Now that they're gone...

The Poles were pretty arrogant leading into 02 (Dudek! Olisadebe!), and the Koreans were annoying because of that stupid Olympics skating thing, but in my mind no one will ever top the Iraninans leading up to the 1998 world cup. christ they were absolutely insufferable, credit to them though as soon as they won they dissapeared. I guess they'd all seen what they needed to see in their life and went off to die in peace...if course that didnt happen on BS but whatever.

 

Brace yourself for the Haitian footy fan invasion. Plenty of opportunities for degeneration into political discussions there.

 

Leads me to think about where the line is between an honest post from someone who just doesnt rate the US (which is a fair and defensible position) or a rant from someone who just wants to use this as a means to make fun of "stupid Americans" (which should be WR binned real fast,IMO).

My 2 cents is that most threads started by these trolls need to be smacked to WR.This is a USA section of the board and a foreign fan with no real info to share who is just looking for a windup should be sent there.

 

many of them do it to get a rise out of us USA fans so they can post in world rivalries. I think i'm the second sited cource for the "Supidest posts in USA Forum" Thread in WR

 

Not that I take any of this personally but I'm still here. What surprises me is that you lot still seem happy with your team's performance against Holland, while us Dutch fans all agree that Holland were rubbish (not as rubbish as the Americans were, but still, rubbish all the same). Oh well, never mind. All water under the bridge now.

 

I mostly posted after the game because I was surprised to see so many American fans delighted with the performance. I've said it before and I'll say it again: why do Americans seem to have a winners mentality in every single sport EXCEPT football?

 

because we are realistic, plain and simple.We have no interest in playing with flare and getting beat 5-1.We know we are improving but not in Holland's class.What is hard to understand about that? If we played you in basketball, would you rather play aggressively and lose 120-70 or play defensively and lose 68-62, with a chance to win the game.It is not rocket science, just realistic.Americans are practical above all else.We want something that works.If we are not better in talent then we must adapt our play to give us the best chance.If we had Holland's talent we would have won 3 WC's already.

 

First of all it was a friendly. The whole point of friendlies is that you try to learn from them. What you can possibly learn from keeping 11 men behind the ball, I simply cannot understand. I bet your forwards were really happy with that exercise.

Secondly: yes, I'd rather see my country lose 4-0 while trying to win than lose 1-0 while trying not to lose.

Also: if you want something that works, try something different, as this clearly wasn't working for you. You lost, after all. And that 'if we had Holland's talent' is beyond the beyonds of stupidity and does not deserve a reply.

 

We were definatly playing to win. Tactically, we had Holland beat. We just didn't execute. Any number of times we should have been able to rip a great counter but we simply turned the ball over before we could start it in the midfield. I was happy because we learned that we can defend against the best and still have opputunities to score. I was unhappy with our countries execution.

I mean if we had been able to execute a few those counters and create a few god chances in the early going if the match, then Holland would have dropped more players back, and that would have given our midfield more room to operate. So we had a winning game plan, but simply couldn't do it on that night.

 

You played attacking football for 10 minutes at most. If you don't attack, you don't create chances, and if you don't create chances, you don't score (simple Cruyffian philosophy there). So you didn't give yourself much chance to execute in the first place, that's my point.

Countries like Italy can play that way and still steal a win. But I'm sorry, you do not have the creative skills to finish off games like that. Also, when you say you lost because you missed chances, you ignore the fact that Holland always wants to win, even meaningless friendlies. If the US had scored, our players would have tried hard to score again. As it was, they were content enough with the 1-0 win. It's the win that goes into the books, not how both countries performed on the day.

I liked the way the Americans played in a couple of world cup games, btw. You were opportunistic, daring, played a physical game and were entertaining to watch. That got you both results and appreciation. Why not return to that style of play?

 

I guess we were just trying not to lose when Van Der Sar had to make those saves at the end of the game. Man, if Bruce had only told DMB and Convey to score. Well, I guess we've all learned something from this.

 

But thats just it: we TRIED to play this way against Holland. BUT WE TURNED THE BALL OVER EVERY 5 SECONDS!!! I mean my god Hejduk or Armas or McBride would get a ball and simply pass it to a dutch player. Berhalter was doing his best Jaap Staam impression and failing miserably. Bocanegra sending through balls to no in particular. If we could actually connected on a pass or two we could have turned this game into a barnburner. Instead we missed on everything and ended staying in our defensive shell because WE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE. We couldn't pass the damn ball out of our own half of the field. Don't blame our tactics and style of play, blame the players that kept turning the ball over in our own half of the field.

 

Sorry but I disagree. You kept 11 men behind the ball at all times, even when you had a chance to counter attack. A team that wants to attack and create chances simply doesn't play that way.

 

A couple of personal opinions/observations:

1. I was not delighted with the performance, and frankly, I don't remember reading a lot of posts from USMNT fans being delighted. As appooOnU stated - we didn't execute, thus I cannot be content...having said that, we were never out of the match and had an opportunity to beat one of the most talented squads in the world - I simply will not hang my head about that either. I'm proud the guys played tough and hung in - but I'm dissapointed in the result.

2. It is pure fiction to claim that the US played with 10 men behind the ball for all but 10 minutes. The US played with counter-attacking tactics against a more skilled opponent because we were trying to win.

3. In the second half, with a quicker and more threatening player on the left there were a handful of dangerous chances created. They were not finished.

4. If the US had scored and Holland opened their play up looking for the second goal, that would have played directly into Arena's tactics.

5. Finally, it is not our responsibility to play wide open and expose ourselves to a loss. We were playing to win - the US will not beat a world class opponent with an all out attack. What you seem to refuse to accept is that the counter was our best opportunity to beat Holland. We didn't play it trying to be boring, we played it to try to win.

I love Dutch soccer - it is attacking and beautiful. The fact is that a solid US team played a very effective strategy that limited that attacking soccer and provided dangerous opportunities that were not finished. As I stated above - I refuse to hang my head in shame.

 

Let's face it...there has only been one team that has been able to put world class talent together to win the WC...Brazil.

I feel a lot of the harsh comments from the Dutch fans stem from being underacheivers. They have all that talent, but since the days of Cruyff, have had a hard time gelling as a team. I'm not picking on you guys, it's just the truth.

Heck, how many on the top teams in the '02 WC made it through the quarters?! Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Italy, England...all gone. These teams all had world class players, but couldn't put it together. You can sit there and blame it on a number of things, but they didn't gel as teams...period.

So, in the scheme of things, I think Holland fans have this false sense of superiority, when in fact their national team haven't really proven themselves on the international stage for years...even with strong players. To beat the US is a fairly decent accomplishment based on your recent track record.

I'm not trying to be smug...the US has a very short history compared to Holland, but the difference is that we are trying to climb that success ladder. I feel Holland feels that they have already proven themselves in the past, so the work doesn't have to be done.

The US may not play "pretty" and we may not always make the WC in the distant future, but I'll bet that the run in '02 was not a fluke either. Let's pick up this discussion after '06 and see where each other ends up. If I'm wrong about all this, I'll gladly admit it and move on.

 

This coming from someone who's team played the ball back to the keeper 20 times and spent most of the game kicking the ball around to one another in their defensive half. Tell me, when the Dutch backs spend so much time kicking the ball around, where do you expect the American players to be? Sitting in front of the net, having a beer with the Van derSaar? Of course everyone will be behind the ball.

 

This coming from someone who's team played the ball back to the keeper 20 times and spent most of the game kicking the ball around to one another in their defensive half. Tell me, when the Dutch backs spend so much time kicking the ball around, where do you expect the American players to be? Sitting in front of the net, having a beer with the Van derSaar? Of course everyone will be behind the ball.

 

all things considered, I was reasonably satisfied with the team's performance.Half out players were out of season, playing Holland in Holland- and we had a very good chance to tie it. We signed up to play, not to be a punching bag.

 

I Toolhead, hereby nominate johan neesken for honorary American citizenship, she has the "stupid and arrogant" thing down to a tee.

Really there's alot of truth to what johan says, there's also alot of untruths in what she says. What do you expect from her, she's wear those oranje tinted glasses of hers.

Finally I leave on this note, johan it's got to be frustrating to realize that us Americans can go look at our international trophy case and see the EXACT SAME number of World Cup trophies that are in the Dutch's trophy case?

 

johan - you've made your point. Now, please return to World Rivalries and continue discussions of shopping. You're now officially branded a troll on this board until you can bring something else to the table.

Respectfully,

nancy "Never Been to the Mall of America" b

 

Or ever. The Dutch bring great teams, that rarely win important games. They have some fabulous players, Raaben was fun to watch, RVN, Edgar Davids, all world class players. Yet, they didn't even f'ing qualify for the last WC, they crashed and burned in Euro 2000, they have no WC Championships, and while totally outplaying the US the other day, who'd they scare? I mean if tomorrow were the semi final of the WC and the US had to play Italy, Brazil, Germany or Holland who would you chose? Some teams know how to play "up" in big games but not the Dutch.

Frankly this whole thing reminds me of some English fans, who living still in the 1960's think they are still world beaters. The Dutch are good, but not scary good and they certainly do not have an enviable international record.

 

Well, I for one am not delighted. Not even close. Both teams were poor, absolutely, with the US worse. We should beat the Netherlands when they have a bad day, pure and simple. I'm keenly disappointed we couldn't do what the Irish did.



That having been said, I find England fans far and away the worst. They pretty much talk about 4-0 scorelines when we play anybody, up to and including Malta.

G.

 

Struck lucky with the Mexico result then - didn't 'we'

 

I almost stopped reading at "Or ever," but I continued. Anyway... how many Championships have we won? And more importantly, the Dutch sides of 1974 and 1978 were among the best ever put together, barely losing the championship match both times to the host nation, and they were clearly the better tea, in 1978, but Argentina was permitted to hack and cheat their way to glory. While the Dutch sides have underacheived tremendously in recent competitions, that team of the 70s was the best I've ever seen.

And when you look at the population of the country, calling the Dutch underacheivers is pretty silly.