Ressaca

«De Jong and van Bommel were supposed to represent the ugly face of the modern Dutch game. They were supposed to be cynical, hard-tackling spoilers who protect the back four in a broken 4-2-3-1, winning balls so that the front four can convert on the other end. That was the pragmatic style that took the Dutch to the World Cup final two years ago. The canal belt intellectuals may not have liked it, and some even saw it as a betrayal of the Total Football tradition, but it was indisputably effective. Not anymore. With Mesut Ozil dragging the pair back and forth and creating space, Bastian Schweinsteiger was able to find unfathomable amounts of space in what Ottmar Hitzfeld terms "the red zone", that is, the central area 10-20 yards outside the 18-yard box. It is the space that defenses must protect above all else -- Roy Hodgson has based a career on it -- and yet Schweinsteiger merrily picnicked there in the first half, having time to measure his through-balls to Gomez. Whatever other problems plague the Dutch -- they may have moved away from the total-footballing 4-3-3 philosophy, but the traditional sulking, backbiting and infighting remain as popular as ever -- this basic structural error undermines everything else.» {daqui}

Esta é a verdade das coisas. É disto que eu me queixo desde 2008. É isto {maldito Bert!} que tem de acabar até domingo. Não acredito muito, mas a esperança é a última a morrer...