Im all for Orange in the final, please beat this Spanish team who only like to play keep away and time waste subbing off.
Beat me to the new thread. I'm glad that Holland has no chance to add another star to the German kit. Spain are know chokers too!
It's a shame that we won't get our revenge game. I predicted Spain would win though. Germany were too reliant on space in midfield and you don't get that against the likes of Spain. The Germans were also clearly inferior in terms of technical ability. I hate to say it but I fancied our chances v Germany in a final - but not against Spain. We will have to improve by a factor of ten to beat them.
Today was Sergio Ramos's weakest match of the tournament. While he went forward well, his defense was quite suspect leaving Pique exposed several times. BvM probably has seen that as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kuyt and Robben swap places at some point in the match to take advantage of this. While everyone says we don't match up well against Spain as with Germany, I would counter this by noting that other than David Villa, they have had trouble scoring. Iniesta drifts inside to much resulting in a loss of width. It's going to be a fun match to watch and van Bommel and de Jong will hold the keys to victory as we can score but need to shut them down.
Hopefully they come out fired up and ready to play, since they are again the underdogs. Last game they came out sluggish vs Uraguay. Hopefully we see that change Sunday.
Sure we will probably be massive underdogs but we have yet to play our best match of the tournament. We also have a much better front four in terms of talent and experience compared to Germany. Germany sat back and tried to rely on the counter attack which only came once or twice. The Spanish fullbacks are susceptible to getting passed as I noted above with the comment on Ramos. As I noted prior to the Brazil match, "they still have to play the game!!"
this aint gonna be easy . . . that said, we have more than a fighing chance but definitely the underdogs
Sorry but Spain are soooooooo much better than Brazil, both as a team and in terms of individual talent. Iniesta was brilliant. De Jong and van Bommel will have to be at knife's edge and Robben can't miss anymore chances. That's the only problem with Spain: they miss a lot of chances. Then again so do we.
The Germans are coming!! The Germans are coming!! No actually...the Germans are going home. Beaten at their own game of meticulous ball control by superior players and a superior team. Priceless. LOL GO HOLLAND GO!!
I think Spain will be susceptible to the counter attack though. Capdevila and Ramos advance a little too much and can be exposed by Robben and somewhat Kuyt.
When he stays on the wing and does what he is supposed to do, he is brilliant. Half the time he drifts into the middle clogging things up for Xavi (he does the same thing at Barca but it didn't cause much of a problem this season as he missed at least 1/3 of the matches from injury). Ramos is good going forward but zones out on defense (as was notable today). Capdevilla is an OK fullback but can be beaten. I think it's a toss up between Xavi and Sneijder but the edge goes to Sneijder as he attacks the goal. Spain have to show me that they have more than one player who can score before I will concede this match.
As a patriot, I can't imagine anything more beautiful than Spain losing to the Netherlands when the prince of orange is watching. As a football fan, I think this is going to be a very hard game. The Dutch need to play their best match of the tournament if they want to win, the Spanish players' individual class will win them a bad game.
For all Spain's ctrl of the midfield, it took a set piece for them to get on the scoresheet. They also gave away some good scoring oppurtunities. Oranje will have to play the game of their lives, especially on the defensive end of the game, but a win is possible. Spain is not as strong as they were 2 years ago. Their passing is mesmerizing and my gut says we would've had a better chance against the Germans, but this is the World Cup and anything can happen. All it takes is one moment of brilliance, or one mistake.
At least we've got so much class in the side that it's a virtual guarantee that we'll score. That's one thing that Spain hasn't had to deal with yet.
like I've said, we have more than a fighting chance. But midfield has to come up big and we need better link-up play with RvP
If there is one player that we need a big match from its van Persie. He's been almost invisible all tournament. He's much quicker than Klose and could cause the Spanish defense some trouble. We would do well to look at the tape of the US/Spain match from last year's Confederation Cup match. US solved all the issues and handily beat Spain 2-0 (and it was pretty much the same lineup as played today). At that time they were ranked #1 in the World.