As well as the European Championship play-off second legs, a number of international friendlies, involving nations already qualified for next summer’s tournament, took place earlier this week. Here is a summary of two of the more interesting of these fixtures, England vs Sweden, but first Germany vs Holland.
Germany v Holland, played in Hamburg on Tuesday evening, was billed as the latest chapter in the story of a fierce national rivalry, both footballing and otherwise, stretching back to World War 2 and encompassing the 1974 World Cup, the 1988 Euro Championships and a fiery encounter at Italia 90.
The match itself however, proved to be an entirely one sided affair failed to live up to any competitive expectations that there may have been. Germany started the game brightly, passing the ball sharply and Klose had a chance in the opening minutes, firing just wide. The hosts took the lead on 15 minutes with a clinical attacking move, Kroos with a pinpoint cross-field ball to Klose, whose perfectly weighted header down was met first-time by the on-rushing Thomas Mueller who finished with aplomb. The Dutch never recovered, Germany making it 2-0 on 26 minutes, this time Klose finishing off another excellent attacking move with a trademark header. Mueller was involved again, this time supplying Oezil, whose early cross was perfect service for Klose. From that moment the game was effectively over, and, despite a brief Dutch effort at the beginning of the second period, it merely became a question of how many the Germans wanted to score. They made it 3-0 after 66 minutes, the trio of Oezil, Mueller and Klose combining again, this time for Oezil to score the goal of the game, finishing a sweeping move by tapping the ball into an empty net after some brilliant passing and combination play had carved Holland open.
The match, of course, was only a friendly, and the Dutch team was missing a number of first team regulars such as van Persie and Robben, however their performance was abject, lacking any cohesion and passion. Germany on the other hand, also missing key players such as Lahm and Schweinsteiger, looked very impressive, compact and calm in defence, quick and clinical in attack, particularly the three goal-scorers whose link up play was excellent. On the evidence of this encounter Holland need to improve quickly, Germany will take some beating next summer.
England went into the game against Sweden at Wembley on Tuesday evening having failed to beat before the their opponents since 1968, however, having beaten Spain three days before, they were hoping to put an end to that run.
End it they did, Gareth Barry’s header deflected in by Majstorovic, the Celtic centre-half, midway through the first period. Buoyed by the goal, England played well for the rest of the half, creating a number of chances, the best of which was undoubtedly Jack Rodwell’s header five minutes or so before the break. A number of England’s fringe and younger players took the opportunity to impress, Downing in particular, who created the chance for Rodwell, as part of an excellent overall contribution and, Rodwell did himself no harm whatsoever, turning in an all action performance at the heart of the midfield. Sweden, for their part, were ok, solid enough defensively as you would expect, but quite ineffectual going forward, Zlatan Ibrahimovic again saving a thoroughly lacklustre performance for the English fans to see.
England emerge from the encounter having blooded a few of their youngsters and given game-time to those who have been on the fringes of the squad. This could be very important for next summer as there are big question marks surrounding some of the more established older guard, Rooney and Terry amongst others. The win will give the squad confidence, but they have a long way to go if they really want to mount a challenge at Euro 2012. Sweden were definitely playing in second gear in this match, it is difficult to gauge, therefore, the danger they may pose in Poland and Ukraine. It is safe to say that they will surely be better than the evidence of Tuesday evening, but one thing is certain, if Ibrahimovic doesn’t bring his A game, Sweden will be going home early.
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Germany vs Holland / Oranje vs ‘Die Mannschaft’ – Old football rivalry of 70′s/80′s re-lived tomorrow evening in Hamburg in International friendly match – by OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog sports contributor Filip van der Plas
November 15th, 2011[ Football pitch with dimensions from Wikipedia by 'NielsF']
Tomorrow evening in Hamburg at 2045hrs the Dutch national football team – otherwise known as ‘Oranje’ or ‘Orange’ – will play a ‘friendly international’ against Germany.
Both teams played tied friendly games last Friday – Germany came from behind and ended in a 3-3 away draw against Ukraine while the Netherlands faced a determined Swiss team and played to a boring 0-0 result.
The less enlightened of the media of both nations are playing up the nationalist sentiments by saying there is a lot of prestige at stake and playing up the decades old rivalry between this ‘Oranje and Die Mannschaft’.
This does indeed to some degree still exist however most football fans have moved on from 1974 and 1988 and while some petty squabbling is inevitable both teams – and most fans -have a grudging respect for each other.
It is now generally admitted in the Netherlands that on that World Cup Final day in 1974, Germany deserved their win – they were on the day better than the Oranje team – who perhaps had been the better team over the entire tournament.
However that was not the case in Argentina 4 years later in the 1978 World Cup final when in fact Argentina was not the better team in the final and through various incidents of devious and unscrupulous behavior could be quite conclusively accused of having stolen that win.
However Denis Bergkamp, another one of those classical Dutch strikers like Marco van Basten, made up for that loss in part by a miraculous goal in Paris many years later when Holland beat Argentina in the quarter finals. It was high-lighted this week in the UK Guardian newspaper. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/11/joy-of-six-first-touches-bergkamp?INTCMP=SRCH
Who says Dutch football commentators are un-emotional! – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqEWpHuib9A
Today’s very young German team play attractive passing football with lots of concomitant creativity up-front which results in lots of nice goals.
And when it comes to creative football the Dutch have an imagination like no other, even though they were a bit let-done in the final of the South Africa World Cup last year where they lost in overtime 0-1 with 10 men to Spain.
The ‘KNVB’ Dutch football federation coach Bert van Marwijk just like his German counterpart the Deutsche Fußball-Bundé ‘DFB’s Jogi Löw have been forced to experiment recently – partly from necessity and partly from curiosity to test different player combinations.
Being Dutch and living in Germany I have come to appreciate the Bundesliga and German players while recognizing that historically there have not been too many real ‘friendly’ matches between Germany and the Netherlands.
The rivalry between the two countries since the World Cup of 1974 and the Euro 1988 competition -if you do not include WWII – has been profound, however since more Dutch players and coaches are now in the Bundesliga itself a better understanding and more mature relationship has resulted.
Time heals all wounds they say and I feel that is the case in this respect and I look forward to the game tomorrow and want and expect an open ended game, with hopefully lots good scoring opportunities and fluid and open play.
Both teams can and usually do play an open and aggressive attacking type of football – and are both known for their offensive goal scoring abilities.
The teams are pretty evenly matched. Both mid-fields are good, with perhaps an edge for the Netherlands. Defensively with Neuer in goal perhaps Germany may have an edge there.
Both teams have young defenders who still tend to fall asleep and lose their concentration and can make the most outrageous and irritatingly stupid mistakes when the goalies are then left somehow to produce some instant magic in order to clean-up!
Absent for the Netherlands will be Robin van Persie, the injured Rafael van der Vaart, and the recuperating Arjen Robben and Ibrahim Afellay – so too bad that the Netherlands will not play up its strongest team.
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar of the German Bundesliga team ‘Schaller 04’ will be wearing a mask to protect his fully broken nose which he received playing in a Champions League game about 10 days ago.
The young German team are in very good physical condition and `always keep going for the full 90 minutes` the only Dutch player like this is Dirk Kuyt, in fact a sort of `Dutch German`.
Likewise Germany’s team will be missing some important players like Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm – Miroslav Klose and Marco Reus will be fit.
Mesut Özil – without a doubt a world-class player just starting his career – Khedira, Cacau, Mario Gomez, Tomas Mueller and the 19 year-old Mario Götze who plays for Borussia Dortmund, along with the Polish-born Podolski and Klose are all part of a very attractive German football side.
While no-one is expecting a ‘love-in’ – football is after all a very competitive and contact sport – the atmosphere should be one of mutual respect and played in the spirit of friendship.
Usually these games end in ties – so we will see tomorrow.
Tomorrow live 2015 on ZDF – don’t miss it!
This evening on Sport 1 on German TV see a documentary with a live debat after the show on the topic of ‘Deutschland gegen Holland’ – http://www.hoerzu.de/tv-programm/sendung/deutschland-gegen-holland-das-talkduell/sport1/14.11.2011/21.45
For some of the truely great goals of the Netherlands team in Euro 1988 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv4IgrV4HVM&NR=1
See also – http://netherlands.worldcupblog.org/
this article kindly allowed to be reprinted from the OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog
This article is the property of and copyrighted to its owner http://e-u-r-o-2012.com.We welcome any links to blog articles – however they may be reproduced or copied only with the prior written permission of http://e-u-r-o-2012.com.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those ‘EURO 2012 Blog’ but of the contributor.
Subsequent comments to the blog articles that appear on the site are not the opinion of ‘EURO 2012 Blog’ but only of the comment writer.
Personal attacks, offensive language, racist, sexist, bigoted views and unsubstantiated allegations will not be printed. ‘ EURO 2012 Blog’ reserves the right to determine if comments are any of the above.
Tags: case in argentina, dutch football, football commentators, football fans, football pitch, friendly games, german team, guardian newspaper, last friday, marco van basten, national football team, oranje, quarter finals, srch, strikers, swiss team, tomorrow evening, uk guardian, unscrupulous behavior, wikipedia
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