Four Hurdles to the goal: WC2018

People complaining at sweden. France got a faulty offside goal in the first game when we outplayed them.

Imo france has been trash all qualifier and lucky to advance.

 

Honestly guys, after the loss to Bulgaria, we only have to blame ourselves.

This is hopefully good news for Oranje. So we can compete for the UEFA Nations League first title, and will get to play against top teams. This is so good to build a young team, and get the young players exposed to a mildly competitive tournament on the international level.

 

Don't you see the same football in Ajax and in the NT ? And wasn't De Ligt a starter with Ajax in that great european run ? I was also against him starting that game, but we can't put full responsability on him or on Blind. Bulgaria was a loss and people only look at that one, what about losing 5-0 to France while every other team in the group did better against them, including Luxembourg ? You can also look at it this way...

For me dutch football is a whole big problem. I see the same things in Feyenoord, Ajax, NT, -21, Vitesse...That same rigid 4-3-3 with players sticked to their positions, no movement, abuse of lateral and back passes...

Dutch clubs and NT can lose games and get beaten with 0-3 or 1-4 while having more ball possession than the opponent ? As matter of a fact, they almost always have more. Where else do you see this in football ? I'm failing to find other examples...

They just can't play football, and I'm also doubting about a qualification for 2020 considering the current team. Where is the future promising generation ? We will start the next qualification campaign with the same team we have now. There are still 10 european teams clearly above us and 15 more or less at the same level. We can thank God the Euro has got 24 places now, with 16 we would have to pray for easy group every campaign.

 

That's technically doable indeed

Van de Beek hasn't made any minute with the NT yet. Is he legit to play for Aruba or Curacao ?

 

Very sad to see Robben go. Just an amazing player.

 

And then Aruba will play in orange colours for the entire tournament.

Brilliant!!!

 

I would also put Klose on that list of world class German players, not for his club performance (which was only average), but because he turned into a BEAST whenever his country demanded him.

Something a few Dutch players could learn from

 

I still havent come to terms with this yet.

I hope you guys are dealing with this better than I am.
I dealt with this much better in 2002, but not right now!

Cheers!!

 

Time to jump the Germany bandwagon!

 

Hallelujah
https://nos.nl/artikel/2197814-koeman-geen-bondscoach-van-oranje.html

 

If KNVB appoiinted the right coach at the beginning (not appoint Hiddink then Blind), we will qualify. The players may not be talented enough but should make it. Dick won 4 out of 5. At least our players are not wasting their talents on things outside football as Chilean players did (https://sg.as.com/sg/2017/10/13/football/1507891292_231517.html?omnil=resnavnext). If we decide to go with a foreign coach, Sampaoli is on my list after WC 2018.

 

To be honest, I was more devestated back in 2002. If you see how that World Cup went along, we could have won it because we still had some very good players. The qualification didn't went well because of some unlucky events in the two matches against Portugal and the dreadful away performance against Ireland did us in at the end. However, that doesn't mean we would have failed to perform in the actual tournament where a lot of big nations didn't show up for some reason. A shame!

With the team we have now I don't think we are good enough to compete anyway.

 

You are right in some way. Sweden did what it had to do in the end to qualify for the play-offs and they deserve all the credits but it is hard for us Dutchies to accept that a team who couldn't beat us over 2 matches and only manages to stay ahead thanks to goal difference goes through. The win against France turned out huge for Sweden. We have to thank Lloris for his blunder in the last minute. We also won't forget that the winning goal against Sweden by Bas Dost was wrongly disallowed. Small things which could make all the difference in the end. And yes, France was only impressive against us in their home game. They drawed Belarus and Luxembourg. But okay, they do have better players than us as their disposal. Anyway, good luck against Italy.

 

You'll have to pry the orange flag from my dead, lifeless fingers first

Although if you and Brazil meet up in the final next year I'm supporting Ze Deutschers

 

It's time to close this thread @Orange14. Too bad bad memories and it's depressing

 

Id be happy to see the Swedes getting "out-dragged down" by the Italians instead of my own team.