Great analysis.  ;D The relationship between Rabo and its fans seems a lot like some national football teams and their fans. Wallowing in failure seems to be part of the fandom. For me though, my big criticisms of Rabo (which are still fairly mild) are as follows:

1. Not hungry

Lulu Sanchez - notwithstanding his execrable performance last year - is a winner. Not a big winner but he will pick them up because he is canny. But I get the feeling that he gets left alone to do his thing.

Meanwhile Rabo management appears to struggle to turn young lads into hungry winners.

Guys who really should be winning - Renshaw, Matthews, Tjallingi (if he had more chances). Meanwhile Boom is having the longest breakthrough period ever.

Breschel, Kruiswijk and Mollema for me all look set for a career of comfortable placings despite occasional flashes of excellence.

On the flipside of this coin, Freire and Nuyens left and started winning again. Time will tell on Langeveld and Weening.

2. Nipped in the bud

Look at that list of deluxe nearly men: Flens, Martens, Leezer, Ten Dam, Bos. They all had bright futures which we're still waiting to see realised. Not saying they won't be great, but perhaps not while they stay at Rabo.

3. Injury prone

Nobody's fault, really. Could easily put it down to bad luck. Barredo hasn't done much since he arrived but now he's injured. Gesink was getting good for a while there before the big injuries but he is for the moment a shadow of that.

That said, I still like Rabo.

No they did fail, for sure. They are damned if they dont talk up the race and damned if they do if they dont win. I mean Rabo's casue is not helped with stupid comments by the likes of Merckx calling Gesink a future TdF winner. Talk about placing extra weight of expectation on a rider

No i agree. They were stupid not have a rider in the break. And then they were stupid not to have at least 1 rider go off the front in the final kms.

I like to dissect performances as much as others, but some posters can get very immature about it. I dont care much for immature fans of certain teams or riders, but to retaliate with similar bores me.

I also like to see those who declare themselves heroes, fail, as it will the fans who decide that based on their performances. I like it that riders like A Schleck gets torn to shreds for not achieving and for treating the sport as something that owes him. His treatment of the sport and those in it has been downright disrepectful and he deserves everything that comes his way in the form of criticism and slagging.

Rabo not so much, but yeah their fans and followers do consider the Rabo in a league that they currently are not and hence leave themselves open to being taken down a peg or 2.

I think BMC are starting to build a following similar to Rabo, where they think their team is super strong and is going to dominate because of the names and bleating about it before hand will mean a pasting if they dont deliver. Sky deservedly got that treatment for the bold sweeping statements and flashing the money, jaguar cars, declaring their team bus state of the art better than everyone else. Well putting oneself on a pedestal can only lead to one's downfall amidst the howls of laughter if they don't deliver and rightly so.

If we accept that they didn't win, understand the reasons, and look forward to the rest of the season and hope for next year all the better. But this calling it a fail and the huge criticisms that are coming on Rabo's head usually leads o teams looking for the wrong kind of 'help' to try and guarantee wins.

Rabo cannot control Amstel Gold, no matter how much they want too. No more than the Schleck's could or Canc could the race when he went down in a feed station.

Garmin had 3 riders in the top 20, better to have 1 in the top 3. Why didn't 1 of them go after Freire. That could be considered a fail. Greenedge 20th. By their season standards so far another fail! Sky no one in the top 20, big fail in a big race!

Of course Rabo didn't do worse than other teams. However, this is Rabobank's home race, one of the most important ones of the year for them. The sponsor expects the team to at the very least contend for the victory each year. And they haven't been able to do a single thing for years now.

OK, so Rabo doesn't have the perfect rider for a race like this. That doesn't mean they have to be insivible all race long. Again, if this was Flèche Wallone that'd be fine, but in their home race more is expected of them. They could have tried something, and they should have. Havetts, you say they only had one rider in decent form, Mollema. But where was Mollema? Why didn't he at least try to jump at any point? In that final uphill sprint he was never going to finish anywhere close to the podium. So that means he has to do something different. Like what Freire and Terpstra (whose national race it is, too, but he actually showed something) tried.

Vacansoleil and Argos weren't great either, sure. However they did try at various points. Completely pointless attempts doomed for faillure, but they tried. They did something and were visible for the viewer.

The criticism of Rabobank is completely justified. When Lotto didn't show a thing in 'their' cobbled classics, they were criticised as well. If Euskaltel would be invisible at the Pais Vasco the sponsors would probably fire half the team. Rabo's new tactic was a complete failure. They want to contend this race and fight for the win, then they should either try to attack earlier or buy some rider that can win on such a finish.

Havetts, you say they only had one rider in decent form, Mollema. But where was Mollema?

Funnily enough they do this quite often, when they have the numbers they choke and can not preform up to standard, a great example for this is the yearly rabo debacle that is the Dutch national RR championship. I think that perhaps too large a pressure is put upon the riders in these races since these two races are the most important Dutch races and therefore the riders are stifled in their riding of the race, it also ensures that the DS's of Rabo always make strange decisions during these races

Thats true ram, but they were woeful today and seem to find a way to stuff up in Amstel Gold even when they have the numbers in the finale like last year.

Rabo's problem was that (arguably) their best rider for this kind of race was at Castilla y Leon.