Match Preview : Holland v. Romania

“Well, I hope that all the Romanians living in France and Italy can at least manage to show some respect and not go out on the streets to celebrate knocking out the beloved teams of their generous new-found countries of choice.”
You really could not help yourself could you?

Good luck to all the teams tonight — and I’m glad we forced both France and Italy to actually need luck and gut each other — although I hardly believe that if we snatch a draw from Holland it’ll be anything more than 1-1 Ian. Still, your kind comments are much appreciated, truly!

Posted from  Romania

1-1 may be more realistic, but I really do think that the Holland defense is going to be significantly weaker than both the ones faced in the qualifiers and the ones that have defeated France and Italy. We’ll see who starts.

A win for Romania and Italy and France will have to go home. That is what going to happen tonight. Although i support Italy, but i dont think they deserve to be in the quarter finals…

Posted from  Malaysia

Hey Ian,

I am saying no more, because I am already shaking in fear (and there are almost 12 hours until the game still), but mark my words: Romania will win 2-0 or 2-1.
HAI ROMANIA!!!

HAI ROMANIA !
Impca Franta si Italia sa mearga impreuna acasa !
Go at home ITALY & France !
please see my site:
http://euro2008.bismarkrom.com
Mutu IL FENOMENO, SuperMUTU

This is probably the first match of the Dutch team where I would not mind losing.

Posted from  Germany

Although I am French and a Les Bleus fan, I have to admit that neither Italy or France deserve to advance. Romania and the Netherlands do. They both have played so well. I still can’t believe that Romania tied both World Cup 2006 finalists and almost won against Italy if Mutu didn’t miss that penalty.

Posted from  United States

Ian,

A decent analysis, but i would not put too much emphasis on the 0-0, 1-0 qualification results.

Holland played a totally different system in the qualification rounds (4-3-3) compared to the system played since (4-2-3-1). Playing the new system resulted in 4 wins against Croatia (0-3), Austria (3-4), Ukraine (3-0) and Wales (2-0) and a draw against Denmark (1-1). And we all know what happended to France and Italy.

Not to mention the awful conditions surrounding the 1-0 win by the Romanians (weather, stadium, travel), the fact that Holland should cleary have won the game and the fact that Holland only conceided 3 goals during qualification. Oh wait, I just mentioned it.

hope romania go through though.

Regards,

Bill

Posted from  United Kingdom

Holland may be qualified but has a difficult task tonight. There were many cases where teams that choose ethics ended in failure. It might be the case tonight when Holland might help Italy go further in the tournament and, if the two will meet in the semifinal, I’d put all my money on Italy. Lets hope Holland knows this and will do what they have to do: knock Italy and France out.

Posted from  Romania

I think most people underestimate Romania’s quality .
They do have a dangerous team as both France and Italy already found out .
As a Dutchman I can tell you our team will go for a win , but i wont be surprised if it ends in a zero-zero ending .

Romania is strongly defensive and they will force our team in a technical gameplay , lots of ball-go-round situations …its not our gamestyle really. Mutu will be únder strong observations i guess lol

Good luck to Romania ..

Regards,
Henk
Amsterdam

Posted from  Netherlands

Henk, you are right on the money, thank you for a very pertinent observation. Most people still believe that Romania is some sort of fluke totally disregarding their recent results and very good performance. We beat Netherlands and drew with them in the qualifying, we held Italy and France, what more do we have to do in order to prove that we are in the world’s top 10?

As a side note, I must add: UEFA did a terrible mistake because there was even the possibility of these 4 teams to end up together in the same group. In my opinion, all the 4 teams present in this group deserve a place in the quarter finals. What should be changed? The system of the heads of the groups. Who is organizing the tournament should not be a factor in this, in my opinion. Same story could happen in 4 years, when Poland and Ukraine will host Euro.
UEFA, learn from tennis, and see how the best players only play among themselves in the upper stages of the competitions.

How will Mutu play today? Will he still feel devastated about that penalty miss?

Posted from  United States

Paul : Don’t get me started on the Group of Death thing. It’s just ridiculous. An hour and a half to go now, folks. Romania needs a draw to have hope, but a win to be sure of moving on. I’ll be liveblogging the match for those that can’t watch it on the main page at http://euro2008.worldcupblog.org

My heart is racing already, Ian.
If by an unfortunate twist of fate Romania is eliminated, I want to thank you in advance for the great job that you’ve done here with this blog.

I’ll add my voice to Paul’s in thanking you for taking on this blog. It was good to see the discussion initiated and moderated by such a balanced person. ’twas a real pleasure.

As to the match, I really do hope you’re right on 2-2, although I’m still too negative a person to see us doing any better than 1-1 heh. Hope to be proven wrong, least I’d get a bit of schadenfreude from watching the french and italians react to that haha.

Posted from  Romania

35 more minutes !!! HAI ROMANiA !!! Let’s send the Blue guys home !!!

Posted from  United States

It seems A. Mutu didn’t want to follow Ahn Jung-Hwan’s history, so, he will have some more wonderful years in Italy? How about self respect, Adi?
Enjoy your next 4-20 million euro, you deserve them.

Funny how the myth of a strong Romanian side persisted right up to their complete (self-)humiliation during their last half at this tournament.
Paul: nobody I heard claimed that Romania was a “fluke” or didn’t qualify deservedly. But it was more and more obvious DURING this tournament that they played like shit, mostly (probably) due to bad mental preparation and strategy.
What would it take to consider Romania part of the world’s top ten? Playing inspired, focused, precise, and yes, attractive football. Again, DURING this tournament Romania didn’t do this, not even for one half of a game (I actually count the first 20 min. of their France game as their most focused period.)
Sympathizing with a team should not prevent one from being objective. The Dutch played world-class. Romania played second-class or worse.

Posted from  United States

Dude all these newspapers, articles, and our coach’s - Piturca - talk about how it’s Mutu’s fault he missed the penalty. WOW Mutu was the only player that actually tried to play in this competition. Ridiculos… pathetic… I used to like Piturca, but I really believe it’s his fault, if we really need to blame someone. Playing so defensive was never our strategy. He came and tried to impose a completely different game style on our team and that’s what screwed us. If Iordanescu was our coach we would have won against France and Italy and played a open spectacular game. Instead we played most of this tournament in our half of the field. pff anyway, I’m looking forward to a new coach and the World Cup. Peace Out

I have no beef with Mutu or any of the players. I’m sure they did what they could.
Ian Rose: As with ‘objectivity’: that’s a fake challenge. Nobody is ‘objective’, but some people cut through the crap better than others. You owe me a drink already (but I’m located in the States). What I’m taking issue with is the claim that Romania played well. If your measure is the “rank” of its opponents, we have very different methodologies, which would explain our differences in analysis.
France played like crap (reflected in your site’s ‘rankinks’). Italy did too, but they’re better fighters, something of a truism too.
“Group of Death”? Give me a break. Group of the Dead is more accurate, with the exception of the Dutch of course.
To make my point slightly differently: If you had Euro 100, would you spend it on a a) Romania-Sweden, or b) Russia-Sweden game? (Note the nationalities of the coaches…)
Oh, I see: you just don’t care if you see attacking and exciting football or kicking the ball around for most of the time…

Posted from  United States

In reading your defense-happy pre-game analysis again: It’s kind of funny, at the risk of repeating myself.

“…both the Tricolorii and the Oranje have allowed only one goal against France and Italy”.

Yeah, but Romania scored ONE (on a blatant defensive mistake) and the Dutch scored what: NINE? Just a slight difference, no doubt explicable by some statistical acrobatics.

Posted from  United States