Dutch Football - UEFA Cup - NEC - Mario Been: "Proud in spite of defeat"

"The intellectualisation
of football has
always foundered
on a simple problem-
-the players. Doing
all your most
rewarding thinking
with your feet seems
to dull the philo-
sophical impulse.
Unless, of course,
you are Dutch.
According to legend,
Europeans played
a moronic, muscular
version of the world's
game, until Holland
proclaimed its vision
of total football in the
1974 World Cup,
and enlightenment
dawned."

From:
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football

Mario Been: "Proud in spite of defeat"

Thursday 23 October 2008

NEC coach Mario Been was a happy man despite his team having lost 3-2 at the hands of Dynamo Zagreb.

Been saw his team dominate their opponents for large stretches of the game, but the Croats dealt them a big blow by scoring twice in the last ten minutes of the game.

"It's at such moments you can see we lack experience. But I am very proud of this young team," Been said.

The former Feyenoord starlet noticed his team only got in real trouble at set pieces.

"We knew they were strong in the air due to the height in the team. But we played some good football. It's a pity we started walking back after we took the lead, where we should have kept defending forward."

The coach praised the way in which his team fought back after they conceded early.

"After that goal I saw a team with incredible resilience. We dominated them in large stretches of the game."