After reading some of the latest comments about the Oranje I have decided to add a few of my own.

I can totally understand people being down on the team after their incredible failure to reach the last World Cup. Despite having some of the world's best individual talent the team somehow blew it. Many pundits callled their non-qualification the biggest failure in World Football history as the team could have easily won the tournament, and to not even qualify was incredible to say the very least.

There are a few reasons that the Dutch failed in their bid for Korea/Japan 2002. One was poor squad management (A very big problem) by Louis Van Gaal, another was bad luck based on several factors such as the doping scandal that claimed Edgar Davids for the crucial match in Dublin, (He was proven innoncent) and one more is the amount of matches that many of the Dutch players play over the course of a year. The Dutch perform for some of the biggest, and best sides in Europe, and way too much football. This issue has become a major development in today's football, but its very important to note.

Some may read my words, and say excuses, excuses, and to a certain degree be correct, but (Key word that but) the points I raise are valid facts.

I agree that many of the players have the wrong mentality, and should play with more fire as its the National Team, but perhaps the players are too tired or bored as most if not all Dutch opponents play anti-football making it very difficult. This sounds terrible to say, but its true as I have watched almost every Holland match for the past 20 years, and Holland has had superior talent then most of their opponents.

Another good point I read was that some of the Dutchies have had far too much success at an early stage of their careers. About the time of the Ajax 1995 Champions League victory the megabucks transfer system got out of control, and the young Ajax boys were head of the foodchain. Right or wrong these players got paid bigtime, and this could not help their mental development.

I can say objectively that the World Cup 2002 Qualification flop has tainted all of these players. Whether or not they care is another issue of mentality, but if it was me I would be disgusted.

I also got the impression from reading some of the other recent posts that some of the Dutch players are not good people. I have no way of knowing this myself, but I can guess that some of them are not. The current Dutch team consisting of Davids, (My favorite player for what it is worth) Kluivert, Hasselbaink, and Seedorf, come off as arrogant to say the least, while Patrick and Edgar have had several off the field problems of the worst kind. I can understand fans getting tired of these types representing the national team.

Another point or two that I want to add, is despite Holland's horrendous record with penalties they do not lose very often. I think this is crucial fact. The other is that most mangers in Europe love the ability of the Dutch players as they are multi-talented, and have the ability to play several positions or in various systems.

I still hope and believe that luck will be change for Holland as it really makes no sense how things have worked out over the years, but some of the points I raised are all worth considering.

1. Not a team in the world wins a World Cup easily, having ANY talent avaliable. Many teams have the same talent depot as Holland. Take England, Brazil, Argentina and France as a few examples. I think that Holland's national team gets somewhat of a hausse - and have not proven worth it.

2. David's doping.

Him being proven not guilty afterwards does to me mean nothing. Italian football sides and especially Juventus have been systematically doping up their players in different ways. The fact that football players get off easily and that hardly any tests until recently were made is horrific. I mean compare a six month ban, which include the off season the the 2-year ban imposed in cross-country skiing and athletics.

P.S I am fully aware of how many Oranje-fans that will be upset now.....that's the fun part

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Originally Posted by per
1. Not a team in the world wins a World Cup easily, having ANY talent avaliable. Many teams have the same talent depot as Holland. Take England, Brazil, Argentina and France as a few examples. I think that Holland's national team gets somewhat of a hausse - and have not proven worth it.

2. David's doping.

Him being proven not guilty afterwards does to me mean nothing. Italian football sides and especially Juventus have been systematically doping up their players in different ways. The fact that football players get off easily and that hardly any tests until recently were made is horrific. I mean compare a six month ban, which include the off season the the 2-year ban imposed in cross-country skiing and athletics.

P.S I am fully aware of how many Oranje-fans that will be upset now.....that's the fun part

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Rooney, Owen, Joe Cole CAN be great (it's talent we're talking, not full out star players), Scholes as much as I hate him make a big difference, their central defence is something any team in the world probably would die for. I could go on......

I agree with Per that Holland is overrated, but at the same time i think English football is overrated even more. If it wasn't for the foreigners the premiership would be 2nd rate.

The current Dutch national team has world class strikers. Ruud van Nistelrooij, Roy Makaay and Patrick Kluivert, with folks such as Pierre van Hooijdonk and Jimmy 'Floyd' Hasselbaink as reserves... That's top drawer, no doubt about it. No other country has that much talent upfront.

The rest of the team, however, is not nearly as good as people tend to think. A Barcelona player is not necessarily a world class player nowadays. Players such as Reiziger, Cocu, Zenden and Van Bronckhorst are not better than the average player of Norway or Poland. Meanwhile, however, they seem to believe they are superstars (proof for this is the fact that they play on silly white soccer boots, have fancy haircuts and walk around with big sunglasses on airports). Every other team has one or two (or hopefully zero) people like that. In the Dutch team, everyone thinks he's of that caliber. And if eleven players are expecting 'someone else' to do the dirt work - you get in trouble. That's what happened on the way to the 2002 World Cup - and it's happening again.

It's an interesting little fact that people now start to think about Louis van Gaal's words when he left. He said that the attitude of this generation is rotten. Totally rotten to the bone and that there is nothing we can do about it anymore. At the time this was regarded as a poor excuse for his own failure. Van Gaal's failure is of course obvious and beyond dispute, but his words do seem to make sense after all.

The problem, in my opinion, is the "Ajax Class of '95" generation. Those people are structurally overrating themselves and have become very, very, very unplesant people. The only solution is to make a new start and to get rid of the following individuals:

F. de Boer
M. Reiziger
C. Seedorf
E . Davids
P. Kluivert

Just dump these folks. Paul Bosvelt (too old and playing for the English equivalent of FC Groningen) also has to go. Cocu, Van Bronckhorst and Zenden simply don't have the quality.

Someone (and probably not Dick Advocaat) will have to have the guts to clean out the closet and start all over with a new generation. And I'm talking about Rafaël van der Vaart, Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie and Andy van der Meyde.

Maybe we won't achieve more on short term, but at least the country will have some sympathy for the national team again - and perhaps they will start playing with their heart again. The current Oranje is not representing me at all - and I am pretty sure 90% of the Dutch people feel like that at the moment.

Plus Holland is not even loved nor respected anymore in the rest of the world (and maybe even hated by some people, due to their behaviour). This is the worst side of this reality.....

Don't know if AFCA 1900 received a phone call from Dick Advocaat re: selection but the former's advice seems to have in part been heeded. Per VI, Ronald de Boer en Clarence Seedorf are out and Andy van der Meyde and Arjen Robben are in.Oh, and kudos to Wesley Sneijder for making the squad.he deserves it. I would say the same about Rafael vdV but his recent form has me wondering how he got in.His talent hasn't much been on offer lately.Still, nice to see the youth of the Oranje represented.

Some interesting replies to my original post. With that said I would like to add a few more thoughts.

England is way behind Holland in the player pool of talent. Its true that without the foreigners the Premeirship would be crap.

As I stated the other day the amount of football has taken its toll on many players and teams in recent times, and this clearly did not help Holland at all. Its a fact that the latest World Cup was a disaster as the big teams like France, Argentina, and Portugal got knocked out earlier than expected. Why? look at all of the matches their key players had played leading up to the tournament. Korea/Japan 2002 was a fraud, and forgettable tournament.

Regarding certain Dutch players namely Cocu, Van Bronckhorst, and Zenden, (all left footers) I think its true that they are all overrated, but they are far from poor players. Cocu plays in various positions for club and country, and plays pretty solid football. Let it also be said that he is now close to 33 so his days should be numbered in the Oranje selection.

As for Van Bronckhorst and Zenden they are both midfielders or in Zenden's case he is a winger, but for whatever reason they have both appeared for the Dutch at leftback, and have both struggled bigtime.

Van Bronckhorst has just made a loan move from Arsenal to Barcelona were he could not get into the first team as he has often been injured so maybe he will improve, while Zenden has gone on loan to Middlesbrough from Chelsea. At this time both players do not merit wearing the Orange shirt.

One point about Michael Reizger that I wanted to bring up. I happen to think he is pretty decent for the most part. I watch a lot of Barcelona matches, and they have clearly screwed with the player in recent years. I used see him only as a rightback, but he can play the left or the middle if needed, and play these positions effectively. At Barca he has sat out in my opinion because of the pressure from the board or the stupid fans to play Catalan players. Let it be said that Carles Puyol is much inferior to Reiziger, but this is a different subject for another time.

As for the important upcoming matches they should win both matches. I firmly believe this although it will very tough in Prague as the Czech's are a good side.

Finally some criticism towards Dick Advocaat. First why drop Seedorf? He is pretty damn good for Ac Milan the European Champions. He is out but V. Bronckhorst, and Zenden are in? I knwo they play different positions but that is dumb. One more thing Dick, why play Kluivert in the hole? Play him with Van Nistelrooy or Makkaay. I don't get it. How about Kiki Musampa to play the left wing slot? The man has been in terrific form for Malaga, and his play earned him a big deal with Atletico Madrid, but no Oranje callups. Wake up Dick!

Raffi scored for Oranje!
But unfortunatelly in three minutes Austrians levelled the score... Our very familiar Pogatetz made it... This Grazer AK follows us even in EURO qualifies

But one of the above mentioned divas, Kluivert, has made 2-1 now. The other interesting result to note is that Chech-republic won away with a score of 3-1. Nedved and Baros scored one each. Don't know if grygera starred in that one yet.

Espn Soccernet reports that Kluivert on 60' and Cocu on 63' have made the score 3:1 . Hoping for more goals as the Czech Republic,with Grygera playing the full 90, won 1:3 at Belarus.More goals for the Oranje would at least reduce the GD.

I must admit: this was good. I saw the second half in a pub and I must say that Holland looked pretty good. They played good football and - this is what I missed in recent games - there was passion and fighting spirit. Well done.

Also: Holland played very well without Davids and Seedorf in the second half (the two peeps I slowly started hating the most). So I say: let's keep it this way. Those two on the bench.

Great that Raffy scored, btw. Here's to the new generation!

Looking forward to Wednesday's game. The team really won some credit back yesterday night, in my opinion. So let's go.

If Footballnl.com is correct, good riddance to Davids for any amount of time the coach might choose. Reportedly,Davids almost came to blows with Ruud van Nistelrooy. Admittedly,RvN has not exactly bagged a hatful of goals while playing for his country; and sometimes is described as the weakest on the pitch. But Davids, he of the failed WC campaign also,would have little room to talk.He should be outside looking in for such ridiculous behavior if , repeat IF, the story is true.

Double thumbs up to Rafael van der Vaart.I hope this is a trend for him in an Oranje #10 shirt and carries over to his club form.

Best of luck Wednesday lads!

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Originally Posted by TattooQ
Double thumbs up to Rafael van der Vaart.I hope this is a trend for him in an Oranje #10 shirt and carries over to his club form.

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