Having managed in both Germany and his native Holland, Fulham manager Martin Jol will be an interested spectator in tonight’s huge Group B clash between two giants of European football. There is no love lost between these two nations, according the Jol, which largely down to the political past and the intense rivalry both domestically and internationally between the two nations:

“The fact that we are a smaller country and they are our big neighbours, of course maybe the war has something to do with it. They were always better than us in the early sixties but in the seventies we won the European Cup with Feyenoord and Ajax so our national team got better and better, and this was helped by our star man Johan Cruyff. The result was a final in ’74 which was the biggest disappointment for a Dutch man in the history of our international football career.”

Martin Jol is expecting another tough outing tonight for Holland; however believes that Germany may have the upper hand over them:

“If you look at Joachim Löw he plays in the same style all the time and that is probably the biggest advantage. They play a 4-2-3-1, they have Podolski and Klose, he (Klose) is still a killer and he scores goals. They’ve also got Gomez who was almost the top scorer in the Bundesliga League. They’ve also got a few youngsters, for example Müller who played on the right and their biggest talent Mesut Ozil as well as Mario Götze from Dortmund. So if you look at the quality I think that they are similar to Holland.  In midfield they look pretty steady, they have got players who have been playing for years and years like Schweinsteiger, a big start player for them. And Khedira who plays for Real Madrid. They always play in the same style and that is an advantage. If you look at the Dutch team they have to change their style occasionally. In the last couple of friendly’s before the big tournament Van Der Vaart was playing on the left, Van Persie was playing on the right, they changed the style and there was a lot of criticism about this in Holland. Of course Robben wasn’t there all the time because he and the Champions League final, which he didn’t win and that was a big disappointment. So for us it’s important to see how he is feeling, will he be on top of his game because if he is, he can make all the difference in a game. Overall I would say that Germany are settled in their system and Holland are not.”

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