Netherlands vs Denmark – World Cup 2010 

Front to front it will be, for me, the two best teams of the Group E. From one side we have Netherlands, candidate to win this World Cup 2010, mostly because of their form and the quality of their players. On the other side we have Denmark, that after 6 years of absence, wants to left their name marked in this World Cup.

The star of the danish side, without any discussion, is the forward of Arsenal, Nicklas Bendtner. On the dutch side, the star is Robben, without doubt. But an injury on a friendly match, when trying to dodge another player against Hungary will keep him away from this opening match. Unfortunately, because Robben is the best player of this “Clockwork Orange”. That doens’t mean that Netherlands will lose this game. They have other players capable of making the diference, names like Joris Mathijsen, Andre Ooijer, Dirk Kuyt, Mark van Bommel, Klaas Jan Huntelaar, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Rafael van der Vaart, Robin van Persie, Nigel De Jong and Wesley Sneidjer are names to be aware by their opponents. Great players has this national team. They promise go very far! That doesn’t mean that they will win this game easily because on the other side we have a team with good players as well which is certainly the second candidate team to advance from the Group E. We will have certainly a great football match, a game with goals, since both teams have good forwards capable of doing goals, on one side we have Bendtner, on the other Robin Van Persie.

Netherlands

The “Clockwork Orange”, is from my point of view, as I said numerously times, candidate to win this World Cup 2010. Everyone saw the quality of their exhibitions on the pre-cup matches. Netherlands not only scores many goals, but play as well a football very enjoyable to watch. One wants to see this team playing! It’s true that we don’t have anymore Van Nistelrlooy nor Van der Saar as big bosses on this team but the team oriented by Van Marwijk (in the team since August 2008) has a lot of young players with great quality playing in the big european clubs. Some of them are Robben and Van Persie. The Arsenal player was injured many months but he return in big style to help the team go far in this World Cup.

I truly believe in this dutch national team, it has a good coach, players with great quality as everyone knows. And one can tell that they have a very unite spirit between them with will to go very far. They certainly will end in first place on Group E and I believe with 9 points, so they will win the 3 matches of group phase.

To confirm the great form of the orange team, we have the friendlies matches. In 4 matches, they score nothing more nothing less than 14 goals and won the 4 matches. They beaten Hungary by 6-1, in a game that saw Robben get injured alone. Before that they won Ghana by 4-1, Mexico by 2-1 and USA by 2-1. As we can see, those were friendlies with teams that play minimum well, and won easily. I believe that in this World Cup they will be among the best and playing an even better football. Since it were friendlies, certainly they didn’t left everything on the field, and they didn’t have a rhythm very high. This is the squad list, as well as the statistics from the previous World Cups and their results of the qualification phase:

Squad list of the 23 players of Netherlands:

Goal-keepers: Maarten Stekelenburg (Ajax), Sander Boschker (Twente) and Michel Vorm (Utrecht).

Defenses: Khalid Boulahrouz (Sttugart/GER), Edson Braafheid (Celtic/SCO), Giovanni van Bronckhorst (Feyenoord), John Heitinga (Everton/ENG), Joris Mathijsen (Hamburg/GER), Gregory van der Wiel (Ajax) and Andre Ooijer (PSV Eindhoven).

Midfielders: Mark van Bommel (Bayern Munich/GER), Nigel de Jong (Manchester City/ENG), Stijn Schaars (AZ Alkmaar), Wesley Sneijder (Inter Milan/ITA), Rafael van der Vaart (Real Madrid/SPA), Demy de Zeeuw (Ajax) and Ibrahim Afellay (PSV Eindhoven)

Forwards: Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool/ENG), Eljero Elia (Hamburg/GER), Ryan Babel (Liverpool/ENG), Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (AC Milan/ITA), Robin van Persie (Arsenal/ENG) and Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich/GER).

• 8 presences
• 36 matches
• 16 wins
• 10 draws
• 10 defeats
• 59-38 in goals

Qualification

• 10/09/2008 Macedonia (a, 2-1) Heitinga and Van der Vaart
• 11/10/2008 Island (h, 2-0) Mathijsen and Huntelaar
• 15/10/2008 Norway (a, 1-0) Van Bommel
• 28/03/2009 Scotland (h, 3-0) Huntelaar, Van Persie and Kuyt
• 01/04/2009 Macedonia (h, 4-0) Kuyt (2), Huntelaar and Van der Vaart
• 06/06/2009 Island (a, 2-1) De Jong and Van Bommel
• 10/06/2009 Norway (h, 2-0) Ooijer and Robben
• 09/09/2009 Scotland (a, 1-0) Elia

Denmark

After 6 years of absence, Denmark wants to leave their name marked in this World Cup 2010. The “Danish Dynamite” was in the Group of Portugal in the qualification phase and ended in first place. They had only 1 defeat in 10 encounters played. We can say that it’s a strong team, and that they will pass this group.

They have players very well known in european football, like Daniel Agger (Liverpool), Daniel Jensen (Bremen), Christian Poulsen (Juventus), Dennis Rommedahl (Ajax) and Nicklas Bendtner (Arsenal).
I believe in this team, since I followed the qualification phase and the friendlies, and I can say that they have a united group that plays good football. Not always play well but when they have to win matches they win.
Their coach is Morten Per Olsen that joined the squad in July 2000.

In the pre-cup matches i believe Denmark didn’t play at full speed since they didn’t want to injure any player, and despite losing some matches I think that it isn’t very concerning and they will do a good World Cup. In the last friendlies, Denmark lost against the home team of this World Cup, South Africa. Before they lost against weak Australia, won Senegal by 2-0 and lost against Austria 2-1.
The last head to head against Netherlands was in Euro 2000 and Netherlands won 3-0. This time I don’t believe in a very unbalanced score but I believe of course in a victory of Netherlands. Here is the squad list of Denmark, the statistics of previous World Cups and the results of qualification phase where Portugal also was:

Squad list of the 23 players of Denmark:

Goal-keepers: Thomas Sørensen (Stoke City/ENG), Stephan Andersen (Brøndby) and Jesper Christiansen (FC Copenhague)

Defenses: William Jørgensen (FC Copenhague), Lars Jacobsen (Blackburn/ENG), Simon Kjær (Palermo/ITA), Per Krøldrup (Fiorentina/ITA), Daniel Agger (Liverpool/ENG), Patrick Mtiliga (Malaga/SPA) and Simon Poulsen (AZ Alkmaar/HOL)

Midfielders: Martin Jørgensen (AGF Aarhus), Christian Poulsen (Juventus/ITA), Daniel Jensen (Werder Bremen/GER), Jakob Poulsen (AGF Aarhus), Dennis Rommedahl (Ajax/HOL), Jesper Grønkjær (FC Copenhague), Thomas Kahlenberg (Wolfsburg/GER), Thomas Enevoldsen (Groningen/HOL), Christian Eriksen (Ajax/HOL) and Mikkel Beckmann (Randers).

Forwards: Jon Dahl Tomasson (Feyenoord/HOL), Søren Larsen (Duisburg/GER) and Nicklas Bendtner (Arsenal/ENG)

• 3 presences
• 13 matches
• 7 wins
• 2 draws
• 4 defeats
• 24-18 in goals

Qualification

• 06/09/2008 Hungary (a, 0-0)
• 10/09/2008 Portugal (a, 3-2) (Bendtner, Poulsen and C. Jensen)
• 11/10/2009 Malta (h, 3-0) (Larsen (2) and Agger)
• 28/03/2009 Malta (a, 3-0) (Larsen (2) and Nordstrand)
• 01/04/2009 Albania (h, 3-0) (Andreasen, Larsen and C. Poulsen)
• 06/06/2009 Sweden (a, 1-0) (Kahlenberg)
• 05/09/2009 Portugal (h, 1-1) (Bendtner)
• 09/09/2009 Albania (a, 1-1) (Bendtner)
• 10/10/2009 Sweden (h, 1-0) (Jakob Poulsen)
• 14/10/2009 Hungary (h, 0-1)

I believe in a match with goals, since Netherlands is a team which scores many goals. Denmark didn’t score so much in the friendlies matches but I think in a real test match like this one they will give their best and certainly score some goals in this group phase.

My pick is a 2-1 or 3-1 score fof Netherlands. It will certainly be a good match to watch, even without Robben Netherlands will definitely play well. It is obvious that this important absence will be noticed but the “Clockwork Orange” has other players to make the difference. Come on Netherlands, straight to the title!