Login : Register Home : Tags

Holland

Latest journal entries

Ohne Holland..

Sports

Ohne Holland fahren wir zum Viertelfinal. The Dutch lost 1-0 against Portugal, itself and the referee.

Officially, Holland lost against Portugal. Between the lines, Holland mainly lost to itself. The team had most of the possesion and over a double dozen of goal opportunities, but failed to convert. That's the most important thing to learn from this match. Those who had criticism of coach Van Basten's decision to keep Klaas-Jan Huntelaar have not been proven wrong. The team was far better than Portugal, but if you are unable to actually score you do not deserve to win.

But more was going on. Not only did we already witness a World Cup where referee Graham Poll gave a single player got three yellow cards in one match, tonight's referee decided to steal even more thunder: he caused three new FIFA World Cup records:

Most Red Cards (Game): 4 (2 each) in Portugal v Netherlands, 25 June 2006
Most Yellow Cards Against One Team: 9 (Portugal), 2006
Most Yellow cards (match): 16 - Portugal v Netherlands, 25 June 2006, and 16 - Cameroon v Germany, June 11 2002

He gave sixteen yellow cards (nine of which for Portugal) and four red cards (all as a result of two yellow). He clearly lost control of the match (as did the teams). Maybe he should have given Holland a penalty when they deserved one, or he could have sent off one or two Portuguese halfway the first half, when fair play became a lost concept. Unfortunately Holland followed suit with the aggression, but there wasn't really a choice without proper arbitration.

I maintain that Holland was simply not capable of converting brilliant play into goals and that this is the primary reason for dropping out so soon. But I must note that the quality of referees at this World Cup has been so bad that I would prefer to have those crazy referees from tiny countries back. For some complete unknown from Swaziland I can have sympathy. For so-called professionals not so much. I'm glad FIFA agrees with me:

FIFA President Sepp Blatter said the referee could have been yellow-carded himself after sending off four players and handing out bookings to eight others in Portugal's World Cup 1-0 win over the Netherlands.

"It was a great show with intervention by the referee that was not consistent and (had) lack of fair play by some players."

Oh well. Huntelaar helped us to the Under-21 European Cup, so maybe he'll be the one who can take us to the European Cup in 2008.

World Cup after six days

Sports

Now that we've been able to see all teams play at the World Cup 2006, favourites and disappointments are starting to shape. Nothing is in the clear yet, every team can still throw it all away or recover. Still, here's my take:

Group A

Germany to win the group. They're not good, but they've won already and play at home. That should be sufficient. Ecuador to be second. They will be able to take on Costa Rica and in a group with Germany six points will be enough for second place.

Group B

England to win. They won against Paraguay, Sweden sucks this year and Trinidad and Tobago can achieve anything but winning the group. Although Paraguay is not disappointing just yet, I still expect the Swedes to get through as second.

Group C

Holland to win. We shouldn't have to lose against them and I am still convinced we can do better against Ivory Coast than they can against Serbia and Montenegro. Therefore we'll make it to the top on goal difference. Argentina of course, takes second place.

Group D

Portugal to win. Compared to Mexico's performance against Iran, they disappointed against Angola. But they will win the one-on-one. Mexico to be second place, then.

Group E

Czech Republic to win. They overclassed USA more than Italy overclassed Ghana. They'll do it. Italy second.

Group F

Brazil to win. Doh. If Australia can draw against Croatia they might very well be second, and I think that might just happen for the Socceroos.

Group G

Tough, tough. France disappointed, I still don't know about Switzerland and South Korea didn't impress but did bag three points, to lead after one game. You know what, I'll take a risk and say they win the group, killing France this Sunday. Switzerland takes second place.

Group H

Spain to win. They never seem to win tournaments but damn, they're off to a good start. I do actually think Ukraine can take both Tunisia and Saudi Arabia so considering their just-finished two all draw, Ukraine takes second place.

1/8th Finals

That would then produce, including predictions in bold:

Germany-Sweden
The Netherlands-Mexico
England-Ecuador
Portugal-Argentina
Czech Republic-Australia
South Korea-Ukraine
Brazil-Italy
Spain-Switzerland

Which could very well create some historical quarter finals:

Quarter Finals

Germany-The Netherlands (is there any more heated confrontation?)
Czech Republic-South Korea
England-Argentina (okay there might be one)
Brazil-Spain

And then Holland can meet their arch enemies of the past decade, the Czechs. We've played them at almost every qualification and end tournament for decades, it seems.

Semi Finals

The Netherlands-Czech Republic
Argentina-Brazil

Final

The Netherlands-Brazil.. dum-ti-dum. No idea how that would end actually, but I do think that although my predictions seem amazingly generous to Holland, we can actually take all of Ivory Coast (they're not that amazing), Mexico (kicked their arse in friendlies with a second rate team), Germany (aging and not that impressive either) and Czech Republic (came ahead during qualification, manageable). The alternative opponents? South Korea, Australia.. please. We can reach the finals!

(I reserve the right to amend this post with a new prediction later in the tournament up to and including after the final, pretending as if these predictions never took place.)

Holland 1 - Serbia and Montenegro 0

Sports

Yay for Holland! I went to Eindhoven today. Rail works made the travel parts of the trip somewhat annoying as I had to take a detour over Utrecht which almost double the Rotterdam-Eindhoven journey, but other than that I had a wonderful time watching the Holland game with Inge. Both dressed in regular black, but check my photography for some of the orange silliness currently affecting this country.

Holland 1 - Ecuador 0

Sports

Yawn. Friendlies are not worth my time. We won, but the match was so boring that the only times I actually saw anything nice was when I turned around to see Ireland beat Sweden three nil.

At least the cider black is very tasty.

Latest photos

2006-06-11 13:28
Orange fever
Orange fever
(0 comments)
2006-06-11 11:58
Trip to the stadium
Trip to the stadium
(0 comments)
2006-06-08 17:28
Ahead of time
Ahead of time
(0 comments)

© Copyright 1995-2008 Robert John Kaper. All rights reserved.

Tom has more friends but mine are prettier! (#1/1)