Fleetwood Mac Forum

Netherlands passed its first real test in the cup, and quite handily!

Thank you Carne!!!!

....also thanks to the Portuguese team, who teased and provoked our team 4 years ago and all the oranges turned red. They really learned from that experience, as well as from playing for winning clubs in Italy and Germany, yesterday they stayed cool after playing a bad first half, our goalkeeper played fab, and then they fought like lions. Very undutch, not so attractive, but with an effectiveness that we normally lack. Maybe it works this time........

I daresay both teams learned from that deplorable performance four years ago, though I am sure we differ on culpability. Unfortunately for the Portuguese, the coach seemed to have forgotten that you can't just defend and expect the ball to get into the opponent's goal miraculously.

I think Netherlands have a good shot, but I suspect this may be Spain's year. However, they have to get past a very, very efficient German team.

Spain really were walking on the ledge against Paraguay. The dutch are warned: you can't get past south-american teams easily. The Uruguayans are slick. And the Germans? They are really impressive. But England and Argentina were very naieve and weak this time around... So Spain has a chance. I hope for Netherlands - Germany though... a fabulous footballgame. And let's be fair: the dutch haven't played their best football yet.......

Good luck tomorrow.

Thanks, mate. Within three hours from kickoff, you can feel the country heating up... we'll need the luck.....

Hey, congrats again.

Good game... but what does van Bommel have to do to get a yellow? Oh, yeah, an honest mistake when the game is practically over and he has fouled player after player in the last two games.

But... more importantly, good game with a dramatic finish and a well-deserved win!

Ahh, your right about van Bommel. I don't like it, but it seems that every team needs a player like Chiellini, Materazzi, Pepe, Melo etcetera, especially against latin american teams, who are specialized in hidden fouls. I guess we got one or two too.

Unbelievable, we're in the final, and yet we haven't played our best football. It's amazing.

Next up, Spain! Going to be a tough one.

Spain can wear down the opposition like no other. It should be a great game on Sunday.

Congrats indeed - two excellent goals against Uruguay. Spain seem pretty tough but I've been rooting for Oranje as always and will naturally continue to do so.

I agree about the football though, and so does Cruyff:

All True, Gaius, but tomorrow you'll see how the dutch can steal a victory like Cruijff always wanted when his opponent was simply better. There was a Barcelona-AC Milan final once. Barcelona played the best football in the world all season. AC Milan won 4-0.


IF we win today, the world has to look at it as a sort of "lifetime-achievement award".

Hey, thanks to Cruijff, van Gaal and Rijkaard Barcelona (and with seven of them in their team, Spain ) plays dutch school football. They've got the money to keep those worldclass players in one team all year long so the national team can benefit from it. For us that's financially impossible.

For the first time in my life I say: let the lesser team steal the victory.

Kudos to the Netherlands for going to the final, but I believe the best team won. And, despite all the praise heaped on Spain, I found them at times tedious to watch. There is only so much of a passing game you can watch without getting bored. When Fabregas entered the field, the dynamic changed a little. Iniesta should have shot three or four other times until he finally found it in his heart to put the boot to the ball and find the net.

The Dutch seem to think physicality alone is the way to win a match, and they were as brutal as could be at times, but that was never going to work against Spain. And in the end, I think the Netherlands were lucky to get only one expulsion. De Jong should have seen red. I can think of at least another instance in which red should have been issued. That kind of play slows the game and takes the beauty out of it. I was reminded of the game with Portugal four years ago, and the common link between that game and the final with Spain is the Dutch team.

I guess, in the end, I wasn't terribly happy or impressed with either team. It was a rather uninspired final after all the great football we saw over the past month. I think Spain tends to disarm opponents, anyway, by wearing them out, but one has to admit that the Spanish players had plenty of opportunities to score that they simply didn't seize. The quality wasn't there. From a technical skills point of view, Spain was better, but because of their failure to convert shots into goals, it could have gone either way and in the end they were a little luckier.

In any case, either team winning would have been great because it would have been the first time. I just wish it had been a cleaner match.

Now... watch out for Germany in two years. As that team matures, they are going to be very hard to beat.

Yeah, the dutch played too hard. On the other hand, they could have scored twice. Spain could have scored more, but they normally do not, the dutch effectiveness was much higher this tournament, but not in this game. De Jong absolutely should have had red in the opening of the game. But so did Iniesta after his charge on the sickening van Bommel. If Robben had fallen down after he outran Puyol and Pique, Puyol would have been sent off too. It's all about small details. The better team won. We have always been laughed at for not winning and playing beautiful, this time it all was about fighting and effectiveness. In the end, we lost again.
So let's build further on losing in beauty.

I agree on the hard play, Carne, but please look at the game Portugal played against Brazil. It was about nothing, both teams needed a draw, and still the Portuguese fouled their way through the game especially first half. The ref kept the cards in pocket but that could have been different then.

Nobody was more disappointed in Portugal than I was. Here is a team supposedly with some of the best talent and it couldn't get out of its half for large chunks of the game. Not that the Brazilians played much better. I am just kind of sick of all the hoopla around Cristiano and the inability of the team to play as a whole, except at the back, and provide the necessary service up front. Pathetic, plain and simple.

Really, Uruaguay and Germany were the most refreshing teams of the tournament for me. And I can't believe I am praising the Germans. Also, I was pleased with the US. I wish we had gone a little farther, but at least the team fought hard and played as a cohesive unit.

Wow, look at this. Gerald, what is the mood over there today? Is Cruyff alone in his thinking?

Cruyff slams 'dirty' Dutch football team
(AFP) – 2 hours ago
MADRID — Former Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff on Monday slammed the style of play of his compatriots during Sunday's World Cup final against Spain as "dirty" and "ugly".
Cruyff, a losing finalist at the 1974 World Cup, wrote in the Catalan daily El Periodico that the Dutch showed themselves to be particularly aggressive on the pitch and played "appallingly and sadly in a very dirty manner".
The former Ajax and Barcelona player lamented the style as "ugly, vulgar, hard, inpenetrable," adding that Spain deserved to win even if they played in a "more individual than collective fashion".
Cruyff, 63, also had harsh words for English referee Howard Webb, whom he said should have "sent off two Dutch players", before giving defender John Heitinga his marching orders at the end of extra time in the 1-0 defeat.
Cruyff had expressed his admiration for the Dutch team in an interview with the daily De Telegraaf on the eve of the World Cup final.
He had hailed "the remarkable work" achieved by coach Bert van Marwijk, praising him for having "succeeding in building such a strong team".