Well Anni you can spin this in many ways.
Van der Vaart has always been talented but never really became a really good player and it is quite a miracle he is still playing for madrid. Also I see no reason to prefer him over sneijder, who obviously played a great season and was very decisive, where as van der vaart didn't add jack shit to any of the games he played.
So much for playmaker. But anyway lets compare assists/goals and Sneijder is obvious winner handsdown.
Sneijder has had a good season, no doubt. He has a few very lethal weapons. The Dutch media have bummed him plenty for it. Remember though that the
only thing he has to do at Inter is play through balls to 2 world class strikers, he's not even allowed to defend there. Playing '10' for NL normally requires a lot more: intelligent movement and good vision for starters. Not his strong points to put it mildly. He's been very important this tournament, due to his (fluky) goals, but he hasnt played well for 90 mins in any of the games. Not to mention his beautiful shots from 40/50 meters, even when time was running out
Stekelenburg, v Bronckhorst, Mathijsen, v Bommel, Kuyt and Robben all have played consistently better than Sneijder. But most people only look at the scoreboard, instead of the pitch.
As for ur 'comparison' between VdV and Sneijder: how many games was VdV allowed to play at his natural position? What did u expect of him as a left winger? And he's added a lot more than jack shit, every time he came in the team they performed better, the tempo got upped and van Persie got involved more.
Indeed, let's do compare their assists and goals. Van der Vaart wins easily. Oh, u meant just at the WC ...
Then you argue that we should let Kuyt out, for Elia, are you serious or wtfkidding the world here? Elia played one good season at twente and got a trasnfer to HSV, Kuyt has played well and has been important for NL and Liverpool for.... years. I would prefer Kuyt in basic 11 over Elia any day during the last cup, however Elia is a good player and subbing him in around 60-70 mins is wise.
Kuyt has good workrate, good teamwork and good spirit. Decent heading and finishing. But he's got countless limitations as well. Choosing Kuyt over Elia as a winger, when u already have 6 people behind the ball most of the time just shows the true colours of a gutless manager.
Furthermore, our playstyle (result footy), ah well call it whatever you want. We start off with Robben, van Persie Sneijder Kuyt, have an offensive back with Van der Wiel and basicly near the same selection as when Van Basten was coach. The only thing you might want to call defensive is the Van Bommel/De Jong duo on midfield, rest is pretty normal, but one does not want to get overrun.
It's not (just) about player selection, its how u use them. Disappointing, even for your standards.
So imo you're pretty much joining the bandwagon here, we didn't play great footy during this tournament but neither did we come to win games with 1-0 and go to the final aka Italy/Greece etc. The whole world isn't disgusted by our playstyle, infact they think we have a lot of good players and 95% plays with similar styles, even Spain. Spain often had 10 man behind the ball, but their midfield is a bit more creative, that is all (I think NL scored more goals than Spain for instance, but correct me if I am wrong).
I agree that there have been many teams who have played negative football, thats why this tournament has been utterly disappointing. Germany, Spain and Chile were probably the only teams who actually tried to play positive. Argentina perhaps, but without proper teamwork.
Again, don't just look at the scoreboard. Spain played one of their best matches of the tournament vs Switzerland, but they lost that one. And Greece? What the heck? They just don't have the material to do anything else.
Oh and by the way, most people in sports want to win
just so you know!
Ohmygoshh, really? I don't know why, but some people in NL seem to think that by playing crap football ur odds of winning the tournament are higher than when playing well.
@Gazz:
A lot of 'biased' opinions from people outside of Holland too, remarkable
![:\](/images/smilies/submitted/smark/ohwell.gif "Oh Well :\")
Webb had a lot to do, with unsporting play from
both sides right from the off. It wasn't just the Spanish making the most of the Dutch foul play, which is what u are making it look like. And u are waving away 2 possible red cards far too easily, in that case it was ok for Zidane to headbutt Materazzi too, who could blame him after being provoked, right?
Anyway, I'm not blaming the ref at all for this, Spain are the deserved winners. But Webb had an undeniable poor game in which he didn't, at any point, try to 'let the game flow when he could', now
that is a 'crazy' comment.
