Mark van Bommel head-to-head at Euro 2012: “It just happened all of a sudden”

PSV icon Mark van Bommel was during the UEFA Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine the captain of the Netherlands national team. More than two years after reaching the World Cup final in 2010, expectations for Oranje were sky-high in the country because of their good performances in South Africa.

Against all expectations, the European Championship went disastrously for the Netherlands. As the world No. 2, Bert van Marwijk's squad was eliminated in the group stage already, with zero points from three matches.

Wesley Sneijder was, at the 2010 World Cup, still a joint top scorer with five goals, but due to the tense atmosphere he in 2012 actually didn’t really want to travel to Poland and Ukraine. ''I already found there to be so much hassle. Some players had made transfers, gone to better clubs and had put in a good season. Bert naturally took a bit of that 2010 team along with him there. The more clarity there was in 2010, the less there was in 2012'', says Sneijder in the podcast Wes & Raf with Rafael van der Vaart.

In 2010 it was clear according to the international record what the starting lineup would be, whereas in 2012 that was less the case, partly due to the strong seasons of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar at FC Schalke 04 and Rafael van der Vaart at HSV. ''Huntelaar thought he had to play, Raf had that feeling too. But Van Marwijk kept holding very firmly to that group; at a certain point it went wrong'', the former midfielder says.

The first group match, the Netherlands lost 0-1 to Denmark, and despite that then national team coach Bert van Marwijk kept to the same starting eleven in the second group match against Germany as he had against the Danes. ''We really should have won convincingly. That made them start throwing the first bombs straight away. The media thought it was great,'' Sneijder recalls of the match against Denmark.

After the first pool match, Mark van Bommel then came up with the idea of taking the entire squad out for something to eat, Sneijder remembers. ''He came up to me and said: 'Go ahead and ask Bert, because he'll take it from you'. I didn't think it was a good idea at all, but I did go to Bert'', the record international still recalls, and in the end the national coach agreed to the proposal.

On the evening of the dinner it then went completely wrong in the selection, and Mark van Bommel stood head to head with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. ''That happened just like that all of a sudden. And I suddenly saw the vodka bottles too. I hadn’t even noticed it. We were allowed a glass of wine, that was very normal. Suddenly everything turned completely sour, but the damage had already been done,'' says Sneijder.

From that moment on, the former captain of Oranje knew that the atmosphere in the squad could no longer be repaired and, ultimately, after the defeat against Denmark, the Netherlands went down ignominiously, suffering defeats against Germany (1-2) and Portugal (2-1). ''The atmosphere was ruined, the bomb had burst and it could no longer be fixed. There are a number of factors at such a final tournament. You have to have a bit of luck, but above all the atmosphere must be very good and things must fit together internally. You don't have to be each other's friends; that wasn't the case in 2010 either, but we did know: we had the same mission together. That was not at all the case in 2012'', said the 134-time international.