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Originally Posted by roadrunner_0
holland deserved to lose for not using RVN, no matter if you love or hate the guy, he is damn good at what he does
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The problem with Van Nistelrooy is that he is an awesome finisher, but a fairly shit player.
If you play dominant football with a lot of action around the opponent's penalty box, Van Nistelrooy is one of the most dangerous players in the world to have up front, as he has the ability to turn the smallest chances into a goal.
If, however, you are not playing quite as dominant, and you need a man up front to get the ball, hold the ball and pass it off to another player (I think the sort of role England has Crouch in, although I could be wrong) - or possibly come up with some great play to create a chance, then Van Nistelrooy is utterly ****ing useless as he can't do that.
The first three games we had in the World Cup, were all of the second type. We simply do not have the experience and manpower yet at the moment, to dominate the game. What resulted, was us constantly losing the ball up front at Van Nistelrooy as he failed to keep possession long enough for the midfield to move in. Van Basten had to sub him off in every game because of that, even going as far as to bring on Van der Vaart in order to have more actual play up front.
I can entirely understand why Van Basten decided to start off with Kuyt against Portugal, as Kuyt is much more of a footballing striker than Van Nistelrooy is, and able to both keep ball possession up front, as well as set up other players and if necessary, collect the ball from midfield himself.
Almost ironically, however, and partially due to all the people getting sent off left and right, it turned into a match where we pinned down Portugal around their own penalty area (save for a few counters) and found us without a striker to actually convert that pressure into an actual goal. With having to spend two substitutions forcibly due to bookings (subbing a defender for a midfielder to take advantage of having an extra player on the pitch, then having to sub a midfielder for a defender again as Boulahrouz got sent off), the last choice basically was Kuyt for either Van Nistelrooy or Vennegoor of Hesselink. The latter had specifically been brought along for situations in which we direly need a targetman up front to get a goal in, so Van Basten made the only logical choice there.
It's a shame, as I have little to no doubt that Van Nistelrooy would have scored a goal in that particular match. But hey, that's not what happened, it turned into a huge display of unfair play with cards flying left and right where Portugal scored a goal - and we didn't. End of story.