Holland star player: Clarence Seedorf
Your national team career has been complicated. You were a regular in the squad for World Cups and European Championships but then Marco Van Basten did not pick you for the World Cup in Germany. Why?
He called me back again recently, which was a big surprise after having been out for so long. I was sad to have missed the World Cup.
I don’t know why; I assume it was not for tactical or technical reasons when you look at the other players who were chosen. But there’s no point looking back. I only want to look forward, try to make the best of it, bring some value to the team, hope to have a great tournament and bring home something important. It’s about time. I have two possibilities left – the Euro finals and the 2010 World Cup – so I’ll try to get the best out of both.
Why do the major tournaments sometimes bring out the worst in the Dutch footballing mentality?
The Dutch have a specific way of playing and a specific mentality, which is a key element in our game. Usually we play very good football even though we don’t always get the results it deserves – like at the World Cup in 1998 when we lost to Brazil on penalties in the semi-finals. Strangely, one of the tournaments in which we were not at our best was the one we
won – the European Championship in 1988. We had some great players but they didn’t play their best football and had to ride their luck in some games. We have played better in other tournaments
and still lost.
How do you rate Holland’s chances for Euro 2008?
Even. We know we are in a hard group with France and Italy – who both made the World Cup Final – and Romania finished top of our group in qualifying. But we will give them a hard time too because we have nothing to lose.
Is it a positive or negative for players to know that their coach will be leaving after the finals?
The media makes a lot of issues about this but players are used to coaches coming and going at their clubs. If a player is facing his last tournament you know he will give everything to the games, and the same must go for the coach. He knows he will not have another opportunity like this for a long time so that provides him with even greater motivation to do his very best. After all, he also wants to have as many options as possible when he goes to another job. He will want to maintain his value.
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