is your opinion who should be coach for the Holland ????? Listen Portuguese football is what I expertise on So when a Dutch plays in Portugal I come to this forum and let you posters know how they are doing well or bad and let you guys know just like I do in the Mexican abroad forum and in the Koreans abroad forum aswell As the Germans abroad forum Unfortuanly not many Portuguese play in the eredivisie but when they do I ask the poster how they do ? Btw to the other posters how is a certain Janio Bilel doing
I think that the clubs and not the national team should be the ones who are responsible for young players in youth Academy's that's how it works and the rest of Europe
If we start calling out Portuguese posters for posting with a certain bias, then let's first call out the dominant posts with a certain club bias first. Club politics (and not even on this forum so much, just general Dutch forums even far more) is pretty damn dominant. I see Ajax fans complimenting Ajax players in Orange, Feyenoord fans doing that with Feyenoord players in Orange, PSV fans same deal and slagging the players of the other clubs, pointing to them as the guilty ones for failure. That is something that makes me tired. So until that stops, @CDPontaDelgada can post and suggest whatever the hell he wants and has all the freedom he desires. Hell, Boas is actually a respectable name. I am pretty sure after his Russian salary he is out of reach for KNVB. I agree with the notion of another poster that he is maybe a coach that needs time and national football is less ideal for that. I mean, imagine we lose our first match in the WC qualification. Stress and panic will rise quickly and the process will be hard to take off. The downside of this argument is that often many interesting coaches need time and that you separate yourself from having something good or even great later.
Thats interesting cause the basic lesson of the German reinvention was the contrary. You need to have training centers(Stützpunkte) run by the federation where talented 12-16 yo players can be scouted and then get the best training possible as well as best competition in regions far away from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven. If you are little Arjen and happen to be born far away from the big acadamies then you're normally fukced. Thats just unfair and lost potential - and it is dumb. He is one exception to the rule. You know what im trying to say? Who knows? Maybe they could have 3 of him!
That's very true but does the German government invest in the German FA? Also it helps when the FA and the Bundesliga come together which is good I'm pretty sure that how players like Nueur and Muller where formed
Yes, but the same like pre reinvention. Maybe they get a little more money through Bundesliga and sponsoring but thats about it. They at one point in time just decided to invest it in a more clever way.
Is that new German system not something similar to the French? Or is it unique in Europe? My first thought is the underlying principle that made Netherlands punch above their weight for many decades. That concentration of people and youth competition setup made us so strong in the first place. I mean any top talent could play other very talented kids within a hour drive almost. Netherlands is a small, but quite populated country. So the underlying principle of concentration is something we had naturally by how the country simply is. Everything is flat, so football fields are also easily made. My second thought was money. I am not sure the KNVB can simply do it, even if they wanted to. Which is my third thought. We have bobo's in the KNVB who know nothing about football. They graduated from university, yes, but football background? Not so much. Ideally you have the mix. From that background, but then also able to communicate (teacher like) and being innovative. Our ideas need to be upgraded again. We think ancient about football. This U shaped procession football is nauseating.
However I want to emphasize that money, size and competition strength should never be used as an excuse to not produce elite again. Look at the current nr 1 on the FIFA ranking, Belgium. Same problems, but produce elite. So there is no excuse for the Netherlands to not respond as strong as possible to these lower standards that we have reached. We have a lot of work to do though.
I dont know so much about French system except that it is very centralized while Germany is a federal country consisting of 21 different associations(!). So all the coaching, scouting and training is very ambivalent and competing with each all the time. And I dont know if they have such centers apart from Clairefontaine. Yep, I think this is correct. The time where this has been a natural advantage is over. There are thousand possibilites. The KVNB and the state could fund a lottery and with that generate money for youth programs. Eredivisie could make it possible if not mandatory to charge like 1 euro per ticket for youth development. You could heavily invest in training of coaches. Germany has about 30.000 licensed FIFA coaches. England have 1.800. And you wonder why they fail on such an epic scale. Well DFB was like that too. A bunch of 70+ years olds brabbling about players not being patriotic or not passionate enough. KNVB needs to be modernized too thats clear. DFB used to be like just a old men's club and today it's like a professional middle-sized company competing on an international level. There needs to be professionality - on all levels.
It's still a natural advantage but others have now the resources to offset their disadvantage. It's not brilliant rocket science, or brilliant thinking by any means because others have thought about the same.
Best example of this is Barca/Spain NT. Look how far up the field and compact the midfields are. If there are any back passes at all they go to one of the two CBs who are just behind the halfway line. You can count on one hand how many times a game the keeper gets a back pass. Of course this requires players who can handle the ball in short spaces such as Busquets, Xavi (when he was still active) and Iniesta. the striking thing about all three of these players is that they are not particularly physically imposing! The only comparable player has been Sneijder in terms of ball skills. Wijnaldum is a useful player at the club level but not at the NT level as he really isn't all that good on the ball and apparently he is competing with Klaassen who is also pretty much the same type of player, tireless and active but poor on the ball. Until the Dutch can come up with midfielders who are good on the ball things won't get much better.
What's the source of these figures? I get things like this. http://www.sportseconomics.org/sports-economics/are-uefa-coaching-licences-too-expensive http://www.espnfc.com/story/1572894/mark-lomas-counting-the-cost-of-coaching Also here money is btw important: some government and associations subsidize the coaching courses. Keep the entry costs low. Same for young kids playing football; I read that the average in Germany and Spain is 3,5-4,5 euro per month for an underage kid to play (that Niersbach clown said 3,5 as number). Thanks to subsidies the subscription fee is low. It is way lower as what Netherlands can afford and does offer right now.
Thats the figure that was roaming around the last few years. Oh, it was http://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/jun/01/football-coach-shortage-england My bad.
This is the way it is here in the US. My brother is a match official at the youth level and also trains a U-14 team. He played soccer (have to use the US term here) in college and continued to play recreational soccer for several more years before starting his law practice. The costs for him to get both is referee and coaching license was inexpensive and the training programs were pretty decent (he lives in the Los Angeles area where there are a lot of youth programs going on). It's pretty much the same where I live just outside Washington DC. We have an excellent youth setup in my county with a huge soccer complex has 19 natural grass fields, 3 artificial fields, and 8 indoor convertible basketball/volleyball courts. Two miniature golf courses, a splash park, a driving range, an archery course, community garden, model boat pond, two BMX courses, tennis center, and a swim center are also located within the confines of the complex. The local women's professional team plays their matches at the 4000 seat stadium there. If you build it they will come.
The program, Montgomery Soccer Incorporated, where I lived is set up as a not for profit corporation and funds come mainly donations and dues. They are very well funded and we have had several US NT players come from the youth program here. I don't know much about organizations outside of this area. EDIT ADDED: they also provide support for kids who cannot afford to pay the dues and also have programs for special needs children.
Depay cant even figure out which shirt to put on: http://m.telegraaf.nl/telesport/article/24618775/verkeerde-shirt-depay-was-eigen-blunder
Golden age doesn´t come back http://www.nrc.nl/next/2015/10/15/gouden-tijd-komt-niet-meer-terug-1548064
RE: money & budgets. We also not need to forget about all the volunteers, from amateur level all the way up. Maybe the number dwindled compared to 1 or 2 decades ago? They create more time for others to do what they do best, and save money at the same time.
Before starting to aim at what made us always successful, I would take a hard look at what that guy van Gaal has done to us with his "Master Plan". All clubs in the Netherlands have relative good accommodations. All have artificial pitches so that they can train all year long. I had many training sessions canceled back in the day as winter and the weather made things unplayable. If we start to cut in things that are healthy, we could make things even worse. It is clear there is a tumor, it is clear we are sick, but we must not kill the patient by going after the healthy organs. What I am looking at firstly is the idea to circumvent playing in crowded places by playing the ball horizontal, backwards and along the the sides. That horrible U form. It is not about the form, it about the idea of fear and as a result the retreat from pressure situations that force players to up their skill. Those little crowded pockets on the field, both contain risk, but also great reward. Many players can not deal with it, yes. However after going there, some can and become good at it. Those are the elite players and those can make an NT great. 1 per age group is already great. We need to do it all for that 1 elite player per age group. We need to play so that we produce those few elite players, so that the NT becomes great again. Maybe the U system is good for the average player, so that they can play in a ball possession system as well, but it is settling for mediocrity in a way. It accommodates towards the house, garden and kitchen player. I would start at how we actually think the game should be played. I think we have become a boring and fearful football nation. In the article of the correspondent we were typed as Panda's. No passion, not bothered about anything really too much. We were lions, now we are panda's. Now I have nothing against panda's, but we truly need to go back to the lion thing. Also, until that day, I suggest to change the logo of the KNVB. I think this would be a more accurate emblem: There you go. I love how the "arrows" point back, not up. Backward ball circulation. That is what we are and what we aspire to accomplish. Pathetic.