Oranje Thread

Fey wrote:
182cm on average is not midget!

Fey wrote:For intetnational standards. Not Dutch. Im 184cm and people think im below average ffs.

Fey wrote:van Gaal you DELUDED FUCK! He is gonna play TS afterall!

Silly man, he needs Clasiesta to disrupt their tiki-takka movenement.

Axeslammer wrote:The first of the 3 (!!!) Holland - Australia matches of the coming 5 days is about to commence...

ERIK LAMELA wrote:

Fey wrote:van Gaal you DELUDED FUCK! He is gonna play TS afterall!

Silly man, he needs Clasiesta to disrupt their tiki-takka movenement.

lol.

ERIK LAMELA wrote:

Axeslammer wrote:The first of the 3 (!!!) Holland - Australia matches of the coming 5 days is about to commence...

?????

Pras_tama wrote:Saudaraku Fey, please share my a link to download the full match and Babi Guling Warung Chandra, which is better than Ibu Oka's, is coming to your way!

Super Progress wrote:

ERIK LAMELA wrote:

Fey wrote:van Gaal you DELUDED FUCK! He is gonna play TS afterall!

Silly man, he needs Clasiesta to disrupt their tiki-takka movenement.

lol.

Fey doesn't understand progress

blutgraetsche wrote:That goes without saying. But unlike Van Marwijk, Van Gaal knows what he is doing and is in a different universe tactically. I can see him having tailor made strategies for all potential opponents in the tournament already, and the young team follows him blindly to execute those plans, just as he likes it.

Better, or rather better organised and motivated, opponents will test the indiviual qualities of this Dutch team a lot more than Spain did. Time will tell, but football is a team sport.

blutgraetsche wrote:You're being too dogmatic my bitterballen munching friend. The pressing Holland applied close to perfection yesterday demands the same degree of coordination and team work than possession football. Holland had less of the ball, but their intention was more attacking than Spain even. Holland's style yesterday was very similar to Borussia Dortmund under Klopp. Extremely aggressive coordinated counter pressing, very quick breaks and vertical movement galore. It's a risky style, a pro active style and hence anything but "team progress", don't get fooled by the 5-3-2 formation.

Possession without purpose is either meaningless or a means of defending, not attacking.

Super Progress wrote:

blutgraetsche wrote:That goes without saying. But unlike Van Marwijk, Van Gaal knows what he is doing and is in a different universe tactically. I can see him having tailor made strategies for all potential opponents in the tournament already, and the young team follows him blindly to execute those plans, just as he likes it.

Better, or rather better organised and motivated, opponents will test the indiviual qualities of this Dutch team a lot more than Spain did. Time will tell, but football is a team sport.

Yeah I suspect Van Gaal will be flexible enough but a bit crazy to hear suddenly that Holland is a favourite now as I heard on the internet and from the people I watched the game with.

Still waiting to see the much hyped Clasie

Capricious Dutch defer to Van Gaal

Posted by Raphael Honigstein

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Louis van Gaal once explained that his astrological sign was Leo, because "the lion is the king of animals." And on Tuesday night, the king of the Oranje pride roared -- a little bit, at least.

Jeremain Lens lined up in the starting XI in the training session at the Beira-Rio stadium in Porto Alegre to settle an argument, that probably never was, in King Louis' head. The Dynamo Kiev forward will come in against Australia, so the Dutch formation will change from the 3-5-2 of the Spain win to a more traditional 4-3-3. Daley Blind is to drop back into defence on the left; centre-back Ron Vlaar could miss out.

The Dutch media had speculated about Van Gaal's tactics for a few days. The key players, it had become apparent, would have preferred to stick with the system of the first game. Wesley Sneijder had warned that "one should never change a winning team", in a "I jest but actually mean it" sort of way. Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben, too, professed their happiness with the Spain setup.

All three were very careful to point out that it was Van Gaal's decision but their preference was made pretty clear. "I loved all that space [in attack]," said Robben, whose employment as a striker had largely freed him of positional duties and had made the most of creative instincts.

Van Gaal's considerations are easily deduced. The Australians, despite needing a win, won't expose their defence the way the Spanish did; it would be quite difficult to play counter-attacking football for the Dutch against a side that will sit very deep.

Sneijder will especially benefit from having an extra option ahead of him in a 4-3-3. The Dutch playmaker didn't shine as much as the other two constituents of the Golden Triangle in the opening match. In fact, he had a relatively quiet night. The 30-year-old only played 35 passes.

His favourite outlet was Blind on the left, who in turn acted as the launchpad for long balls to the attackers. Seasoned Sneijder-watchers were also interested to note that his own distribution was uneven. Five times, he played in Robben. Van Persie was only sought out once. The same lopsided ratio was also evident for the inverse stat: Van Persie played one pass to Sneijder, Robben four.

The sample size is very small, so these patterns could be purely coincidental. But then again, they might not be. Big tactical, philosophical debates in the Dutch camp are quite often mixed up with a clash of personalities. At the disastrous Euro 2012, the team was reportedly split into an "Ajax-style" faction that backed Sneijder and his ideas, and more pragmatically minded players that sided with Van Persie.

On top of that, Van Persie and Klaas Jan Huntelaar, then the more popular of the two with the Dutch public, more or less openly fought over the right to play as centre-forward. Sources close to the dressing room described a toxic atmosphere of mutual distrust and aggression between the two forwards. Van Persie won the argument; he led the line against Denmark and Germany, but it proved a pyrrhic victory. The Netherlands lost all three games.

Huntelaar has been quiet so far. But he let it be known that he could see himself playing next to Van Persie, if Van Gaal saw the need. "Two strikers are better than one," said the Schalke player. Time will tell if the peace holds.

As far as the relationship between Sneijder and Van Persie is concerned, their problems go back a long way. The two were rivals for a starting place on the left side of midfield in Marco van Basten's team ahead of Euro 2008.

On the eve of the first game against Itay, Dutch papers revealed that Sneijder, Van Basten's preferred choice, had been felled by a late Van Persie tackle in training. The Bondscoach ranted against the "unfounded rumours" until someone pointed out to him that Sneijder had detailed the incident on his personal web page.

Van Persie ended up a bit-part player in the Netherlands' run to the quarterfinals but still found time to put Sneijder's nose out of joint. He stepped ahead of his teammate to take a free kick in the defeat against Russia. (He missed.) Both players spent the next few weeks bad-mouthing each other in public.

Van Gaal wisely insisted on a big clear-the-air talk with all survivors of Euro 2012 ahead of his first game in charge of the Elftal in August 2012. By all accounts, the move has proved successful.

Sneijder's new-found maturity has also made a difference. The Galatasaray midfielder admitted that Van Gaal's decision to strip him of his captaincy and hand it to Van Persie 12 months ago was "painful" and "unexpected" but he accepted Van Gaal's verdict. The manager explained that Sneijder would be better able to concentrate on his fitness. Sneijder got the hint. He's been working hard with personal coaches to get back into shape.

A win against Australia will ensure qualification for the next round and hide any tensions, should they indeed still exist. The best thing that could happen to the Dutch, however, is Robben making this tournament his own. The Bayern Munich player gets on with everyone.