Van Marwijk hopes for serious test

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Both Holland and England have won all of their seven World Cup qualifiers so far.

But it remains to be seen whether tonight's friendly in the Amsterdam Arena will be a game of top quality.

Most players lack match practice as for the majority of them the league hasn't even started yet.

Bondscoach Bert van Marwijk emphasized after the last training session in the Arena that his team will take the game very serious.

"But my team is not as strong yet as they were two months ago when we played some excellent games against Iceland and Norway,’’ he realized.

"In England and Spain the league season hasn't started yet, so you can not expect the players to be at their best already. Do I know when my players will be in top shape again? Hopefully in June, because that is when the World Cup starts."

The friendly against England is the start of a season for the Dutch national team with games of which the result will be of no importance.

Holland have one game left against Scotland in their qualification campaign, but they are already qualified for the finals in South Africa.

The rest of the preparations consists of only friendly games.

"But that doesn't have to be a disadvantage," says Van Marwijk.

"Because my players have so far shown that they can motivate themselves for every game."

It helps that Van Marwijk has good alternatives for every position in his team.

Competition among the players has increased over the last year and it's because of that that players don't easily waive an invitation for a friendly.

Apart from that all players realize that it's very important that they get a lot of playing time at their clubs.

Especially for those at Real Madrid that is a very important thing at the moment.

Van Marwijk has to do without the injured Mark van Bommel and Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

The latter will most likely be replaced by Edson Braafheid.

Stijn Schaars would have been a logical replacement for Van Bommel, but the AZ-captain was carried off the pitch with a knee injury on Friday and only resumed training yesterday.

It's unsure whether Van Marwijk will take any risks with the midfielder.

Besides Demy de Zeeuw and David Mendes da Silva can also replace Van Bommel.

Van Marwijk has all his top class forwards at his disposal against the English.

He thought Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Rafael van der Vaart left a very eager impression during training but he also realized that the duo has hardly played a game in recent weeks.

A forward line of Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder, Dirk Kuyt and Arjen Robben therefore seems more likely.

Have a look at the head-to-head record.