Arjen Robben was more than Frankie "Dude" Hejduk could handle on his best day. Was only a matter of time before he toasted Dude. Edwin van der Saar continues his fine play. Bouma had a easy time as well. More later, have to go get a pizza.
That's true...in search of a Right back who can defend, and go forward. I nominate Chris Klein, sure he's an MLS midfielder, but he's got moxy, and he can't be worse than Dude.
I think its pretty funny that Advocaat would sub in foot-slow, out-of-form players like DeBoer and Seedorf just when the US put in some very fast players in order to try to equalize. I thought Staam had a very strong game. Ruud didn't...... Robben was great. All in all, a fairly average boring performance.
To all the people who told me Arjen Robben was better than Robin van Persie, I finally see the light. I can see why van Persie can't even earn a spot, and if Robben keeps up his play, van Persie might never earn a spot, especially with his terrible attitude.
as for a summary, lets keep it simple because this was a far more negative match than i would ever have anticipated - so my expert analysis? both sides were pretty crap - the best action took place from 70' to 85' and the US had two glowing chances to equalize but van der sar came up big each time men of the match HOLLAND-robben, van der sar, stam US-convey, gibbs, berhalter panic i swear you could ask anybody; as soon as i saw robben matched up against hejduk i knew it would be a problem - frankie cant handle him because he refuses to stay in front of the guy - robben is gonna throw every shimmy and juke in the book at anybody, dude needed to 1) stay on his feet, and 2) ignore the jiggy - as we know, frankie isnt going to do either and oddly no amount of my yelling 'stay in front of him!' seemed to help - it was always just a matter of time to me donovan looked very tired, lacked burst and strangely refused to take the corner when he had the chance to beat a man convey ran all night and was at the heart of most of the Nats' nice moves forward... which wasn't many ruud should have seen a second yellow, but apparently they brought in an MLS crew for this one nevertheless, mr. gibbs was in his socks most of the night and i believe all doubts about his international capabilities should basically end now
well everytime Robben got the ball I thought something good could happen, same for Convey, and for a while Reyna as well. Stam looked like the man we all know he is, but his attack was something fun as well. Gibbs and Berhalter did impress, looks like Dallas got a steal, and a lot of German clubs blew it, even some Dutch clubs. My kid told me to stop yelling at Dude because he obviously couldn't hear me. Then I started yelling at Arena, and my kid just laughed at me. I even called for Dude to do an Agoos (please don't start, you know what I mean) 3 words: Red Light District He was involved in every positive attacking move by the US. That tackle was pretty good for a yellow. The Norweigen Collina wasn't going to send him off in a friendly. Gibbs...wish he had gone to a nice Dutch team. Reports from the Washington Post show that PSV is looking at Convey. Nice move if he can get it, much better than Spurs will ever be.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We were awful weren't we (with the exception of Robben, Stam & Sar). Heijtinga did well in the first half I thought. Still, I think it's rather pointless to play such weak opposition. So Robben got past Hejduk twenty times, doesn't mean anything does it. We'll found out where we really stand when we play France in March.
Terrible match. Then again, that's the usual start of anything when someone (finally) makes some changes in a team. Both teams played crappy. Big deal.
(Crappy match) Yeah, but the difference is that Holland put out group that won 6-0 against Scotland, and US was missing 5 starters (and the 5 subs were definitely a drop in quality). What does that tell you?
Scotland is bad. === I think the Orange also had some new guys in the lineup yesterday as well. Heitinga Snelders Robben Bouma Only Heitinga made his debut, the other guys don't have many caps.
That we tend to put more effort into a match where we need to score at least two goals to qualify for the Euro tournament and not be written off forever than in the first of a series of five friendly matches that we play, as we start preparing for that tournament. That's really all it tells me. I already know what it tells a lot of your American friends here. It tells them that their countrymen held their heroic own in an epic battle for eternal fame, glory, respect and a rating. They fought their way through the ranks of evil orange, straight to the stinking, fuming gate of hell, where they managed to salvage a 0-1 loss that was a great moral victory. They tamed the orange beast... smoke came out of it's ears, flames from it's mouth and nostrils.... it was on a mission to utterly destroy them once and for all... this was the moment, the only chance... all or nothing... but it only beat them 1-0.
It tells me that the Dutch were not as eager to play this match at the hightest possible level. It tells me that the US - in all fairness - approached this match with more eagerness and anticiapation than the Dutch, and that's not a bad thing either. For I'm sure it's the same when the Dutch face the Germans - the Dutch will always be more primed about a NED-GER friendly matchup than your average German will be, all things being equal. It told me that the Dutch played poorly and I continue to have doubts about Dick Advocaat's creativy as a coach. It told me that the Americans were a capable team but were a little in awe of the Dutch - sorely based on reputation. There's nothing wrong with a defensive strategy when playing against technically better opponents. It also told me that you're overly concerned about other people's opinion about your team.
That tells me you don't know what you're talking about. That tells me you're looking for excuses. That was basically the full USA squad. And we played like crap. Please enlighten us by naming the 5 missing starters. Thankfully, the Netherlands didn't play too well either or we'd have been embarrassed.
Re: Re: Netherlands v USA [R] - post game comments Hey, Johan I know you live in Holland, but it doesn't mean you need to hit the bong 24 / 7. Yeah the US played ultra conservative, and yes your team didn't play anywhere near their best match, but honey when you have the talent the Dutch have you better get used to teams playing that kind of match against you. Anyway, with all the shite you were talking all week, I thought it didn't matter what the hell the US did, you would still kick our ass 5-0?
That you're full of the brown stuff regardless of which board you're posting on. But hey, you're still 'on target' for 2010, right?
Re: Re: Re: Netherlands v USA [R] - post game comments Now imagine how it must be for those of us who don't crave the recognition and respect from others that so plagues some of my countrymen. It's damn tedious to read post after post by USA supporters complaining about "so and so doesn't respect us." Whatever happened to letting the team do the talking for us on the field? If we don't get respect this game, there's always the next...and the next after that...and so on and so forth... Pretty much sums up neeskens' entire contribution to these boards in one sentence fragment.
Re: Re: Re: Netherlands v USA [R] - post game comments It seems to me that you forgot what the result was. You lost, we won. So it was 'only' 1-0. You still lost. That's how effective your defending style was: you didn't embarrass yourself but you still lost. If that's what Arena wanted from the game, then congratulations. I personally think that football is all about scoring goals and winning, but that's probably just me then.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Netherlands v USA [R] - post game comments might wanna tell that to advocaat while you're at it... i'll say one thing for the US: bruce arena didn't make whiny excuses for why his side looked like utter sh!te really! i mean not one criticism of tricky dick for his sniveling post match comments... just goes to show that some people around here are just as capable of being overly partial as the US board twits
Re: Re: Re: Re: Netherlands v USA [R] - post game comments On a side note, most Euro posters who bash anything about the US does so for a lot of reasons; among which are because of reasons as you mentioned one above. (It also has a lot to do with politics and the infamous US foreign policy etc etc.) But the majority of US soccer supporters are really quite the complete opposite of the stereotypical gung-ho/redneck Americans that many Euro posters may have a negative impression on, and that's too bad.