The Football Thread

And the Holland England game didn’t improve either. Very little to remember except a couple of refereeing decisions. Roy Hodgson was asked after the game " were you hard done by or just not good enough?" and he replied “Both” which was an honest and fair answer. The Ref’s decision not to award a foul on Jagielka in the direct lead up to the Dutch second goal was laughable but, overall, England were poor in the final third. So, didn’t deserve to lose but certainly didn’t deserve to win either against a very weak looking Holland.

Still, a good lesson for our less experienced international players of what to expect at tournaments. If you make mistakes you will be punished and also never underestimate the level of incompetence of international referees.

We’re in a all time low at this moment. Not qualifying for a tournament with 24 teams says enough, I suppose.

We only have one top player left, Arjen Robben (Sneyder, Huntelaar, Van Persie, Affelay are over their peak), but Robben is injured more often than not. We also have a few talented youngsters (Memphis Depay, Klaassen, Janssen and a couple of others, but it’ll take time to build a new team. Don’t think we’ll take part in the next World Cup either. We’re in a group with France and Sweden, which seems a mountain - or two mountains - to climb. Only the N°1 goes to Russia, the N°2 to the playoffs.

All time low means since the late 60s or since the mid80s?

I’d say since the early 70’s. We missed of course a few tournaments, but it was far more difficult to qualify for them in those days. We are a relatively small country, so we depend (more than Germany for instance) on the quality of a generation of football players. We scored our successes thanks to very strong generations: '74-'78 (Cruyff, Rensenbrink, Neeskens, Van Haneghem, Krol), '88 (Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard, Koeman), '98 (Bergkamp, De Boer, Kluivert, Davids, Seedorf). 2010 (Robben, Sneyder, Van Persie, Van Bommel, Vande Vaart). In-between we didn’t have top-players and our second choice wasn’t good enough. At this moment we simply don’t have top players, only one, and he’s 32 and nearly always injured … Our opponents in the qualification were Iceland, Czech Republic and Turkey: we got two (!) points out of the six games against them.

It’ll take three-four years to build up a new good team, and we still have to wait how good players like Depay and Klaassen really are.

What do you put the lack of younger talent down to, Scherp? In the UK Holland has always been held up as a model of how to coach youngsters into skillful ball playing adults but somewhere along the line in recent years that system seems to have stopped working the way it did for so long.

One of the reasons is that young players go abroad at an increasingly younger age. Cruyff was 26 when he went to Barcelona, Van Basten and Gullit were, respectively, 23 and 24 when they went to Milan, today players go abroad when they’re 19-20 years old and still have a lot to learn. This year AC milan wanted to buy 18-year old Riechedley Bazoer* from Ajax, one of the greatest talents. Luckily he was wise enough to stay in Amsterdam another year (but what will happen next year?). Foreign competions are stronger and the game is in most cases also more physical. The most talented younger players usually play for either Ajax or PSV, and those teams are way above the rest in Holland. As a result those players are not used to strong opposition. At the age of 18-19 Dutch talents are probably more skillful, but their British or German counterparts are physically stronger, more mature (as soccer players).

Good examples of players who left Holland too soon are Elia and Royston Drenthe, once regarded as two super talents, the future of Dutch football. They went abroad at a young age, and never made it. Elia came back to holland last year, he’s 28 now, and unrecognizable. Memphis Depay probably went too soon to Manchester as well.

  • Note:

I just got the news that Man United made an offer to sign Bazoer (Juventus and Bayern also interested)

The abysmal state of the national Dutch football team is all due to Danny Blind’s fuckups and Guus Hiddink before him. And the incompetent fucks who appointed them, who are till seated in their pluche. It’s not like Van Gaal had much better material to work with, now is it? And he came in third at the WC. One might argue that that result was mainly due to Arjen Robben, but this is a gross exaggeration. We have plenty of good footballers, but now it all turned to shit? Not that much changed really, except staff fucking things up; illogical systems that don’t suit the players, players who shouldn’t even be on the pitch (favouritism, Ajax state of mind) and just overall bad decision making on their part.

@scherpschutter if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. But Depay was barely good enough at PSV. Let’s not forget that at least half of his performances in his last season at PSV were subpar. And now he has to carry that shitship Man Utd? Who are quality wise not even on par with PSV.

PSV beat ManU in the Champion’s league, true, but I still think the British League is physically far more intense than the Dutch League. And it is also stronger imo. If you take away Ajax and PSV there’s not much left in terms of pure quality. In England there’s ManU, Chelsea Man City, Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester City, Southampton … they’d probably all end above Feyenoord or AZ in the Dutch league.

Depay did not play that well in the 2014-2015 season, another reason not to make the big step. He should’ve stayed in Eindhoven for at least two more seasons, mature, score lots of goals against weaker opposition, play some intense international games, etc. In Eindhoven he would always be sure to have his position in the team, in Manchester (or in Milan or Münich) he is not, that’s also an important aspect.

If you’re good enough, you’re old enough, but if you’re not good enough yet, you’re not old enough yet

I agree with Bl if you’re good you’re good Ronaldo left Sporting to MU when he was 18 or 19, on the otherhand Quaresma didn’t made it in Barcelona.
I also agree that most leagues in Europe that use to be strong are weaker since the Bosman rulling, and mostly due to all the asian Money and all those middleman teh so called agents that brought so much Money into football that only a few clubs can cope. I remembre when team like PSV, Ajax, Anderlech and from other small countries could be competitive (and I’m not even couting those from Eastern Europe). In Portugal for instance we have now three strong teams (sadly for me during a few years there were only two strong teams), one semi-strong (Braga) and the others are just for show, competition is leveled by the lowest common denominator, you just can’t compete with Bayern Barcelona, RM PSG and the British teams (who could made really better with the Money they have in hands).

In Portugal we had some success in turning young foreign players brougth relatevely cheap sitll as juniors into great players, specially Benfica with Witsel, Di Maria and before them Deco, Dier is a diferente case because he started as any Portuguese kid does with the difference he was English.
We also sometimes take advatage from the Portuguese community abroad specially in France (Griessman for instance is from Portugese origin from his mother side, but he choosed to play for France), a few years ago we tried that Pires played for the Portuguese side, and the Portuguese association almost made it.

So yes football ichanged a lot since a few years ago, but like BL said when you’re good you’re good

Well, I think talents like Ronaldo, Messi or (in the past) Cruyff or Maradona would make it abroad, in any competition: they were good enough when they were 18, or probably even at a younger age. But they’re exceptional, most players aren’t exceptional, and they just need more time to mature. They usually get that at home, not at Manchester United or Real Madrid or Barcelona.

You mention Quaresma. A special case. I’ve often thought about him, wondering what went wrong. I saw him 5-6 years ago in Brussels, during a Belgium-Portugal game (Portugal won 1-2): he was tremendous, nobody could stop him, unbelievable, but only for some 30-40 minutes. In the last minutes before half-time he already looked tired, exhausted, and in the second half he was invisible, until the coach took him of. I guess it was a mentality issue in his case: incredible talent, no mentality. Otherwise I wouldn’t know what went wrong: a guy with so much talent should reach the top.

And West Ham, obviously… :slight_smile:

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Ronaldo was way better than Depay at this (st)age. Depay does have Ronaldo’s stupendous arrogance, but none of Ronaldo’s football skills to back it up. He really needs to put in some work instead of buying designer bags and dicking around on social media, or he will be on loan to a club like Stoke City in no time and it’ll all be downhill from there. Lastly, people who wear hats for no good reason, or sunglasses indoors, are generally douchebags.

By the way, any thoughts in Portugal on Ronaldo’s boyfriend Badr Hari?

I remember watching both Quaresma and Ronaldo on Sporting youth teams and always thought that Quaresma was the better player, but he never reached Ronaldo’s level, I think it’s a question of mentality, while Ronaldo was a teen alone in Lisbon coming from Madeira Island with only football as a chance to prosper in life. Quaresma on the other hand was a Lisbon born kid from the suburbs with a different perspective of life and a lot of wrong companies, coming from a gypsy background, still when he makes those dribbles to work is pure magic.
Ronaldo even seems to make the right decisions I can even understand choosing to have a kid with no mother quaresma already have three from two different mothers. And i know what i’m talking cause his personal manager or life organizer was ore that his Mercedes car seller, and actually a good friend of mine

BL you know more about Ronaldo life than myself, can’t speak for the rest of the country, but for me if lhe ead us to the Euro cup scoring goal after goal he can have all the boyfriends he want he can even make a duet with Ricky martin I couldn’t care less, I would even take care of Irina for him.

…pure quality. Don’t know if all ManU supporters will drink to that these days…

Why, you jealous?

Is he still with her? I thought they broke up, no.

Probably not, but you’re taking my words out of their context :wink:

You have to ask BL he’s the expert

My, my. What a sensitive bunch. I couldn’t care less about the guy. He can do whatever he wants. It’s in the news, that’s all.

The news/media, they are the root of all evil IMO. All they do is make up lies/false stories for their own selfish gain. But when you’re a celebrity, i guess it’s all part of the game…oh well.