Ryan Babel picked up an a rather serious ankle injury in today's Oranje training session and has been ruled out for the entire Euro 08 campaign. As much as this must suck for Ryan, it looks like he may have not been destined for a lot of playing time even if he was healthy. Marco van Basten quickly named defender Khalid Boulahrouz as his replacement, which leads me to believe that a) he thinks he has a plethora of talent already up front and he doesn't consider Babel a significant loss and b) he obviously does not have confidence in that back line. Its just bad timing for the kid regardless. I really think he could have made a difference with his pace and the power he can put behind the ball.
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Good call on v. Basten's view of Babel. As for Boulahrouz, he's a bit of a knuckle-dragger, though it was fun to watch him almost remove Ronaldo's thigh during Holland's clash with Portugal in 2006. We shall see.
I hope v. Basten doesn't count out Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
Yeah, definitely a 'good' sign for KJH that Babel wasn't replaced, its just going to be hard to not have Ruud and Greg Louganis, err...I mean Arjen Robben up front. Klaas didnt really help his cause by mailing it in the last few games of the Eredivisie this year. I say he gets clean up time at best.
Brain fart, Robben is a midfielder, but still I think KJH will have a hard time getting past Vennegor and Kuyt. Hope he does though.
Loved the Louganis "error". Funny that the Oranje fans fail to make mention of this. Mind you, it seems he's playing like a good boy these days without those nasty (not to say humiliating) tactics.
He needs to prove it in EU2008, otherwise he's just a Dutch Rivaldo.
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