FIFA 2010 World Cup: Netherlands’ Bert Van Marwijk hopes that fans will congratulate the team at their accomplishments
The Nether land coach Bert Van Marwijk has admitted that the best team at the World Cup won this time. The Spanish Armada definitely showed a better game despite an extremely tough competition with a winner only in the last minutes of the extra time which also happened to be the only goal of the whole game.
The Dutch still have complained about the goal and have been accusing the referee of the game Howard Webb that he hadn’t in fact give the foul they were appealing for and the La Furia Roja took advantage of the appeal and went ahead and scored the goal.
The Dutch coach told that he was extremely disappointed with the 1-0 loss against Spain. Netherlands were unbeaten since last year and were on a record streak of 35 straight victories.
However coach Marwijk did admit that the main reason behind the loss was that the Dutch had flunked miserably in utilizing the chances they got to score the goal. They told that against a team like Spain to win they must have to exploit each and every mistake made by Spain but sadly they were in capable of doing so. He then added that if that wasn’t enough the team made mistakes of their own which eventually led to their downfall.
While talking to media the coach expressed, “I am very disappointed. Three more minutes, and we would have made it. We could have done much better, but we lost in the crucial minutes”.
He further explained that had they possessed the ball more and made a few pragmatic plays instead of adopting a counterattacking and wing slashing strategy they would have a better chance of winning, “We came so close, and were very nervous. There were too many errors made, and we didn't take advantage of our opportunities. However the better side won in the end”.
Marwijk disappointedly stated, “I wanted to be World Champions. We were not scared to do well, but seeing how many people we have with yellow cards, we were aiming to get the match to a penalty shoot-out”.
Marwijk told that seeing so many yellow cards did frustrate him. That was pretty ironic as the majority of the deserved yellow cards came from the Dutch. Marwijk however commented on the issue saying that refereeing is a part of the match and in the end it has to be accepted. He also told that he hoped the Dutch fans won’t get very disappointed and congratulate the Netherland squad on their accomplishments in the tournament.
The Netherlands forward also had a few words against the English referee Howard Webb and they were not words of approval. He stated that if there was any person to blame for their defeat it was the referee and his biased judgment.
Kuyt told that the final at Soccer City Stadium the winner by Andres Iniesta should have happened of the referee had given the foul which the team was appealing for. He told that the Spanish exploited situation which any other team would have done.
He also criticized Webb’s policy of hand the yellow cards like they were free tickets to a fare. In the match Webb gave out 14 yellow cards to 13 players and one also received a red card after two yellows.
The red card situation left the Dutch in a humongous disadvantage in the final and they eventually couldn’t capitalise on their present resources to produce the equalizer. John Heitinga was the man who was sent out after tackling Iniesta.
Kuyt who plays for the English club Liverpool vented his anguish saying, “We are angry because we were so close. The referee was slightly more for them than for us. That ultimately cost us the cup”.
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