Van Bommel sees room for improvement

Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Although Holland's victory was decent on the whole, the Dutch defense showed some cracks, yesterday against Slovakia. Holland's midfielder Mark van Bommel had noticed as well. "It's not that we were exposed, but they did have a few chances," Van Bommel realized. "But Maarten (Stekelenburg, df) did very well at the moments he was called upon."

Van Bommel said the chances of the Slovaks were "unfortunate moments".

"A ball being deflected right into the path of the center forward... those are critical moments, but that's why you have a goal keeper. Stekelenburg did well."

Holland's goal keeper had to watch from a distance how Holland were increasingly having problems in the second half, against a Slovak teams taking more risks as the game progressed at 1-0. There was too much distance between our lines and they were pushing us back a bit. You know such moments might come up and you have to be ready for it." Stekelenburg was ready when he had to save his team twice within two minutes.

Still the Ajax-keeper was slightly unhappy about the 2-1 victory. An effort to keep Kopunek from scoring was judged as an offense by the Spanish referee, and thus rewarded with a penalty, that was converted by Robert Vittek. According to Stekelenburg that was never a penalty. "I pulled back my hands, and he falls."

Netherlands-Slovakia 2-1

Goals

Cards

32' A. Robben
	40' J. Kucka
	72' K. Kopunek
	84' M. Skrtel
90' + 2 M. Stekelenburg

Lineups