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calipachangero
Vamos Perú!!

First time since 1982 to take part in the World Cup, today thursday is gonna be a bank holiday all over the country!!

Even sweeter thinking of Chile staying home><

Yes - congratulations indeed. I remember Peru and their fantastic shirt with a red diagonal on white from the 1970 World Cup and an amazing player called Cubillas.

And perhaps, Peru, like Chile last time round, will be the new dark horse to emerge this time.

As a Dutch football fan I have to concede with the absence of my country.
There are three countries that have players from my favorite team Feyenoord present though,
so I'll be happy if Peru (Tapia), Marocco (El Ahmadi and Amrabat) and Denmark (Jörgensen)
will get far in the tournament.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

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marcovandereijk
As a Dutch football fan I have to concede with the absence of my country.
There are three countries that have players from my favorite team Feyenoord present though,
so I'll be happy if Peru (Tapia), Marocco (El Ahmadi and Amrabat) and Denmark (Jörgensen)
will get far in the tournament.

I'm wondering what happend to dutch football. For decades you always had world class players but since a few years absolutely no new top player came of the Netherlands. Some good players yes, but no world class players. The development of new young players in the Netherlands was always considered to be top notch everywhere in the football world. Any idea what went wrong?

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firebird
Any idea what went wrong?

There are a lot of theories going around in my country. In my opinion there are two main problems.

First of all we have stuck to the "old" concept of "totaal voetbal" that Rinus Michels
and Johan Cruijff developed in the early 70s and the 4-3-3 system that comes with it.
Young players are taught to keep the teams possession of the ball as long as possible
therefor playing safe passes with only little courage to make a creative action and become
dangerous. There is not much attention for one-to-one situations at youth training.
It's mostly position play we teach our kids. They don't learn to use their intuition
and go for the kill at the right moment. They will even be told not to go for their
personal success, but to think about the team's interest first.

Second, I think too many players leave the Dutch competition at an age too young,
mainly because of the money to be made in Spain, UK, Italy, Germany and France.
The problem is, that many times they appeared to be not good enough to play in these
teams and spend much time sitting in the dug out. Meanwhile they could have played games
(at a lower salary) in their home country and gain more experience. I am not sure
this last aspect is unique for Dutch players, but I witness a talent drain in our
competitions that make the over all development of talent slower.

But that's just my interpretation of what I saw happening.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

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marcovandereijk

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firebird
Any idea what went wrong?

There are a lot of theories going around in my country. In my opinion there are two main problems.

First of all we have stuck to the "old" concept of "totaal voetbal" that Rinus Michels
and Johan Cruijff developed in the early 70s and the 4-3-3 system that comes with it.
Young players are taught to keep the teams possession of the ball as long as possible
therefor playing safe passes with only little courage to make a creative action and become
dangerous. There is not much attention for one-to-one situations at youth training.
It's mostly position play we teach our kids. They don't learn to use their intuition
and go for the kill at the right moment. They will even be told not to go for their
personal success, but to think about the team's interest first.

Second, I think too many players leave the Dutch competition at an age too young,
mainly because of the money to be made in Spain, UK, Italy, Germany and France.
The problem is, that many times they appeared to be not good enough to play in these
teams and spend much time sitting in the dug out. Meanwhile they could have played games
(at a lower salary) in their home country and gain more experience. I am not sure
this last aspect is unique for Dutch players, but I witness a talent drain in our
competitions that make the over all development of talent slower.

But that's just my interpretation of what I saw happening.

I beg to differ partly:

I don't think the football these days is any less "totaal" (total) as it used to be, when Holland stormed and conquered mountains & waves with it - quite on the contrary.
And maybe it isn't even due to that 'system' (4-3-3) being past its date... after all: it's still 11 vs. 11... I'm with JC on this one: if it is applied to perfection, it's almost unbeatable.

BUT - the coaching generation of the (late) '90s & early '00s, spearheaded by mr. Van Gaal, has made a travesty of that system & filosofy - resulting in 'possesion' being the primary goal (at the cost of goals itself...); as you say, "playing safe passes with only little courage to make a creative action and become dangerous ". A very, very unfortunate development! Moreover because the (original) "Totaalvoetbal"-concept ànd its system (4-3-3) was ALL about high pressure, extremely 'direct' & forward play, attacking football and, let's not forget that bit, making it a BEAUTIFUL game over & over again.

I mean: FC Barcelona has done a much, MUCH better job in conserving, putting into practice, ànd even sublimating this on a long-term basis than its originators, the Dutch football nation.

Also, in that very same period (over these last 20 years or so), literally EVERYBODY in your country has turned 'the Beautiful Game' into a "topic"; something 'academic', clinical, something 'to be discussed'... rather than to be played, admired, experienced,re-invented over & over & over again... thus making it (close to) a mockery, imo. The times I shouted at my tv screen, "SH*T the *** UP, all you miserable ****, and just get that ball rollin' FOR ***** SAKE!!!" while watching "Studio Sport" and/or "Studio Voetbal" & likewise, can hardly be counted (and have costed me at least 1 home, and most probably 2 realtionships...
All due love & respect, but: it's really, REALLy high time you Dutch stop talking about football. Just. Stóp. Really. (Ity's not even interesting anymore...) Play ball.

Hope you'll be back next big tournament though; because ever since the early '80s, my 'comming of age' years, I've enjoyed your football immensly - both on club level as well as your national team.

Players today are waay better one-on-one defensively. That means that rolling the ball to eachother at low speed, sideways or backwards, will be effectively killed.

It might be that Holland (as well as Norway) has focused more on being the team that keeps possession, instead of that of winning the ball back again. Some of those teams looks a little inferior physically as well.

The best teams in the world have «machines» that can do both (creative possession-play, as well as being superb defensively).

a couple of points here.

1. well done to peru from a scotsman, first game i ever watched was 1978 peru v scotland, great game apart from the score, i think the world cup qualification process must be wrong if it takes peru 36 years to get back to competition.there have been a lot worse than peru at every wc since.

2.i dont think hollands failure in recent years has anything to do with a total football approach, also think players in the modern game are far too greedy and play for themselves and not the team and holland have these types of players to,

but also we have to understand, holland made the 2010 final and only lost the 2014 semi on penalties. all international sides go through a phase of change and rebuild and holland seem to be at this stage now.

This is a very nice and cool poster, imho.

"Introducing the official World Cup poster for Russia 2018!"



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Is that Yashin?

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Koen
Is that Yashin?

Yes.