Van Basten no wiser after last practice

Sunday, 2 June 2008

A modest and for large parts uninspired 2-0 victory over Wales was the last the Dutch home crowd got to see of the team that leave for Lausanne, Switzerland next Tuesday to compete in the European Championships finals.

Holland start the tournament with a game in Bern against world champions Italy on Monday 9 June.

Arjen Robben scored the opening goal after a 50 meter solo run and he stood by to see Wesley Sneijder double the score after 54 minutes with a great freekick from 23 meters out.

But the last practice match will leave Holland coach Marco van Basten with more questions than answers as he saw his first choice play a lackluster first half followed by a much brighter second half from the reserves.

Van Basten had stuck to the lineup he started against Denmark on Thursday but - especially the first 30 minutes - the home team had trouble finding a hole in the crowded Welsh defense.

Whenever Holland did put something nice together the Real Madrid trio Sneijder, Robben and Van Nistelrooy were always involved.

Now it is this lineup that Van Basten will probably start with against Italy, but the way in which midfielders Rafael van der Vaart, Demy de Zeeuw and Orlando Engelaar filled in their positions can not have satisfied Marco van Basten much.

Their stand-ins Dirk Kuyt, Nigel de Jong and Ibrahim Affelay showed they are full of ambition to move up a place in the pecking order by showing a lot of energy and thus offering the crowd a far better second half.

But besides Sneijder's magnificent freekick their efforts also did not create many more chances.

On the other end the Welsh did get few chances themselves. Only once did Van der Sar have to act, when Bellamy got through on the edge of offside, but his wild shot was easily blocked by the Manchester United stopper.

Coach Van Basten did not want to reveal much about the 11 that will start against Italy, but he spoke of "interesting developments".

He was critical about the amount of chances wasted: "Again we created a lot of chances and we won, but we should have scored more"

Van Basten found that Nigel de Jong and Mario Melchiot did well in the second half but he did not want to admit that their performances put any doubt in his mind.

"We'll take all such moments into consideration. I saw some interesting developments on the way to the Italian game. This is an interesting team that can go far. With the wind blowing in the right direction we can go a long way. With the wind blowing in the wrong direction we might also be out after round 1"

Netherlands
Van der Sar, Ooijer, Heitinga (46/Melchiot), Mathijsen (80/Vennegoor), Van Bronckhorst (46/De Cler), Sneijder, De Zeeuw (46/De Jong), Engelaar (46/Kuijt), Van der Vaart (67/Afellay), Robben, Van Nistelrooy

Wales
Hennessey, Ricketts (78/Crofts), Morgan, Nyatanga, Williams, Gunter, Koumas (73/Vokes), Robinson (46/Collison), Edwards (58/Evans) , Eastwood (58/Bellamy), Ledley (89/Eardley)