Preliminary squad just announced: Doel: Maarten Stekelenburg (Ajax), Michel Vorm (FC Utrecht) Verdediging: Khalid Boulahrouz (VfB Stuttgart), John Heitinga (Everton), Hedwiges Maduro (Valencia), Joris Mathijsen (HSV), Erik Pieters (PSV), Ron Vlaar (Feyenoord), Gregory van der Wiel (Ajax), Peter Wisgerhof (FC Twente) Middenveld: Ibrahim Afellay (Barcelona), Mark van Bommel (AC Milan), Urby Emanuelson (AC Milan), Theo Janssen (FC Twente), Nigel de Jong (Manchester City), Wesley Sneijder (Inter), Kevin Strootman (FC Utrecht), Rafael van der Vaart (Tottenham Hotspur), Demy de Zeeuw (Ajax) Aanval: Eljero Elia (Hamburger SV), Klaas Jan Huntelaar (Schalke 04), Luuk de Jong (FC Twente), Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool), Jeremain Lens (PSV), Ruud van Nistelrooij (Hamburger SV), Robin van Persie (Arsenal) en Arjen Robben (Bayern München) My What Was Van Marwijk Thinking players: Strootman (2 great games for the country's number 8, no European football experience even, FFS), Luuk de Jong (who's not even in good form, and we've already got a shedload of forwards in the squad). And again why no Brama. Best Twente player of the season, ahead of Theo Janssen in any case.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) If Vorm replaces Stekelenburg, who becomes 2nd choice? Krul doesn't start. Velthuizen doesn't start. Boschker doesn't start.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) Krul at least has played a fair number of matches. I don't think Velthuizen has gotten a match all season.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) He did back in September. Krul has played one game in 2011.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) That's meant as a joke but I'm watching this Man U-Arsenal game and he's been impeccable.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) Not a joke at all. He came out of retirement before a couple of years ago for a WC qualifier.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) I would go for Krul but he'll likely call up Boschker.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) That would be a joke I would go for Celissen, Krul or Rouwelaar. Naming those names, we really lack some depth in goalkeepers.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) Well Boschker is the only Dutch goalkeeper apart from Stek who has both CL and international experience. Mihaylov will be eligible for a Dutch passport in three years time hehehe.
Re: Euro 2012 qualifiers v Hungary (March 24/29) He's 40, give youth a chance for a qualification match
Why play with a true goalie. Seeing the form of Robben and Sneijder to name a few, we donot need a goalie. So why not play a "vliegende keep" Let me see, for instance we could put in an extra attacker and let a central defender take the goalie position. That would be a new one in international football
Maybe that arrogance is justified. I was scrolling over a fun wiki page where you could see all the dutch players that have played for the Dutch team. After that I looked over some games we have played and I re-noticed something I had noticed after we won against Brazil in the 2010 WC game. In WC games competition we hold a winning record over both Brazil and Argentina (the two latin football powers). NED-BRA: http://voetbalstats.nl/listlandnedxi.php?landid=5 Brazil-all games counted for: olym:...1 vrnd:...7 wkto:..4 Gewonnen:.3 (27.27%) Gelijk:........4 (36.36%) Verloren:....4 (36.36%) Voor:.........16 Tegen:.......20 Brazil-Only FIFA games counted for: http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/headtohead/team1=ned/team2=bra/index.html NED-------------------BRA 10.....Matches Played...10 3.......Wins..................3 4.......Draws................4 3.......Losses...............3 15.....Goals for............15 15.....Goals against......15 Brazil-Only WC games counted for, friendly's excluded: NED-------------------BRA 4......Matches Played...4 2......Wins.................1 1......Draws................1 1......Losses...............2 7......Goals for............5 5......Goals against......7 NED-ARG http://voetbalstats.nl/listlandnedxi.php?landid=2 Argentina-all games counted for vrnd:4 wkto:4 Gewonnen:...4 (50%) Gelijk:..........3 (37.5%) Verloren:......1 (12.5%) Voor:...........13 Tegen:.........6 or in FIFA stats (as there are no Olympic games played between country's) NED------------------ARG 8.......Matches Played....8 4.......Wins..................1 3.......Draws................3 1.......Losses...............4 13.....Goals for.............6 6.......Goals against......13 Argentina-Only WC games counted for, friendly's excluded: NED-------------------ARG 4......Matches Played.....4 2......Wins...................1 1......Draws..................1 1......Losses.................2 7......Goals for..............4 4......Goals against........7 So you can say that in all games we hold a losing record over Brazil, that we are in perfect balance (also for goals scored) in all the FIFA games played between ech other, but that we hold a winning record over them in WC competition. NB that the 1998 game we lost on penalty's is counting as a draw according to FIFA as there was no winner after extra time. We can say we hold quite an impressive winning record over Argentina if we count for all the (FIFA) games we played against ech other. The winning still stands if we exclude the friendly's and only count for the WC games. So in WC competition we hold a winning record over both country's and we scored against both more goals than we conceded. That brings me to the next 2 question: 1. Is there any other country in the world that can say the same thing? 2. What is the truth behind the 1952 loss against Brazil. Wasn't it the case that Hollands best players didnt play in that team because the profs were not allowed to play for the national team? Was that also the case for the Brazilians? What I try say is was it a reflection of Brazils best against Hollands best? Chears.
There was not a Dutch professional league at that time. It's also safe to say that Brazil were already a football power while it was not until the advent of Cruyff and the team of the early 1970s that The Netherlands could compete on equal footing.
Can we finally play at full strength again? If we win these two, qualification is pretty much wrapped up. Edit: Wait, no Stekelenburg. Vorm is good enough though. Also, the first game is March 25, not 24.
Thats hard to believe for me. I mean I know we do good, but nr 1? I would need to see the calculations before I could believe that. You have any idea what that site was? This is is our standing in WC competition so far http://www.planetworldcup.com/NATIONS/maraton.html We are nr. 8 at this momement
I went back to some wiki pages and we have to add one more thing to the truth you are stating. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongest_Football_Nations_by_Elo_Ratings#Strongest_teams_per_decade -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.rsssf.com/tableso/olympics.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the first link the Netherlands have had 6 decades where they were relevant in the world of football. 4 decades chained to each other where we were irrelevant. Boy I'm glad I havent lived in that era. 1910-1920.........Holland was nr 3 overall in that decade! 1920-1930.........Holland was nr 11 overall in that decade 1970-1980.........nr 5 1980-1990.........nr 7 1990-2000.........nr 5 2000-2010.........nr 3 According to the second link the Netherlands became third in the Olympic games in 1908, 1912 and 1920. Mind you that the official WC tournements only started from 1930. So I think its safe to say that the Olympic games of 1908, 1912, 1920, 1924 and 1928 were the serious thing and should be used as a serious indication of a teams ability. After that since 1930 the WC has taken over that role. So if we became third in 1908 we must have had a good level in that first decade of the 20th century. Without having elo statistics to back it up I think Holland must have been a top 5 country in the period 1905-1910. International football started in Holland only in 1905 with our first game against Belgium. I think it's safe to say Holland was a strong team from the very beginning international football started, otherwise you dont become third in 1908. The joke of all this is that we are raised to believe that the seventhies was the golden period for Holland, with total football, with the finals we played and the great players we had. Fact is that if you look at how we ranked in comprison to the rest of the world, the Netherlands was better not only in one but even in 2 periods: 1910-1920........nr 3 2000-2010........nr 3 followed by 1970-1980........nr 5 1990-2000........nr 5 followed by 1980-1990........nr 7 followed by 1920-1930........nr 11 But if you purely look at the average elo points per decade its the following 1) 2000-2010........1966 points 2) 1990-2000........1920 points 3) 1970-1980........1897 points 4) 1980-1990........1884 points 5) 1910-1920........1879 poinst 6) 1920-1930........1739 points So the seventies were not all that great. As a decade the last 2 decades were at least as good if not better. Furthermore we should remember the 1905-1925 period that Holland was a true force in football. Those athletes deserve at least as much respect as the current generation. We became 3 straight times third in the Olympics which was before 1930 the real international thing. Three more things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongest_Football_Nations_by_Elo_Ratings#Strongest_teams_per_decade 1. The average Elo rating places us fith in the world since 1970. Ofcourse I have no problem they started counting from 1970 on the wiki page . Thats higher than WC winners Argentina, Spain and France. Thats really impressive for such a small nation. 5th over a 40 year timespan really says something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings 2. the 2010 team has the highest rating ever for a dutch team, higher that the 1974 team with 2101 points. 3. the 2010 final was the highest combined elo rating match in the history of football with 4211 points! What do you say about that. Legendary stuff people. PS the 1954 team of Puskas is the team that reached the highest Elo rating ever. What a team that must have been.
quote:The joke of all this is that we are raised to believe that the seventhies was the golden period for Holland, with total football, with the finals we played and the great players we had. Fact is that if you look at how we ranked in comprison to the rest of the world, the Netherlands was better not only in one but even in 2 periods Yeah, that's the Amsterdamned connection, bending the truth to make believe in their self fabricated myths About my post, surely there must be someone roaming the Dutch thread that knows where to find that info, I dunno.
I would discount a lot of this. The early Olympic Games were very spotting in terms of participation and of course strictly open only to amateurs until 1980 or so. Even the early WCs were not a true test. England, probably the top football nation during the first half of the 20th century did not participate in a WC until 1950. European teams will always have a somewhat higher rating overall because of the Euro competitions which are almost as rigorous as the WCs. Another factor to consider is that the WC has been expanded over the years with more teams in the final round making it more difficult to advance to the finals than say in 1974 and before (and the overall quality of all teams is higher as well). While the Hungarian team of 1954 may have had the highest rating, just as with the Cruyff Orange team of 1974, they could not beat the West Germans in the final. Go figure.
Will be interesting to see what Van Marwijk will do with Van Persie and Huntelaar. My guess is that, in a magnificent display of people management, he will give both of them 45 minutes. Through a space-time continuum rift I can peer into Bert's ever so unpredictable mind and this is what I see for the first half: ---------------RvP --Afellay---------------Kuyt -------------Sneijder ------VdV----------MvB -Pieters-Mathijssen-Heitinga-VDW --------------Vorm In the second half, Huntelaar and De Jong will replace RvP and MvB. Then somewhere around 70 minutes, in a surprise move that will knock your socks off, Elia will come on to replace either Kuyt or Afellay. The prophet has spoken.