NETHERLANDS thread

any player you don't rate among young dutch defenders? just out of curiousity, as I'm not into eredivisie as much as you are.
 
Kanouté said:
any player you don't rate among young dutch defenders? just out of curiousity, as I'm not into eredivisie as much as you are.
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Well they're all quite good technically, they just lack an imposing physique. Veltman, de Vrij and Blind would easily be bullied by a big striker. Only Martins Indi and Van Dijk really has the physique I think. I suppose out of players who aren't in the squad for the World Cup, Van Rhijn is decent but not good enough, Viergever isn't bad, but I think a team like Mönchengladbach would be his max. I've been hearing a lot of positive things about Van Dijk, and a lot of people thought he should've been part of the squad, but I haven't seen much of him at Celtic. I like van Aanholt, but he needs to move to a better team for his development. Chelsea should give him a shot in my opinion. I think Bruma won't be a consistent national team player, but he should still be decent. Time will tell what to make of Rekik, but he's been impressive at PSV. I think he has the most potential.
 
thanks for the brief, informative post, damjan. too many young dutch defenders on the rise nowadays. will surely have an eye on the guys you mentioned.
 
Strangely hope Costa Rica will play better today than the awful display they had against Greece. I hope/expect a walk over for the Dutch but a good competitive game would serve sides in light of meeting either Argentina or Belgium. I guess the strategy for the Netherlands will be the same counter attacking lineup they used for a lot of the games this tourney and have Costa Rica wear themselves out. If they leave holes as much as they did against Greece you ll probably see Kuyt and DePay (who s rumored to start-yay!) push forward over the wings and utilize a more traditional 4-4-2.
Eithrr way much respect to Costa Rica.. Despite the odds I still don't feel comfortable this will be easy in any sense of the word. The Dutch defense is still frail and several of Costa s players have played in the Dutch league.. Including Ruiz.
 
looks like they will use the formation(343 diamond mf - blind as dmf) they did vs mexico after dos santos scored. highly offensive vs a team that will obviously try to lock the game so hope this will be an entertaining one.

edit: nope. this is straight 343. blind looks on the left side.
 
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Interesting choice to allow Robben to roam freely on both sides..so far it seems to keep Costa Rica on its toes. Still don't trust Sneijder in the middle.
 
even though costa rica weren't much of a threat through the middle, when I see games like these(second halves of 2006 and 2014 cl finals e.g.), I think maybe those "holding" midfielders are not that needed at all. wijnaldum and sneijder, both actually offensive mf's, yet they didn't need an anchor behind to control the midfield. maybe it was the good side of 3 men defense.

anyway, now that he tried traditional 343 and 442 tonight, only 433/4231 are left van gaal didn't use in this tournament. looks like he's having a renaissance before going to manchester. what a timing, though. :)
 
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This Guy!

Like a BOSS :COOL:
 
Super duper proud of this team. Almost nobody even really expected to make it out of the group but here we are losing to Argentina for no other reason than penalties. It truly could've gone either way. A goalie who had almost no experience playing first team football at Ajax.. A bunch of u-21s and Dutch league could be s or might be's a with one excelling player by the name of Robben, a workhorse by the name of Kuyt and solid but somewhat disappointing RvP and Sneijder. It truly was an in between Frankenstein team but Van Gaal made it work and for the first time in a long time I feel like I watched a real team play for the orange jersey. (how s that for a run on sentence). The fact the Dutch have made a name for themselves so many times while being as small of a country as it is truly is remarkable. The wait for that silly star continues...
 
thinking of their crop of players at the tournament, proven/nonproven qualities of it, their ages or the clubs they play, I think you guys are did very well. as I always said penalties are never the right way to decide the winner so any dutch fan should be proud of their team and the way they lost in semis. and the biggest credit goes to van gaal of course.

"So in a football tournament, particularly not at the last stage, you shouldn't have players playing a match for third-fourth place. Because there is only one award that counts and that is becoming world champion."

and the third place game is so stupid just as he said.
 
Third place isn't stupid at all. I'd imagine a team like Algeria or Costa Rica would be thrilled to play such a match. Any team who doesn't think the bronze final is worth playing doesn't deserve to be in the final either. It's a match that stays in the statistics after all, so van Persie can get another WC goal for example.
 
To be honest, the Dutch are to me the team that disappointed the most in the elimination rounds. After their furious group stage I really thought they'd be safely in the final.
 
S-NipE said:
To be honest, the Dutch are to me the team that disappointed the most in the elimination rounds. After their furious group stage I really thought they'd be safely in the final.
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Perhaps that's the problem. This group way over achieved and showed flashes of brilliance but it was nowhere near some of the brilliance of some of the past teams.. Especially the 98 WC team (which even most non Dutch fans I talk to say should have truly taken that one) or the Euro 2008 team that destroyed Italy and France only to lose in a silly way in the knock outs. Both teams took the tournaments by storm yet in the end the disappointment was massive.
Both this and the WC in South Africa were mostly disappointing in the sense that the team did not consistently show its perceived potential. This year especially it was impressive to see how they put Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica etc with their backs against the wall for moments.. But that's what they were.. Moments. I'm still very disappointed but realistically speaking this is probably the team that took everybody by complete surprise.. In the end that makes it a tad easier to come to terms with. The most over performing Dutch team in recent history rather than the opposite. That's huge.
 
PLF said:
I don't think he will.

He's very young though and although his performances weren't the best, people shouldn't be too harsh on him. Poor kid is 18 and was never expecting to be starting for the Dutch in Euro's at such tender age! He will get a lot better.

Don't see why he wouldn't fade away as he gets older though. He'll be decent but the same way Eljero Elia and many other fast athletic players get hyped as kids, so does he, and I think he like many will turn out decent but nothing special.

Time will tell...
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And effectively, Willems turned out decent and nothing special.
 
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