Official The Netherlands Thread ; Best team never to have won the WC.

[el sid]

Rest him in the group stages imo, we can qualify without him

[el sid]

Translation please.

Says Robben won't play against Denmark and they're going to be cautious with him, atleast that's what I think

[robbert_o154]

Says Robben won't play against Denmark and they're going to be cautious with him, atleast that's what I think

Spot on.

[DJ]

van Marwijk: Robben not against Denmark

JOHANNESBURG - Arjen Robben will not play with the Netherlands during the first match at the WC against Denmark, national coach Bert van Marwijk said on Tuesday.

"Ever since Arjen played the CL Final he has hardly trained nor played. You can't appear out of nowhere like that. On top of that I don't want to take risks with him. He's seriously injured."

van Marwijk expects to hear soon how the attackers recovery is developing. "Then I'll know when he can come and possibly play again."

Robben got injured in the match against Hungary, last Saturday. "Our goal is to get him in shape to be of value for us during the WC. Everything is geared towards that. But don't hold me to a certain date. We're going to observe everything at ease."

[DJ]

In the meanwhile Boularouz gave everyone a bit of a scare by overbending his ankle, but he's expected to be back in training on Wednesday;

[Oscillate Wildly]

Is Heitinga injured? The FIFA list had a little yellow alarm mark by his name but I hadn't heard anything about him getting a knock.

[Lisandro Lopez]

Overbending?

[DJ]

Overbending?

Verzwikt. You're no wiser now When you bend your ankle so far it hurts because it stretches the ligaments.

[silva_gunner]

Isn't it a strain of some kind?

[Lisandro Lopez]

Ah Verzwikt, why didn't you say this in the first place! I realise that post might have sounded abit arsey, wasn't the intention, just was curious and wanted some clarification, thank you DJ.

[DJ]

I simply don't know the medical term in English. After playing FM all these years, too

[joe__the__man]

Sprain?

10101

[robbert_o154]

Yeah, that's it.

[djvandyke]

Bending over LOLZ

[Micado]

Basically it comes down to this:

Robben will not play in the the Dutch first game against Denmark, regardless if he is fit or not, as Bert Van Marwijk states, he only played one game (the one he got injured in) since the CL final and hasn't trained much as well, so we don't want to rush him back and give him time to recover fully so we can use him in latter stages of the tournament.

EDIT: didn't see the new page..

[Klimowicz]

The race rows have begun Dutch squad banned from Twitter after Elia howler

JOHANNESBURG Jun (Reuters) - The Netherlands World Cup squad has been banned from using Twitter during the tournament after Eljero Elia sparked a racism row with comments on a live streaming video. Viewers of the video -- in which the winger appears to insult Moroccans -- reacted angrily to Elia's comments, forcing him to apologise and prompting Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk to impose the ban.

Defender Gregory van der Wiel said on his Twitter account the squad were no longer allowed to use it, and this was confirmed by Ryan Babel and Elia who both went offline. On the video Elia and Babel are seen playing a computer game in their room in front of a webcam, with several other team members visiting them.

Elia apologised for his comments but insisted he had not intended to insult a group of people. "I want to apologise to the Moroccan community but I am not a racist," he told Dutch media. I grew up in The Hague in a neighbourhood with 75 percent Moroccans and have a lot of friends among them. What I said was meant for a friend of mine, Reduan, who always calls me 'negro'... it sounds odd, but it is some slang."

Van der Wiel last year learnt the hard way that Twitter comments can land you in hot water. The defender pulled out of the Dutch squad for a friendly against Australia with concussion but said on Twitter that he had visited a concert the night the team travelled to Australia.

Netherlands start their World Cup campaign on Monday against Denmark.

[Micado]

Yeah, it was just a matter of time before we had some kind of incident.

[DJ]

"Incident" my eye, talk about looking for nails on low tide...

[el sid]

Never a dull moment with the dutch

[robbert_o154]

I love DJ's literal translation of Dutch colloquial.

[Klipdrift]

Looking for nails on low tide...

[Micado]

Our starting line up against the Danes:

Stekelenburg; Van der Wiel, Heitinga, Mathijsen, Van Bronckhorst; De Jong, Van Bommel; Kuyt, Sneijder, Van der Vaart en Van Persie.

[el sid]

That's the strongest, expected line up

[Jeroen Thijssen]

Question to Bert van Marwijk: "Bert, how do you feel about Yolanthe being there?"

Bert covers his head in his hands kind of smiling and laughing

[Micado]

Question to Bert van Marwijk: "Bert, how do you feel about Yolanthe being there?"

Bert covers his head in his hands kind of smiling and laughing

The only thing he could do.

c'mon what a F***** question that is, who cares about Y.Kablejouw van Kaasbergen.

[DJ]

If Bert were internet savvy he'd have told the journa to print :facepalm:

[Steve04]

Netherlands was laid their own landmarks in every world cup they played. They play well in the first round matches, but they were loosing their consistency in later matches. Persie can manage the absence of Robben.

[T-IceMan]

Today is the day! haha

[Micado]

Match thread set up

[Micado]

All in favor of Elia starting over VdV for the next game say yeah.

Yeah

Can at least give it a try in the next game imo.

[el sid]

Job well done, not necessarily at our best, but would rather keep our best for later in the tournament.

de Jong and van Bommel were good, Elia made a couple of nice runs.

[dalima]

Strange game that might turn the attack upside down. RvP, Sneijder and VDV being very poor. Elia in great form. I wonder what Van Marwijk is gonna do.

[el sid]

I think VdV will start the next game, didn't have the best game today though.

[ham_aka_stam]

Elia looked very good for you guys. RVP wasn't making enough runs in between the defenders IMO.

I understand his primary role must be to drop deep and play others in, but there were a couple of times where a clever run would have made him an easy target for a through ball when the MF push forwards.

[robbert_o154]

All in favor of Elia starting over VdV for the next game say yeah.

Yeahyeah10characteryeah.

van Persie was pish too, though.

[Micado]

van Persie was pish too, though.

Bring Klaas

[ubos]

Elia looked really good, and surprisingly I haven't heard of him until recently. Has he always been a well known prospect in the Netherlands?

[Micado]

Elia looked really good, and surprisingly I haven't heard of him until recently. Has he always been a well known prospect in the Netherlands?

Well, not really a prospect that everybody knew him but was always to see he had the quality and speed to become a good (or maybe in the future a great winger), but he had a fantastic year at Twente in 08/09 which resulted in a transfer to HSV.

[dalima]

Elia looked really good, and surprisingly I haven't heard of him until recently. Has he always been a well known prospect in the Netherlands?

There's always been doubt because he doesn't come from one of the traditional big clubs. But in Hamburg he proved to be the real deal (when fit).

[Giovani]

Elia looked really good, and surprisingly I haven't heard of him until recently. Has he always been a well known prospect in the Netherlands?

Well, not really a prospect that everybody knew him but was always to see he had the quality and speed to become a good (or maybe in the future a great winger), but he had a fantastic year at Twente in 08/09 which resulted in a transfer to HSV.

Elia got kicked out of the Ajax youth system. So if you are saying that it ''was always to see he had the quality and speed to become a good (or maybe in the future a great winger)'', you would be saying that Ajax made a mistake?

[Micado]

Elia got kicked out of the Ajax youth system. So if you are saying that it ''was always to see he had the quality and speed to become a good (or maybe in the future a great winger)'', you would be saying that Ajax made a mistake?

No, at young ages it is always difficult to see who will make it and who not, Van der Wiel was kicked out as well, but after a stint with Haarlem he was allowed back, so I wouldn't call it a mistake, pitty yes,

[robbert_o154]

If anything, I think it has been good for him. It's one thing to do well and to get hyped up beyond proportion as a young winger for Ajax, but impress - as he'd done - at ADO and then Twente is all the more remarkable. That's made it tougher on him and I think it's improved his game.

[hd644]

Ajax kicked both of them out for disciplinary reasons. The reasoning was that they didn't have the character to "make it."

[Dutch Dave]

Decent enought start. We can do much better but we'll save that for later.

[DJ]

Decent enought start. We can do much better but we'll save that for later.

Traditionally, we do better when start badly. But we'll have to do better, Germany will kick us around like they did Australia if we play like this against them.

[Micado]

Decent enought start. We can do much better but we'll save that for later.

So right, all the fuss (well in our office) that we weren't good enough, c'mon, we got the 3 points.

It is great to play fantastic (like Euro08) but then you have to keep it up the whole tournament as other teams can sort out the style of play (like the Russians did), happy with this win, ugly but 3 points in the bag and we haven't shown our true potential..

[Dutch Dave]

And we learned from this match that 'Van der Vaart - Sneijder - Kuyt' doesn't work. Especially Van der Vaart and Sneijder are only walking each other in the way (Dutchism, sorry). We need more diepte and pace, ergo: we need either Robben or Elia.

[hd644]

I would like to see this attacking midfield (from left to right) in the later stages of the tournament:

Elia - van der Vaart - Robben

But, knowing van Marwijk, this will probably not happen.

[DJ]

You'd take vdV over Sneijder? Not me.

From the other game, I don't think we have much to fear anymore.

[Micado]

Elia - Sneijder - Robben

--------RvP

For me in the latter stages.

Not sure about the Japan win, good or not, if we win Saturday we are thru, but maybe the Japs are now really motivated as the same applies for them. (unless something strange happens and all more teams end up with 6 points.)