Costa possibly out for rest of the season with a knee injury, let's hope the rest of our wingers stay healthy.
Was 100% sure he'd find a way to score in this game, glad I was correct. Sad to see him retire, most of the younger DFB players have the charme of a potato.
No talk about the international games this weekend? Good! Not worth it. Germany's official Oliver Bierhoff said in an interview, that the market is oversaturated and football sooner or later will suffer from this quantity over quality schedule. Although I don't like him, finally some reason from a person in charge. Looking at this weekend's matchup it's hard to find a counter-argument. Not a single match I would consider somewhat interesting. 90% of the qualified teams are certain even before the qualification matches start. Also still don't get why Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan are part of the UEFA.
Blind sacked as Netherlands coach, hope you guys can turn it around and make it to the WC. Netherlands have really fallen off the map, crazy when you think about how good they were until recently.
I do not even know the names of their teen players like in the past..... Kluivert, Seedorf, Overmars, De Boers, Davids, and so on. Now I know merely one or two players such as former or current EPL players Janssen, Wijnaldum, Blind, Depay, Krul. Some are not even getting regular playing time and are not young at all. The quality in contrast to former golden generations has fallen off considerably. Their time will come again just not yet.
Nope. It's 5x Brazil, 4x Germany & Italy, 2x Argentinia & Uruguay, 1x France, Spain, England. African teams have never advanced past the quarterfinals.
Bind's appointment was doomed from the start. His only experience as a head coach was with Ajax over a decade ago and he failed miserably. It's so annoying when you can see it coming a mile away and still nothing is done about it. Ugh. Looks like we won't quality for 2018 either. Yeah, this generation isn't the best but we have some decent players: Wijnaldum - playing very well @ Liverpool this season Strootman - finally free of injuries @ AS Roma de Vrij - one of the best defenders in the Serie A @ Lazio Depay - talented and still plenty of potential there, has been doing better @ Lyon Robben - sure, he's getting old but he still has world-class qualities Sneijder - still a useful player even at his age Promes - one of the top scorers in Russia Dost - current top scorer in Europe V Janssen - terrible at Tottenham, but I still have some hope for the guy Cillesen - decent keeper playing second-fiddle @ Barcelona And we also have some decent youngsters coming through. It's not what we had back in 1998-2004 or even the generations that did so well in the World Cups recently, but you can't tell me that team isn't better than Bulgaria or Sweden. It's embarrassing. We could barely beat Luxembourg last time. The guy is a joke, after his dismissal he goes "oh we were doing so well, this was just an incident, shame." I hope van Gaal comes back if we can't convince Koeman!
No offense but France has been half an African team to me, many players from former colony countries. Even got an Indian based player in Dhorasoo in the past, that is very rare. Great Zizou, Real Madrid coach, is Algerian. Also Holland has been unlucky with titles.
What about guys like El Ghazi, Riedewald, Berghuis and Bergwijn? Were really hyped in the past but I don't see them playing for the national team anymore.
Country of birth is more important imo, Zidane was born in Marseille and same with other guys. If you see it that way, the German team would be full of Turkish guys etc as well. Switzerland is a different story though, a ton of their guys were born in former Yugoslavia.
Sure, I know but Germany has not always been that way. Not just Turkish guys, they took in everyone talented who got German roots, maybe it be as small as a great grand pa. Klinsmann and Yogi did start something there. Correct me if a rather unknown name began with it earlier. Klinsmann tried the same thing with the USMNT. Kudos to Germany that their local talents has been as good as or better than naturalized talents, kids from immigrants. They just added to their depth. France has been doing that a lot longer as their population has been diverse for decades or even for a couple of centuries. Portugal are gathering players from Cap Verde......another example, the Netherlands are doing the same. (Suriname....)
With the amount of talent Oranje produces on regular bases, I don't understand the misery you're in right now. We need you guys to step up, big tournaments are not the same without the Dutch. It's like not having England there and failing in penalties. Also thought of Van Gaal as Blind's successor. Eventhough he retired, I think he'd be the best fit in this situation. Van Gaal was the best when he worked with young and maybe a bit unproven talent and was at his worst when it came to deal with superstars. At least for the Qualifiers I think there's no better choice.
