It is pretty good stuff, this European Championship. In some ways it is better than a World Cup, a tournament that has become too big, featuring too many preliminary fixtures involving second-raters (England, for instance). There has, however, been nothing second-rate about the bang-shoot in Austria and Switzerland.
Indeed, where the Dutch are concerned, ”bang” and ”shoot” are entirely appropriate terms. There is no point investing more than two bob on the dashing Hollanders.
An awful lot can still go wrong because, with that lot, it usually does. It isn’t a proper international competition unless some Dutchman packs up his clogs and vows never again to speak to his teammates — until the next time.
But as long as they can persuade 11 players to take the field together, and pass the ball to one another, we must hope that, 20 years after winning this competition, propelled by the virtuosity of Marco van Basten, that great centre-forward can lead them to another triumph.
All right, supporting Holland is not the bravest of admissions. Everybody likes them, right down to their natty, orange shirts.
Although we can salute the Croats, the Spaniards and others, who also bring plenty of fine dishes to the feast, keeping an eye all the while on Brother Hun, who is no doubt hatching a plot as he broods over his Pilsner and bratwurst, it’s the Dutch we want to see succeed.
One of the reasons this can be a more agreeable shindig than the World Cup is its history of unfancied teams upsetting the apple cart.
The Czechs — and the Slovaks, we must not forget them — won it in 1976. Denmark, admitted at the last moment, brought home the bacon 16 years later.
Four years ago a functional Greek team, observing German orders, proved surprising victors. That is very different from the World Cup, where the club of previous champions maintains the strictest entry regulations.
Having beaten England home and away, Croatia should perhaps get our vote. Certainly they outplayed Germany in a game of outstanding quality and intensity that underlined what a kindness they performed when they won at Wembley last November, saving England from the humiliation that would have attended their passage.
Those with a sense of history, though, will always back the Orange men, if only to offer some form of compensation for the unhappy events of the 1970s when a great Dutch team and then a very good one were denied World Cups in the last match of successive tournaments by the host nations.
West Germany were also a great team in 1974, but Argentina were not necessarily superior in 1978. In sport, as in life, everybody has a personal mythology and the Dutch class of 1974 will never be forgotten by those of an impressionable age. Coached by Rinus Michels, led by Johan Cruyff, they felt it was their destiny to win the World Cup that summer. Feyenoord had won the European Cup in 1970, a prelude to the three-year domination that Ajax then established.
Yet, like the Hungarians 20 years before, a team that changed the way football was played found German resistance impossible to overcome. They were not robbed. In Franz Beckenbauer, Wolfgang Overath, Paul Breitner and Gerd Muller, the supreme goal-poacher, Germany had great players of their own.
What is there left to say about Cruyff? Brian Clough spelt it out best when he called him ”The Catherine Wheel”.
That was some midfield the Dutch had: Wim Jansen, Johan Neeskens, Cruyff and Wim van Hanegem. Has any side ever exhibited such balance, between right and left, attacking and defending? Alas, for all his gifts, Cruyff was not a World Cup winner. He was the greatest player, other than Alfredo di Stéfano, who never won the game’s highest honour.
The Hungarians are not what they used to be and may never rise again. But it is always a joy to see the Dutch on the charge, reviving youthful memories of the team of all the talents.
So much for that hoary old cliché about remembering only the winners! It falls now to Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wesley Sneijder, Dirk Kuyt and Arjen Robben to carry the flag for the brilliant, headstrong Dutchmen. History may not favour them, but we should. —