Van Marwijk happy with peaceful training session

Sunday, 13 June 2010

A few days ago Van Marwijk was driven mad by de the Vuvuzelas during a public training session and said he would not do that again. So today's training was sealed off from the press and the public and the Holland manager said afterwards that it was "great".

Bert van Marwijk

"Many players came up to me afterwards and said how much they had enjoyed the peaceful training session," Van Marwijk said.

"This is not about secrecy. Everyone who has followed us closely will know what we are going to do. There's not that many secrets. It was just a real pleasure to train with no one watching. "

Van Marwijk didn't want to get into details yet as to when Arjen Robben will be integrated in the squad. The Bayern Munich forward arrived in Johannesburg on Saturday.

"I spoke to him when he arrived at the hotel and he is feeling very good. The treatment has done him very well and according to Dick van Toorn (physio, df) he is fit. That is my assumption as well. But in the past few weeks he trained only once and played 40 minutes against Hungary. That is not enough. We shall now see how we can get him to the point whe

re he can actually play a game."

Van Marwijk didn't want to rule out that - if the results are good - Robben might not play until the first knockout game, after the group stages. "I can't rule out anything. It's all about how things go in the coming days."

The injury of Robben showed that Van Marwijk is dealing with a close knit group and that the atmosphere is good. "But that is something we've been working on from day one. We've been together for a while now."

Holland's closed training didn't reveal much news. Holland did a normal training session with the emphasis on set pieces (corners and free kicks). The training game at the end showed the same starting lineup as was revealed earlier this week, with a midfield of Van der Vaart, Sneijder and Kuyt and Robin van Persie up front.

There was one little incident when defender Khalid Boulahrouz planted his elbow in the face of Sneijder and then stepped on his team mates ankle. But the Cannibal and the Dutch playmaker made up quickly after.