It may have been a tactical error playing the B team vs Spain. The 1st team was not nearly as sharp vs Italy especially at finishing their chances and could have easily put the Italians away in the 1st half after dominating play. And when the Italians win it's often typical how they do it they stack the box on defense wait for opportunities then counter attack for a goal. All in all I think the Dutch have some splendid young talent coming through but the back 4 will have to be much better than Euro 2012 for the Netherlands to achieve glory in Brasil. With the back 4 sorted the Netherlands are more than capable of reaching the final again at WC2014.
Agreed Netherlands were much the better side but in soccer the best team does not always win and that holds so true so often vs Italy and their tactical style of play. Netherlands A team scored 3 vs Germany and could have easily tallied 8 goals vs Russia they were on fire brilliant attacking play but resting them vs Spain had me worried it would cool off their momentum going forward. Also a win or tie vs Spain would have given the Netherlands Norway in the semi's who i think they would have defeated easily putting them through to the finals. Euro u21 Final Match Prediction: Spain over Italy
Hard to tell as they saw so little of the ball in the first place. Saw some trickery from Insigne on Strootman, but if that was a Dutch player we would have said that it was ineffective stuff as in the end he did not got passed him. I think Depay can easily match him in trickery. Verratti kicked balls over the side line and was unable to answer to Dutch pressure at times. That is their best player. The goal and the pass preceding it was oke, but had no wow factor like Isco can amaze you. The goal was simply van Rhijn ball watching and van der Hoorn giving his opponent so much room that I could park a truck between them. Just good old Dutch sh*t defending. If de Vrij would not have picked up that injury I am convinced that goal would not have happened. It was too childish. No I was not impressed with Italy. It was more that they banked on our Achilles heel after the injury of de Vrij, then overpowering us in the field with dominant and well executed football. They are very far to come close to Sachi's possession based football. Dutch senior team also dominated in a friendly recently. Netherlands on the other hand needs to be concerned about proper defensive back ups. Trophy's are often won due to a deep bench. It was one thing to go from de Boer/Stam to Mathijsen/Heitinga, it is another when we have to go to fall back to jokers like van der Hoorn if we suffer an injury here and there at the back. He already made it to van Gaal's preliminary squad. O dear.
Insigne has some neat passing that Depay hasn't. That counter-attack in the first half was also thanks to a good pass by Insigne. Was with the right pace, weight and played with a slight arc.
Link That pass to Lens in the first seconds is of high quality. Depay does have feeling in those legs of him and when played more in center also has to eye to give the pass if you ask me. At the wing he is more focused on his action, that is true. I think Mertens and conservative Advocaat have held him back this season, but expect more of him next season if the first one leaves as well. Against Spain he was one of the only players with guts. I think Depay can up his level of passing and just needs trust and playing time to also let that dimension of his game come forward. So far, he was too hasty and focused on his action at PSV to make enough intelligent passes. His crosses and corners are good though. Mind you, the goal from Fer against Germany in the final minutes was from a Depay corner. You might also be interested in who gave that pass to van Ginkel who earned that corner to start off with.
Link You might like to go to the 6:00 minute of this video and watch the Depay pass on van Ginkel. Quite a nice pass, also with the right weight, pace and arc to it.
Thanks. I mean here this pass at 1:10 http://eredivisielive.nl/video/141621-samenvatting-jong-italie-jong-oranje.html
Was a good one, but I don't feel that it's better than Depay's pass on van Ginkel in the Germany game. Especially as Depay followed up directly with a top corner for Fer. That's 2 good touches in quick succession. I saw on a forum somebody claiming that Ronald de Boer thought that Depay was pretty bad against Germany, but I thought Depay was pretty good. Depay was also alright against Spain. He might have a nice season ahead of him with Cocu at the helm. Hope he does as he definitely has a bit of magic in him.
Unless someone steps up big time this year, probably the same as in this tournament except maybe Janmaat instead of RVR. Although I hope LvG puts de Jong in the back 4
My newspaper (Volkskrant) is very negative about this campaign. Except for one half against Germany, it was a pale display in the tournament. Players like Maher, Van Ginkel, John switched 'on' and 'off' during games. No lasting impressions, topped off by immaturity when it mattered. It says that it will worry Van Gaal a year before kick-off.
This doom and gloom campaign by some of our media is approaching ridiculous nonsensical levels. Yes, this team did under perform and Cor Pot having the balls putting up an entire reserve squad against Spain deserves to be mocked for all eternity. However it doesn't mean it is the end of the world, Argentina won the U-20 world cup 5 times in a span of 12 years but it really didn't bring them any world cups for the senior team, did it? Our U-21 that won the 2 euro cups didn't end up being world beaters either. There is some promising talent in this team u-21 team, the individual offence quality is at times better than that of Spain U-21.
Seriously, if we are able to get out of the group I am already happy. You can't expect something from this WC 2014. Am I the only one who is amazed about our qualification campaign? Was I the only one worried we would not make it this time around? There is no way we can beat Brazil, Spain, Germany or Argentina and those are the team you will face in the knock out round. With luck we maybe get to a quarter final depending on a lucky road and after that we go out.
I think in midfield we have 3 good footballers on the way: Maher, Vilhena and Ake. Clasie is a good footballer but I have yet to see him being able to address his problem with highly dynamic 10's and his fitness (the two are related). Looking at the 3 players I grouped together, their talent is also build on the right frame from what it looks like. Luckily they can play all 3 together and do not conflict so much with each other. If we look at the magnificent 4 then we can say that vdV-Sneijder have bitten each other during their careers for the Dutch NT and Sneijder-RvP have bitten each other as well. The first two are simply best as a 10. RvP needed movement around him and with Sneijder he became more an extension of Wesley's game, significantly diminishing what he could have meant for the team otherwise. What is consistently overlooked when watching the upcoming youth is if the players that could reach world class level (or close to that) are not of the same mold and actually get in each others way. We had great players with the magnificent 4, but they were not optimal compatible. It was also not bad, it just could have been better.
scoring goals is the biggest requirement--we had dominated Italy for 60 minutes and could not score--finally things get a little sloppy--and we lose because we did not score when we had the chances--I've seen it so many times going back to a Euro semi against Italy about 12 years ago--they played a man down for most of the game--we had 2 PKs and we still lost--Kuivert and DeBoer both missed on PK We play an attacking style most of the time which is more fun to watch but when we don't score it usually comes back to bite us---I could feel it moving that way -----and when we lost Devriis--it bit
That is why it is a plus to have versatile players. For example: Overmars could play on either side. Davids was both a number six and a number eight. Even played famously in defence against Real Madrid IIRC Kluivert was principally a striker but wasn't bad as second striker and number 10. Etc. Meanwhile, someone like Sneijder is the antitheses of versatility.
That only goals count and it doesn't matter how you play during the 90 minutes is really the old Italian and old German mentality. No surprise that they said yesterday on TV that Germany and Holland have swapped sides. Italy has gradually abandoned this mentality, and related mentalities. Holland on the other hand made the reverse route. I totally disagree with the view that only goals count. Besides, for a small nation it is killing when the outside world castigates you. That is not fair but it works that way. That various multinationals like Nike signed lucrative sponsor contracts with the FA several years ago, which in turn provides means to keep the wheel going (investments at the lower levels), was also down to the positive image the Netherlands had. Definitely. It is a major mistake to totally abandon that; the means will dry up.
when the final score is posted its the team with the most goals--these are the ones that count---playing beautiful football is highly over-rated like I've said before the winners write history--the losers get to second guess why and what could have been Had Robben scored against Spain 5 years ago in the 60th minute the history would have been--a gritty Dutch bunch come through---instead its --the thugs lost Italy did not play beautiful football---they were the weaker team so how you can say they have abandoned this metality is a huge stretch--it was rope a dope--dive and hang on until the other guys run out of gas
Yeah Sneijder has never been a champ in controlling midfield, limiting the options with him on midfield, but I would sign in a second to have another Sneijder on the way. I have been over the moon with Sneijder as he has given me and the Dutch NT many great nights of football. However talking about versatile players, they are on their way. Maher is able to play 8/10 Vilhena is able to play 8/10 Strootman is able to play 6/8 van Ginkel is able to play 6/8/10 and even 9 if he has to Ake can play 4/6 Bazoer can play 3/6 Van Rhijn can play 2/3 Blind can probably play 5/4 BMI can play 5/4 (though I don't like him as left back) Lens can play 7/9 Depay can play IMO play 11/7/9/9.5 Boëtius can play 7/11 Afellay 8/10/7/11 De Guzman can play 6/8/10 Van der Wiel was actually a right center back IIRC. Maybe an Ajax fan can confirm or bust this myth. I thought he played there quite some time in the youth. Especially van Ginkel starts to turn out as the new Cocu looking at versatility. About Overmars. It felt to me always as a struggle on the right. I did not really liked him there and Zenden was better from the left as well. IIRC it was Zenden often that had to fill in the right wing spot so that Overmars could play on the left. I think Robben is at least as versatile on both wings as Overmars. It's just that Robben really loves the right side but at Chelsea he was murdering people from the left, as he did at PSV. The fact he naturally gravitates these days to the right does not mean he is bad from the left.
Has it already been 5 years ago? Anyway, I think beautiful football is just a result of good developed footballers. You will simply play more daring football and good looking football when the ability of players on ball is of a high level. In the Netherlands people thought they had explored the edges of where good developed technical player could bring you and started to look to the east to have more taste of silverware in time. The east started to look to us after analyzing their poor state of football around the turn of the millennium. However Spain took things simply further. They don't do 50%+ possession or even 60%+ possession. They go for numbers above the 70%. They press like mad men and their players close control and first touch is close to being unmatched. Beauty is nothing else than placing higher demands on players basis ability. Beauty is a code word for ambitious ideal pictures of what a good player look likes. This Spain is now close to or already being labeled as the best NT in history and they do it with excellent footballers. Netherlands has reached more WC finals than England and Spain combined. Somehow people think there was something wrong with our ways, but maybe they should have been more fanatic with the direction we have taken in the past. We should have pushed further. The anti-beauty church that has manifested among the Dutch NT fans is killing the very thing they seem to care so about: Winning trophy's and becoming an elite squad. When the demands for beauty is off the table, demands on players will lower and overall player development will go down. Only caring about winning sounds good an ambitious but in reality has the averse effect.
My point is, and has been, that the nature of the game has changed. Also the Germans see that. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/23/germany-bust-boom-talent See the comment about how Hummels would've played in midfield 20 years ago. That is their conclusion regarding the structural changes. It is possible to come at different conclusions (I think tall player have a future up front and in midfield) but it is certain that things have changed and taking the opposite route isn't the recipe This requires a different type of footballers as some nations like Spain, Germany and England have produced in the past. Secondly, esp. for a small nation with a limited home market (and remember how tribal the game really is) it would be really a mistake to lose that edge of creativity and excitement. It is that very same image that is the lifeblood for future generations of players.