Foppe de Haan: "This was incredible"

Thursday 07 August 2008

Holland boss Foppe de Haan has seen a lot during his long coaching career. But playing football in a Chinese oven, like Holland did today in Tianjin against Nigeria (0-0), was new to him as well.

"This was incredible, " he sighed after the somewhat disappointing opening match at the Olympics.

"It must have been pretty hot in the stands with 50,000 people packed together, oozing heat and moisture. But it was even worse down there on the pitch. It seemed as if the smog was captured inside the stadium. But considering these extreme circumstances, I feel we did pretty well."

De Haan talked to the press in the mixed zone, while a big grass hopper inspected the side of his pants.

The Friesian nature fan didn't pay the creature any mind.

"Well, as long as it doesn't become a plague one grass hopper is not a problem," he said jokingly.

Despite his joking mood De Haan was pretty harsh in his commentary on some of his players.

"Evander Sno played at the pace of the Eighty Year War," was one of his sharp remarks.

Besides Sno, substitute Otman Bakkal was addressed by the successful coach.

"He came on very poorly. The whole team were hanging by their fingernails, but Bakkal did nothing to relieve them. He didn't seem to understand what was needed. I thought that of a number of players. Too much 'knitting', too much walking with ball, where under these circumstances you should try and win without much physical effort."

And he wasn't finished there: "Maduro was wasted after 30 minutes without having shown a lot of initiative. Jaliens also was way too tame in the first half. After the break he did better. Gerald Sibon played too sloppy when he came on. We will have do things a little differently against the USA on Sunday."

"But still I am not unhappy about our achievements."