Review: 2018 WC Qualifying - Towards winning our first WC title: А дело бывало -- и коза волка съедала.

Don't know why Deschamps likes Sakho so much ... wasn't good enough for PSG and since joining Liverpool he has been playing poorly (whenever he wasn't injured).
Mangala didn't have a great season but he can still come good ... the FFF should have let him join Belgium though.
Koscielny is a strong defender ... yet he's not the one to bark orders and organize defences ... maybe Varane or Zouma will show leadership skills for France in the near future.
Trémoulinas shouldn't be called up when you can integrate Kurzawa and Amavi (guessing Evra will retire soon and Clichy sometime after).
Debuchy and Sagna aren't getting much time on the pitch and are on the wrong side of 30 ... is Corchia the best (+/- young) alternative?
Unless I'm mistaken, Schneiderlin hasn't convinced while playing for France ... Coquelin has been impressive for his club and maybe he deserves a chance for country too?
... tl;dr

 

Since when has Sakho been playing poorly? He's been our best defender when not injured. He reads the game well, he's combative and he actually knows how to pass. There's a reason he's a lock for the France NT when he's available for selection. He lost his spot at PSG because Silva wanted a partner that spoke Portuguese and they were getting a huge influx of money -- a lot of french fans were very upset that Sakho left. Plus he's A+ off the pitch.

Valbuena shouldn't start for them. There are a number of players I would take over him for the NT (including Lacazette and Griezmann). Digne has been fantastic at PSG, and nobody knows why he isn't starting there over Maxwell. He has been dominant again in pre-season and wants to leave to start somewhere else (rumours are Liverpool, which would be amazing). Between Digne, Kurzawa and Amavi France is set at LB for the forseeable future. Incredible glut of talent there. Laporte, Rabiot, Corchia and Zouma will all challenge for the first team and N'tep may as well.

I take Veltman over van Beek tbh. I still think that our potential duo could be Veltman - Kongolo if Kongolo can sort out his mental mistakes a little bit. They're both proper footballers but Veltman to me might already be the best Dutch defender. He deserves more time at a higher level (especially with the NT).

But yes I agree with all of you. A 4-3-1-2 perfectly suits what the Netherlands have available right now. Especially suiting the strengths of Robben, Memphis, Sneijder and Ziyech. It still leaves the option of bringing in one of RVP or Huntelaar for a different element up front, but will allow the Netherlands to completely control the midfield with strong engines that are also quite technical and intelligent.

 

van Beek and Veltman actually have very similar profiles IMO. They are both good on the ball though I think I am more comfortable watching Veltman with the ball at his feet. They both pass forward a lot and are good at not being boring or tentative. They both created a similar number of chances (per game). They both have similar tackling, aerial duel rates and interception ability but Veltman is far more willing to block the ball. I think for me Veltman just seems more in command of his back line and more confident...he is also a bigger threat from set pieces and a more direct threat to score a goal. Veltman also had less defensive errors this season.

Maybe it's just a preference thing, but when I watch them both Veltman to me just looks like a better version of van Beek in terms of what he can contribute to defence. He doesn't have Beek's long incisive passes/crosses though which is something that is nice from a defender but I prefer to come from our fullbacks anyway. Both are better than de Vrij though IMO.

With that said I wouldn't be opposed to even trying Sven out as a RB even though I do like Janmaat. So to answer your second question I don't really dislike anything about van Beek really, I just think that Veltman is better. Though that could change since Veltman is also older. But he has shown steady improvement year over year for me while Beek is still a question mark.

 

Are you comparing him to Lovren? ... who has been woeful and who would make most others look good (like the ugly girl standing next to even uglier ones, making her look better) ... Kolo Toure also had his 'moments' . Skrtel has performed better than Sakho and so has Can (eventhough he was used OOP).

BR has added a lot of attacking players while he should have looked at defenders ... you've been leaking goals ... almost as bad as Spurs who received a lot of criticism for it ... yet Pochettino seems to have addressed it during this window, reuniting Vertonghen and Alderweireld. IIRC Alderweireld joined Atleti for less than £5m ... back then Liverpool were kicking the tires but in the end they preferred Sakho for £18m ... SMH.

For country, I wouldn't say Sakho is nailed on ... currently I'd go for Varane and Koscielny as France's best centre-back partnership ... if/when the likes of Zouma, Mangala, Laporte, et al. come good I feel that Sakho will struggle to get a look in ... but yea that's the future.

 

I think you need to watch more Liverpool if you think that Skrtel or any of our CBs are better than Sakho when he is healthy. Again, Sakho has captained France and is always picked ahead of Koscielny (he is better than Kos, pretty obviously, I mean the guy has given up the most pens in the PL by a mile over the last 3 years). Sakho is so comfortable on the ball even though he looks awkward, and he actually looks to penetrate the other team with his passes and adds so much more to the offence than other CBs...he is key when healthy to the style that Rodgers wants to play in building up from the back (Lovren is also great at this, and on the ball he was just really bad structurally and mentally last season).

​

Lovren had his moments last season. He was coming off one of the better seasons in the EPL but joined a new team that was very disjointed last year. I think he'll come good after some time he is still young also. Adding Clyne and Gomez will help (Gomez may only be 18 but he has looked very good in pre-season). Ilori will be available also, and when healthy he is great as well -- MotM against Barcelona, and was great in France when healthy (unfortunately very injury prone).

Can was very hit and miss at CB and belongs in midfield. Certainly not better than Sakho. Skrtel has strong games, but he is far too prone to error in a 4 man backline and was made to look a lot better than he is last year because we switched to 3 at the back and he acted just as a sweeper. Skrtel is another one along with Kos that gives up a lot of penalties because he can be a very clumsy tackler -- he pads his stats because he is very bad positionally and often has to come back to make tackles to save his own positional mistake, which Sakho rarely does.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...table-conceding-penalties-Premier-League.html

Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent this is the Netherlands forum!

 

As far as 2018 goes...what do you all think the roster will look like by the time the tournament comes around? I was just recently asked this and this is what I came up with, tentatively:

If we are 'traditional' and it's likely that we will be I could see this as the formation:

Cillessen (Zoet, Krul)
Janmaat (VdW) - Veltman (van Beek) - De Vrij (BMI) - Willems (Blind)
van Ginkel (Klaassen) - Strootman (Clasie)
Ziyech (Propper)
Robben (Wijnaldum) - De Jong (Huntelaar) - Memphis (Promes)
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What do you guys think? Am I missing anyone? Maybe Kongolo over BMI? I would prefer that, but BMI despite being a complete disaster for the NT seems to always get picked anyway. I think Sneijder will be a bit past it by then, and same with RVP.

 

Well, unless they go wtih LvG and convert Memphis there who else is going to lead the line by then? Huntelaar and RVP will be too old and even though Luuk is not ideal he is playing well right now and is a decent finisher as well as with his link up play. I think the team will rely on Memphis, Ziyech and Robben more for creating play and being real threats while Luuk will just have a big work-rate and look to poach as well as provide a threat on set pieces.

 

By 2018, perhaps Sneijder and Huntelaar both retire from international football. Either you can have Locadia or Siem De Jong up front instead of Huntelaar. We seems to do well when we have the brothers in the team (Van de Kerkhofs, Koemans, De Boers) so perhaps it is time for De Jongs? Can't tell much if father-son (Blinds) will work wonders like those brothers.

 

Because he gave the qualification against Ukraine. Sakho is a strong and good defender, but I don't really agree with Frisky when he says that he has a good passing and vision, I consider it to be quite averagE.

Koscielny isn't really liked in France, he made a couple of big mistakes under the blue shirt. He has to prove more with NT. Laporte is a good option as you suggested, and I would even consider Umtiti and Koulibaly (Napoli). France has so many CB's who already play in good foreign clubs, unlike the dutch ones.

You're not mistaken, he was bad. People started to say that he is the new Flamini : Good in club but no NT material. You already have 3 strong CM in France : Pogba, Matuidi, Kondogbia, Won't be easy for him to start.

That being said, I wanna say that many talents are overrated in France, starting with Lacazette and Fekir. Lacazette has some speed and power, but nothing special technically, not a great finisher neither. Can be a next Remy at best.
Fekir is a pig who can only fall. People comparing him to Messi is just funny, he doesn't have half of his dribbling and balance. Typical one season overrated player who'll sign in Turkey in a couple of years. I was much more impressed with Belhanda few years ago and he ended in Dynamo Kyiv, so...
Also the french Arsenal players who are imported by Wenger, how many become good NT material ? How many prove their worth in another club than Arsenal ? You mentionned Coquelin, I would pick at least 7 young dutch CM above him.

Thauvin is another pig. Arrogant one to make it worse. If a skilled and naturally very talented player like Ben Arfa failed, you can be sure Thauvin will as well.

The real promising players for me are Laporte, Zouma, Kurzawa, Kondogbia, Martial, eventually Veretout and Imbula...

 

Seriously ? He has been nominated in the starting eleven of the ligue 1 flops.

He is just very light. Kurzawa is better for sure. Another underrated french LB is Masuaku from Olympiakos. Liked him everytime I saw him playing CL games (was watching them for Afellay of course). He even scored against Atletico.
As Roma is trying to buy him.

 

Looks like Sakho will be facing a lengthy ban after deciding not to challenge the results of his failed drugs test ... using a fat burner = another one of Sakho's ugly girl moments? ... most likely he'll have to miss the first tie in Holland.
Meanwhile, Alderweireld has been one, if not the best defender in the BPL this season ... Spurs have conceded the least this season while they had one of the most leaky defenses in the league the season before (conceded the most of the teams that ended in the top half of the table in the 2014/15 season).



@Frysk Bloed

 

Holy crap, did someone mess with the thread title or did I have too many jenevers and now I'm seeing things??

 

I didnt know you were Russian. I tried to translate it and it came back:

"And it happened - and the wolf would eat the goat"

 

Ahahahhaaaa......I think pigs might start flying before NL qualifies for WC2018 though.

But I could be wrong

 

You can see here that (thanks to the unfortunate events in Ferguson) pigs may have already begun to fly!

 

^^^^ Sybe, are you drunk???? This is has nothing to do with football

 

Aha
Was in reply to you: "I think pigs might start flying before NL qualifies for WC2018 though."

Well, pigs have begun to fly so qualification must be looking good no?

Not drunk.. yet! Just about 5pm for me and I have just got home from work, I don't drink so fast since my drink now is mezcal

 

When pigs start flying, thats when Holland will start qualifying for WC2018, and not before then.

Or perhaps we might qualify for WC2022, but thats debatable