February 19, 2009

‘Big 4’ record for Van der Sar

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 1:30 am

Unlike we originally claimed last week, Manchester United’s fourteenth consecutive clean sheet, against Fulham yesterday (3-0) does not mean that their Dutch goalie Edwin van der Sar got the European or even world record. The record he broke, that of Abel Resino of Atlético Madrid, was ‘only’ that of not conceding a goal for the ‘big four’ European leagues. According to Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch) those are the leagues of England, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Still awaiting Van der Sar are the European record, held by Danny Verlinden of Club Brugge, which stands at 1,390 minutes, and the world record of Mazaropi, Vasco da Gama, Brazil, at an incredible 1,816 minutes.

Photo by Austin Osuide, some rights reserved.

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February 10, 2009

Third record for goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:16 am

The British record for not conceding a goal is now also in the firm hands of Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. Previously, he had already taken the English league and English professional football records, but until last weekend the British record belonged to Scotland. Van der Sar—who helped his team win 1-0 from West Ham—has now gone 1,212 minutes without conceding a goal, bettering Bobby Clark’s 1,155 minutes.

Oddly enough, the English press continues to feel the need to point out that Van der Sar could not have done it without ManU’s fabulous back line. You have to wonder whether they would have kept repeating and repeating this obvious fact if the Dutch goalie had been British. Says The Times:

Van der Sar is enjoying a fine season, but to pass 20 hours (1,212 minutes to be precise) without conceding a league goal, as he did at Upton Park yesterday to set a British best, is testament to Manchester United’s unblinking confidence as much as the 38-year-old’s form.

The most difficult save he was required to make against West Ham was a routine catch from a shot by Lucas Neill. Pruning his roses at 78 will be harder work than that.

The next record in Van der Sar’s sights is the big one, the world record, currently held by Abel Resino of Atlético Madrid at 1,275 minutes.

Photo by Austin Osuide, some rights reserved.

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February 2, 2009

Toy Smurfs bigger hit than football cards

Filed under: Comics,Gadgets,Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:10 am

Supermarket chain Albert Heijn has done it again. A collecting mania is sweeping the country and bringing tens of thousands of customers to “the biggest green grocer,” where every 10 euro spent earns you a package of football cards. However, last year’s action with Smurf figurines was perhaps more succesful, reports Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch). The paper quotes market research agency GFK which says that on average Albert Heijn can count 37% of all households among its customers. With the football cards, that number has risen to 39,7%, while at the height of the Smurf craze, it was 40%.

Joop Holla of GFK thinks there are several possible reasons why the Smurfs would be more popular: the cartoon characters are popular with both boys and girls, whereas the football cards mostly attract boys. Also, a competing chain (Plus Markt) had a similar action with football cards last year.

Regardless of which hype is bigger, the football card promotion is drawing plenty of attention. Last Tuesday, the Albert Heijn on the Daalseweg in Nijmegen had to install crowd control barriers because hordes of young boys begging for football cards were apparently bothering the customers. Telegraaf says (Dutch) that at one point at least 50 children were asking for cards in sub zero weather.

It just goes to prove that kids are crazy. If I were standing in the cold on the Daalseweg, I’d make sure to either get to Café Jos or ‘t Haantje in a hurry, and the only thing cold near by would be the brewsky in front of me.

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June 21, 2008

How to replace a football pitch

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 4:02 pm

Algemeen Dagblad has a detailed infographic (Dutch) that explains exactly how the football pitch at the St. Jakob Park stadium was replaced just in time for the match Portugal – Germany of last Thursday.

According to the graphic, on Wednesday, June 11 heavy rainfall combined with the match Switzerland – Turkey damaged the pitch that was there to the point that it could no longer be used. Two days later, new grass was ordered. Monday June 16, 25 trucks and 1 bus left the lot of Hendriks Graszoden in Heythuisen Limburg. 23 of the trucks carried the rolls of grass, 2 contained equipment. The bus was for the 11 workers.

After the original grass was removed (revealing the artificial pitch that FC Basel normally plays on), three layers were added: a thin plastic film, followed by a mixture of sand and clay (3.5 cm), followed by the grass (2 cm). A mix of two types of grass was used, one that had to provide cohesion and a second that’s good to play on.

Tuesday morning 4 a.m. the pitch was finished, and on Wednesday afternoon Portugal held its first practice session there. Before the match there were some doubts about the quality of the pitch, as it was coloured unevenly and the seams of the rolls of grass could clearly be seen. The match was played without a hitch though—except of course for Portugal, who lost—and afterwards UEFA declared it was entirely satisfied with the results of the operation which had cost them 200,000 euro. According to the International Herald Tribune, this was the first time a pitch was replaced during an international tournament.

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June 18, 2008

EURO2008: Van der Fart

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:59 pm

Nomen est omen? While the second Dutch football team was battling it out against a surprisingly lackluster Romania in the last match of the first round of EURO2008 in Berne, Switzerland yesterday, the first team appeared to be submitted to some pretty heavy duty chemical warfare from one of the Oranje’s talented creative midfielders, Van der Vaart. Pronounce that any way you like.

Youtube link. Tip o’ the hat to Jeroen.

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June 12, 2008

Tutti frutti football tips

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 7:44 am
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Johan Cruijff, former Dutch football star and guru, came up with another of his famous off-the-cuff expressions after the Netherlands’ surprising 3-0 victory over Italy last Monday: tutti frutti.

Sports folks are known for not being able to speak properly and hypercorrect themselves to try and sound better. Johan Cruijff is known for mangling Dutch grammar, but at the same time, has this uncanny ability to make some sense. Cruijff said, “Zet er één in de spits en maak er wat tuttifrutti van,” which probably makes as much sense to the non-Dutch speaker untranslated as it does translated: “Put one up front and make tutti frutti out of it.” Cruijff was apparently boasting the merits of using one striker and having midfielders attacking in waves, but nobody knows for sure, although it sounds good.

Here are some other odd but could be prophetic things he has said in the past. There’s a whole book out there with these expressions.

“Sometimes something’s got to happen before something is going to happen.”
“Football is simple, but it is difficult to play simple.”
“Every disadvantage has its advantage.”

My favourite is “If you don’t shoot, you can’t score”. How true.

(Link: radionetherlands.nl)

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June 9, 2008

Orange lingerie on the football pitch

Filed under: Sports,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:33 am
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In the Netherlands, during any major football event, we get ‘orange fever’: everything is coloured orange to match the colours of the country and the football team. It is also a time when any kind of respect for women goes out the window in marketing circles and us broads falls into two categories: scantly clad entertainment during half time on television or kitchen slaves to male friends and family.

Some marketing ‘geniuses’ came up with this one: “For every point scored by the Dutch team, Dutch women (not Silicon Valley Saphy here) should run onto the pitch in their branded lingerie set and if (only if!) they get their picture in the papers will they win a year’s supply (12 lingerie sets) worth EUR 29,95 a set. That’s a whopping EUR 359,40 in lingerie that’s surely worth less than half that. So roughly speaking, EUR 180 of boring product for running onto the pitch maybe getting into the papers, and making a complete fool of yourself.

1) Bored middle aged white men usually streak at big events, not women.

2) Where’s the money? Put some really money on the table, not some pathetic EUR 180 worth of cheap lingerie and we’ll think about running onto the pitch. A car, maybe, or a trip for two somewhere.

3) If this works, I almost promise to write another piece to commend your work. If not, we will trash you and your blow up doll.

(Links: bizz.nl and reclamewereld.blog.nl)

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June 6, 2008

Play “Oranje”‘s manager with my online football fridge magnets

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 8:10 am

The European Football Championship 2008 kicks off on Saturday, 7 June. If you want to discuss tactics with your mates or if you just want to show coach Van Basten that you know better than he does, and if you lack a fridge and the right player magnets to play coach, I’ve created a web page that will let you come up with your own formations for Oranje to your heart’s content. Just drag around the ‘magnetic’ players onto the virtual, pitch shaped ‘fridge door’ until you’re satisfied.

Once you’ve created your formation, a link will be created by background magic, which if you click it will recreate that specific formation. Bookmark it, e-mail it to your friends (just click Uitleg(‘Explanation’) and copy the link that starts with Kopieer(‘Copy’)), or post it here in the comments to discuss with other readers.

The play dates for Oranje this year are: Monday, June 9, Friday, June 13, and Tuesday, June 19.

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June 4, 2008

England to support the Dutch at the EC

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:26 am

This weekend, the second most important sporting event in the world, the European Football Championship, will start in Switzerland and Austria. For the first time in more than 20 years, no team from the British isles have qualified, and as a result, the English press have gotten antsy for another team to get behind. Readers and writers of both the Daily Mail and The Guardian, two newspapers otherwise far apart, have picked the Netherlands as the team to support. The former selected 10 reasons why they would support ‘Oranje’, with “they like darts too” topping the list. The Guardian let its readers decide in what looks like a completely above-board and impartial Internet poll.

Via De Telegravin (Dutch). Souce image: The Guardian. The question was: “Who should we back in Euro 2008?”

Update 20:15: Arnoud Engelfriet spoils, er, spills the beans. Apparently the Guardian’s voting process was helped along by what the newspaper called “a triumphant piece of hacking” by the Geen Stijl-blog.

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February 13, 2008

Dutch sports fans as seen from space

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 9:00 am

This image is a top down view of the Burgplatz (platz = square in German) in Leipzig on June 11, 2006 as seen on Google maps. We know the date, because all the people on the square are clad in orange, the colour that Dutch sports fans don whenever they wish to cheer on their national team. On June 11, the Dutch national football team was in Leipzig to play the team of Serbia-Montenegro during the 2006 world championships. The Dutch team won 1-0. (The red, white and blue flag across what I presume is the podium is a dead give away too, but probably not as visible from higher up as the orange square.)

Via Google Sightseeing.

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