Holland v Japan afterthoughts: this is not Dutch!

Holland v Japan 1-0
'53 Sneijder

Again horrible performance, Holland just can't deal with teams who park the bus. Can't keep the ball, can't get ball in dangerous positions, no inspiration, no imagination, no speed, no nothing (except lots of possession which in someway can't be used).

It will be wrong though, to focus on one team. Japan parked the bus in an intelligent way and Oranje just can't deal with that. I don't blame Japan for that, if they attack they are going to get hammered. They played tactically very disciplined and as always they've got great fitness levels. They even created a big chance at the end of the game to snatch a deserved draw. Because in my opinion nobody deserved to win this game.

This will sound like an excuse but I found it remarkable that superb technical players like van Persie, Sneijder, van der Vaart and the night before Rooney, have trouble controlling the ball. I don't know why, is it the horrible state of the field, wrong shoes or did they eat too much bobotie? I don't know...it's just very strange.

Yes Holland won but I really don't want them to win like this. It's just not Dutch. Beautiful football with lots of chances and losing on penalties in the quarter finals is as Dutch as clogs, cheese, windmills, liberal drugs policy and red-light districts. And call me old fashioned but I like it that way. This is way too Italian or even worse: German!

I have to scrape to find anything positive but lets try. Holland hasn't conceded anything, their best player (Arjen Robben) hasn't played yet and they won two games at a worldcup without playing one minute of good football. And I guess we should feel better than the English, Germans, French and even the Spanish.

Golden Clog
Mark van Bommel was the best player on the field. Never loses the ball, plays very smart and never lets the team down.