WORLD UP: ARJEN ROBBEN PROFILE:IF YOU wish to evaluate the importance of Arjen Robben to the Dutch cause here you just have to cast your mind back to the early stages of the Netherlands' World Cup campaign. The first two games were an exercise in waiting for Arjen. Holland won but they were lacklustre. All would be better when Arjen was better.
He came on in the third game against Cameroon, set up a goal pretty quickly and all has been well with the world of orange since. For some major players a World Cup can see a nosedive in their stock value, but for others the competition can be a coronation of sorts.
Robben, deemed useful but disappointing first at Chelsea and then at Real Madrid, has come here and made a massive impact.
He and Wesley Sneijder both got the “it’s not us, it’s you” treatment from Real Madrid at the same time. Together they have hauled Holland to this final, after sterling years at club level.
The rap sheet on Robben has been unchanged for a long time. His critics will find consolation in his all-too-evident fragility, his tendency to go to ground quickly, his poor pass completion rate (44 per cent of long passes come off, 59 per cent in total are successful for him) and his predictability.
On the other hand, what he does he does exceptionally. Just because you can predict he will take you on with the ball doesn’t mean you can stop him.
His season under Louis Van Gaal at Bayern showed a broadening set of skills with a fine hat-trick against Hanover, that goal at Old Trafford which ended United’s European adventure.
He has added to the catalogue with a superb header against Uruguay which won the semi-final and he is scoring more goals and better goals and becoming increasingly adventurous in abandoning traditional wing play and cutting in across the park.
The impact of his willingness to continually develop his game can be seen in his goalscoring record.
An international for seven years now, five of his 15 goals for the Netherlands have come in the last 12 months. He finished the season in Germany as player of the year with a record 72 per cent of the vote and as Bayern’s top scorer with 15 goals from 24 league appearances. It took him 67 league games at Stamford Bridge to reach that total and in 50 Liga games for Real he hit just 11.
In April Bixente Lizarazu, the former Bayern defender, compared Robben with seemingly more illustrious company. “He scores similar goals to Messi; he seems to float,” he said.
Those comparisons and the performances in South Africa are the consummation of a talent which has been evident since his teens. Born in Bedum near Groningen, he benefited early in life from exposure to the Coerver coaching method, a system which emphasises movement and technique with the ball, mastering skills one by one in small-sided games and in practice. As a youngster, Robben exhibited signs of a breadth of interests and intelligence. He was a chess champion and prodigious at tennis, volleyball and athletics. Despite drawing the attention of Dutch clubs from an early age, he insisted on finishing high school.
While there he met Bernadien Eillert. It is said that the only time he has ever been late for training was the 15 minute lapse on the day he met her. They married three years back in Groningen where Robben still keeps solid links.
His first club was the local one, Groningen, where he made his debut at 16. A feature of Robben’s career has been exposure to world-class managers and by the time he was 18 he was on his way to PSV Eindhoven where he benefited hugely from two seasons with Guus Hiddink
“I got Robben as a youngster and he improved a lot from an upcoming young player who was a little bit innocent, to an adult player within two years. He can outmanoeuvre easily a player in a one-on-one and he can do that from the left, middle or right attacking positions and he is a personality who is not afraid to have a failure. He is very adventurous,” said Hiddink.
That sort of adventure seldom goes unnoticed by bigger clubs and in 2004 PSV firmly slapped down an offer of €7 million for the winger from Manchester United. Chelsea came in with an offer of €18 million and got their man.
For Robben, who speaks of every move in terms of his own development as a player, it was a chance to work with Jose Mourinho.
Robben’s time at Chelsea was a period of diminishing returns. He seldom looked better than in his first season and by the time Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko had arrived in the line-up, Robben was becoming a peripheral figure.
There were signs too of a fraying in his relationship with Mourinho who became impatient with his brittleness. During a game against Liverpool in 2007 when Robben hit the grass yet again, Mourinho could be seen mouthing, “get him f**ing off”. Asked afterwards how long Robben would be out for, The Special One replied he didn’t know but with Robben it was always a long time.
And in August 2007 he moved almost overnight to Real Madrid – for a fee almost double that which Chelsea had paid for him.
The danger of signing for clubs who sign big-name players as baubles and as political tools must have dawned on Robben pretty quickly. Soon Real had invested in Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Xabi Alonso. Like his Dutch teammate Sneijder, Robben felt himself being pushed closer to the door.
Two years after arriving in Spain he was off to Germany. Sneijder went to Inter to work with Mourinho. Robben took the chance to work with Louis van Gaal at Bayern. Again his game has developed.
Robben’s career has a surface impression of turbulence about it. His cancer scare at Chelsea, his frequent moves, the accusations of play-acting but at the centre is a bright and deliberate man who has made his choices wisely.
Still only 26, he has won five league medals in just eight years right around Europe. He is also one of an elite group of players to have won more than one man-of-the-match award at a single World Cup; he won two in Germany and added a third in South Africa against Slovakia. (Sneijder has won a record four such baubles here in South Africa). He speaks Dutch, English, Spanish and German. His father Hans has always acted as his agent. He offers the prospect of improvement through every phase of his career, a career that is still approaching its prime.
Tomorrow night in Soccer City he will be up against veteran Villareal defender Joan Capdevila. An aggressive but unspectacular defender, it remains to be seen if the Spaniard has the finesse not to concede frees and the speed to match Robben. Holland’s strongest player may be matched with one of Spain’s weakest links.
