Sunday, June 04, 2006

de toekomst

de toekomst means the future in dutch.

it is also the name of the youth academy of ajax amsterdam.

i suppose you can say it is very aptly named.

in any case, one thing which i used to do, is to sit down, ponder and attempt to predict all the results of the tournament, be it euro or world cup. it is hard to make good guesses this year, because i won't really be updated on form and team news and stuff.

but the least i could do is to predict, at least for now, who will get to the second round.

group a: germany, poland
group b: england, sweden
group c: netherlands, argentina
group d: portugal, iran
group e: italy, usa
group f: brazil, australia
group g: france, south korea
group h: spain, tunisia

i can't resist playing clairvoyant.

second round
munich: germany v sweden---germany
leipzig: england v poland---england
stuttgart: holland v iran---holland
nuernberg: argentina v portugal---argentina
kaiserslautern: italy v australia---australia
koeln: brazil v usa---brazil
dortmound: france v tunisia---france
hanover: spain v south korea---spain

quarter-finals
berlin: germany v holland--- holland
hamburg: australia v france--- france
gelsenkirchen: england v argentina---argentina
frankfurt: brazil v spain---spain

semis
dortmound: holland v france--- holland
munich: argentina v spain--- spain

3rd placing
stuttgart:france v argentina---argentina

final
berlin: holland v spain--- holland, duh.

i think we can win.

1) van niistelrooy need to prove ferguson dead wrong. he need to repay van basten's faith in him. i think he will.

2) this is van der vaart's big chance to remind the world of his presence. i think he will.

3) this is the first time in a long while that we don't hear any squabbling from the dutch camp.

4) this is cocu' last shot for success. he, together with van der sar, are the last of the Golden Generation. this success, won't be his alone, but would be a tribute to those of his generation as well. bergkamp, overmars, davids, seedorf, stam, numan, reiziger, jonk, the de boer twins. the class of 1998.

5) the hunger. we missed out on the party in 2002.

6) we are not that inexperienced. most of the younger players were actually part of the 2004 team.

7) 1974.

i only wished that people din notice us. then we would have the element of surprise. but i guess that had been used up in the qualifying campaign.

oranje orange!

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