Eljero Elia’s “Playing against Maicon, that’s a dream"

“Playing against Maicon, that’s a dream. He’s the best right back in the world. I want to test my level. Do my tricks and see who’s the best. Man, I hope I can play some minutes…”

Team manager Van Marwijk is convinced that Holland could win the quarter finals against Brazil, coming Friday. “Of course! We can beat any nation. Which doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy or that we will be the favorites or anything. And that is nice, after four games against teams that are regarded to be less than us.”

Van Marwijk is impressed with Brazil though. “I think Brazil is even better than most people think. They still have their vintage skills and athletics but they now also have that defensive block of six before their goalie. And that goalie is one of the best of the world too! In the 1970s, they were less disciplined and they never had superior goalies. The English did. And the Russians and the Dutch… But South America has developed tremendously in terms of these particular skills and team discipline. These lads can control a game and they don’t give away a lot. And their strikers can all decide games. Brazil doesn’t hold any secrets for us, but neither do we for them.”

Eljero Elia’s eyes begin to glisten when we talk about the Brazil clash: “Playing against Maicon, that’s a dream. He’s the best right back in the world. I want to test my level. Do my tricks and see who’s the best. Man, I hope I can play some minutes…”

Wesley Sneijder shares the dressing room at Inter with Maicon and Julio Cesar. They had quite some talks in the run up to the World Cup. “We all knew that this clash was in the cards… When I talked to Julio Cesar about our options up front, their faces changed a bit. Believe me, they fear us.”

The coach looks forward to the game against the five-timed crowned world champs. “Well, playing them is going to be fantastic, but we don’t want to participate in that game, we want to win it. We came to win the World Cup, in that case you need to be able to beat Brazil.”

Van Marwijk only lost one international game out of 25. “I think you can say we have a good group. I know we can always do better but we haven’t do so bad at this World Cup. We won four games in a row. Against Slovakia, our final pass wasn’t to good otherwise we could have scored four times. We lack the frivolity of before the World Cup, that’s true, but that can come from nowhere against Brazil. They will allow for space and they do like to play, like us.”

Oranje’s boss is happy with Robben’s return. “Arjen demonstrated his value immediately. And that’s pretty tough for a player who was injured. I hope he can add some spice to our game against Brazil. And yes, Holland – Brazil are always happenings and entertaining, but I’m not here to entertain the world. I want to win. That’s the main thing for me.”

The media wanted to know about the situation with Van Persie and Sneijder. The two have a history and lip readers yesterday claimed that Van Persie challenged Van Marwijk to sub Sneijder. Van Marwijk: “That is not an issue anymore. I have dealt with that and we have drawn a thick line in the sand.”

“Why do you overlook Sneijder all the time, Bert? Overlook?! Get it, hahahahaa…..”

Van Marwijk claimed to not have heard what Van Persie said. “I didn’t process it. I was busy with the game. Normally a player doesn’t say a thing, and I was ready to thank him and move on from there. He did say something and I do remember asking him to repeat it, because of the vuvuzela’s. I haven’t heard him mentioning names. He was disappointed because he felt he could still do something. That’s fine. I didn’t care.”

Van Marwijk did care when the media jumped on it. “When I realized later that the media was trying to make it into something big, I did deal with it. I spoke to both players about it on the plane. It was me doing the talking, so to speak. I don’t mind if things happen. There’s 23 top players together for 4 weeks or more… Things will happen. Big deal. Normally, as a coach, you use that to your advantage. To create even more unity and if you don’t deal with it, it will smoulder and create havoc. So, I was clear with my message, they got the chance to say what they wanted to say and that’s it. I don’t have time to discuss a substitution from the past. I want to deal with the game against Brazil. Full stop.”

Van Marwijk didn’t want to say what he told the players. “Not relevant. Not for you anyway. It’s between me and them. And I don’t want to say anymore about this. It’s dealt with, over. Period.”

Interesting was, that when Van Persie number went up and he made his way to the by-line, Sneijder walked over to give the Arsenal man a supportive pat on the…eh….lower back muscle…

So, maybe the whole rift between him and Van Persie was not about who got subbed. But obviously, Bert wanted to bury this one quickly:

“Coach, do something about it! He harasses me! Everytime and again, he pinches me in the bum… I don’t want it. He has Yolanthe already, why can’t that be enough? I do not want to share a room with him anymore!!”