Holland v Denmark quick pre-match thoughts

Thoughts from a Dutch perspective.

Happy thoughts:
Great team play the last few friendly's (whatever they mean...);
Good form of Holland's best players: Sneijder, van Persie, van der Vaart;
Whatever others say: the defense isn't as weak as advertised. Just 2 goals against in qualifying. Never conceded more then 2 goals in friendly's.
On the contrary what has been reported by international media (who seem to copy and paste old stories before big tournaments): the mood in the team has been very positive;
Van Marwijk's presence: in retrospect, former coach van Basten was too inexperienced to lead this Dutch team. When Holland faced Russia in Euro 2008 he was totally out-foxed by Guus Hiddink and couldn't make necessary adjustments when needed. Really no surprise if you consider that this was van Basten's first real coaching job. Although van Marwijk is not well known internationally, he is experienced and tactically sound.

Bad thoughts
Morten Olson is a great coach and no doubt he will try to force Holland to hoof it up field. Reportedly this Jabulani doesn't react normal in the air and in combination with the altitude this will cause problems creating chances;
With Robben not playing, the Dutch has no speedy player up front. This can be used by Morton Olsen by making the playing field very small, making it difficult for Oranje to play their preferred combination football (there is no doubt van Marwijk will bring in speedy Eljiro Elia at some point in the second half);
Dutch left back situation: Gio van Bronkhorst is pretty good going forward but has trouble defending. Dennis Rommendahl isn't a great player by any means but certainly is speedy. Gio has trouble facing players with Jan Koller speed, so no doubt he's going to have a troubling day if the Danes play it smart;
Denmark's set pieces are very dangerous, and although the Dutch don't concede much, they don't have many good headers of the ball.

Fearless (not!) prediction: 2-1 to Holland. But a draw wouldn't surprise me at all.

Dutch line up (4-2-3-1) Stekelenburg; van der Wiel, Heitinga, Mathijsen, van Bronkhorst; van Bommel, de Jong; Kuyt, Sneijder, van der Vaart; van Persie