Lineup info anyone? My thoughts would be the statring XI should be the same for the Italy match any thoughts?
Nederland: Van der Sar; Ooijer, Heitinga, Mathijsen, Van Bronckhorst; De Zeeuw, Engelaar; Sneijder, Van der Vaart, Robben; Van Nistelrooij. Wales: Hennessey; Gunter, Morgan, Nyatanga, Williams; Ricketts, Edwards, Koumas, Ledley; Robinson, Eastwood. 1-0 Sneijder, nice free kick
giggs retired from international play last year. Melchiot, DeCler and deJong are on for second half. Sneijder got number two on a great free kick.
I see you havent been acquainted with Marco's coaching techniques yet Arrghh......my stream died again
Melchiot's not really the finished article, is he? Seems a bit sloppy out there. De Jong looks pretty solid in the DM role, good backup to have.
I think it's safe to say that we have the best left winger in the world. Having said that, it's still a bit worrying that we're not taking our chances. The plus is that we had 30 shots at goal and they were playing ultra defensive so I expect less bodies to block shots against Italy and France.
i think we did well today, Engelaar had a nice game (what he played of it) and also de jong when he came on looked good.. strong.. solid... robben looked amazingly sharp and quick, sneijder and vd vaart linked up superbly and did the business imho, only problem was, was that we could get a decent cross in, this became obvious when ruud avtually shot from outside the box!! go display though.. but still need to be tighter for italy/france/romania
I misread the start time so only watched the second half. I won't offer any ratings other than to note that van der Sar wasn't tested at all. Oranje had close to 70% of the posession time for the match. The midfield was rocksolid giving up very few balls at all. Most interesting was midway through the second half Kuyt and Robben started changing wing sides. It looked to me that this was intentional and will make for interesting times for the defending teams when the Euro starts. It may be that Van Basten is going to move the 3 who sit in back of RVN around which could be quite lethal. They also experimented with a two striker attack at the end when VOH came on for the last 10 minutes. almost resulted in a goal at the 89 minute mark when VOH had a shot dead on but saved. I'm willing to bet that the starting 11 against Italy will be the same as started today with perhaps Bouma in for Mathijson. Van Persie, if he is fit, is likely to sub on at some point in the match.
LOL....thats what happened to me also, I thought the start of the 2nd half was the start of the game. I didnt even notice the 1-0 score Nice finish by Robben for the 1-0 btw
got a bad headache, so i'll keep my humble ratings relatively shorter than usual: van nistelrooij (7) - average game, didnt really receive the passes that allow him to make use of his good finish robben (9) - was the only real great player for oranje tonight. fantastic rushes and is not making the selfish runs we normally see. hes turning into a real team player. best left inger in the world. showed it today (again) van der vaart (7) - another very-average game by his standards. for a guy that may be fighting for a poistion, he hasnt really impressed. really has to start hitting the net sneijder (8) - seems to always have a good game, great with the ball and created a few chances engelaar (7.5) - just another average game. but definately had a presence and was solid defensively. made a few nice through passes de zeeuw (7) - relatively strong defensively which is asked from him, but still lacked something special going forward all of Gio, Mathijsen, Heitinga and Ooijer (7) - solid at the back, (however not really tested) but didnt really contribute well to the attack, with the exception of maybe Gio. mathijsen got beat once, only to be saved by sar too tired to do subs, but De Jong has looked really strong and stable in his appearances (including this one), Melchiot really should be starting at RB. Ooiger offers absolutely nothing going forward and really should be starting at CB. Melchiot was obviously rusty coming off an injury, but you can see that he has an attacking eye. and he is tall to compensate for our smaller CBs. kuijt was strong again and afellay was gewoon I love De Cler, so this is such a difficult decision because this is really the one defensive position where we are actually strong with all of Gio, cler and Bouma competing. Gio provides a lot of maturity, but is a little hesitant going forward. De cler just creates many more problems deep in the corners. he is strong defensively and with him and melchiot we have two very attacking minded defenders that can cause problems in the corners when all 11 players from the other team are behind the ball. not sure if all of this makes sense... just sick and really want to go to bed. hopes its legible
all-in-all ..... decent game ... we were not very sharp with our passing gaming and lacked a little creativity (short of robben) in the final third. we have to really make the most of our chances. we should have won by 3 or 4 goals in all of the last 2 games
This I dont understand. v Basten said to prefer Mathijsen over Bouma, he thinks Joris is an excellent defender http://www.telesport.nl/voetbal/ek_2008/4134824/_Van_Basten_kiest_voor_Mathijsen__.html?p=3,1
I've felt for a long time that Robben is underrated because of his injuries but when healthy is pretty much as good as it gets in the world of football. This was evident when he played for Chelsea; when he was in the lineup, they were a much more dynamic, much more dangerous squad. If he can stay healthy, he can be a world beater. Robben and Kuyt switching sides isn't a surprise. Though Dirk isn't the same wing threat, when Robben and van Persie are on the pitch it's common for them to change sides often during the match. I think it's just part of Marco's gameplan (surprisingly he sometimes acts like he has one ).
I agree with your views on Robben 1000%. Chelsea really miss his dangerous runs, and the creativity he causes.