Former Oranje captain Edwin van der Sar spoke with FIFA.com where to give his opinions on the current crop of Dutch players on the national team, as well as reflecting on his own international career.

  • By Adrian Bucher
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van der sar 2With the World Cup around the corner, former Netherlands goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was asked by FIFA.com about some of his own World Cup experiences and the prospects of the current generation of Dutch football players representing the national team.

When asked about his most memorable memory, van der Sar pointed to the semi-final match-up against the defending champions Brazil in the 1998 World Cup as the game that stood out the most for him.

“The atmosphere before the game, where one side was orange, other side was yellow and blue from Brazil, the sky was light blue and then turned to night where the lights came on. It was such a hectic and tense match, where it went to overtime and then to penalties. It’s nerve-wracking but it’s also quite rewarding that you were able to achieve something like that and to participate in a World Cup.”

However, when asked about the current side representing the Netherlands in this summer’s showpiece in Brazil, the former Oranje captain expressed some concern about the lack of experienced players in the side, particularly in comparison to the last tournament in South Africa:

“We are in a little bit more of a difficult time now, we don’t have the ten or eleven world class players in our team – we have maybe three or four and they are getting older.”

Nevertheless, van der Sar remained optimistic that the present team have the ability to be more competitive in the foreseeable future:

“It’s about time that the young Dutch generation pick up the laurels from the older ones and hopefully can achieve, first with their clubs and then the national team, a little more success than over the last three or four years.”

The Netherlands begin their 2014 FIFA World Cup campaign against Spain on June 13th.

 




Adrian Bucher (39 Posts)