HOLLAND 4 - 1 FRANCE



I may be a bit late tomorrow morning...

Looks like the Lion is still fully dressed then.

What a good result.

Have a beer (or three) for me, i'm on anti biotics at the mo, so can't drink

Andy

Gelukwensen Holland.

I hope that bablefish thing worked right!

Whoo hooooooo!!

Wow, I would have never predicted this after 2 games!!

I will be having a beer or 2 to celebrate but it will have to wait till later after my boys go to bed.

Ola Guys... Well just returned from the Bar... And what a match... It is not just that we won... it was just a matter of outclassing the french in all categories.. I'm sorry France... Adieu les Bleus. And as I promised I will show you a photographic report of how and what in the bar where I watched the match... it was a full house. I will not post all the pictures I took 82 pics. But I will show you guys at least some pics to have a good idea of the bar and the atmosphere there. Holland is group winner.. On to the Quarterfinals. I'm a happy mcamper again. on to 2 days of hyperactivity......... Again next post shows some pics of the local bar and the fans of course

Ola Guys

Well just uploaded all the pictures.... First of all let me introduce you to Warzone Dirkshorn... Bar de Kastanjeboom (The Chestnuttree) as it is when Orange plays on a big tournament


And of course the reporter on the spot..... that would be me.. in this case. I am dressed in the official Dutch War colors.. .And of course I made sure to have a full canteen.. which only lasts a couple of minutes


Meet the locals... at least some of them. This is between the goals, during the goals and the party after the end signal> One thing that is quite noticeable is the Dutch Favourite color... and the huge diversity of Headdresses... no ranks attached to them... Still we are called the orange legion









My sister and boyfriend





All the pics can be found here
http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f200/FAUST_01/Holland%20Frankrijk/?start=0

If people are interested I will do a similar shoot for Holland Romania.

My good what an evening... I will be buzzing the next couple of days. Woooohooo >.. onto Holland Romania

The shirt of the year:




Very creative.

Thanks for the pictures Rob. But there is one missing... Orange...Wig...

And that is indeed a superb t-shirt.

Ola Dave... meet the "Brulshirt"... lit translated the "Roaring Shirt". Really a clever design... It is one of the most popular items this European Championship.

Henk Specially for you during Holland Romania I will make a picture of me wearing an orange headdress... I usually do'n't like them much because they make you sweaty but it is all for the news I guess.

Fatastic result Robert! Yet again I was up at 4:45am to watch, and yet again the Dutch did not disappoint... Love the photos mate; unfortunately here it was just me huddled under a blanket on the
sofa in darkness...
The brulshirt is brilliant too!
So what do Holland do against Romania? Let them win, knocking out Italy and France?
Brad

Well done Holland!!! I wish Romania scored the penalty so we can say bye-bye Italy...

There are several teams that stand out in the Euro2008. Holland, Portugal, Spain and of course... Croatia.

Great games so far.
Mario

Nice pics Robert, especially the feminine ones! well here some say that the reason why France choosed the rooster as national emblem is that it's the only animal that is still abble to sing while having both feet in ...
So today I spotted the papers and saw all the very wise comments about how mathematically France *could* still be in 4th etc
Well done Holland
JB

Well Holland truely deserved their win, but things could have been different or even more nail-biting near the end. When Holland were 1-0 up, the French for the first time this tournament, started to play. Engelaar, in the middle was really lost, and showed his lack of experience at this level. France were robbed of a penalty ... Ooijer definately handled the ball. If France had of converted this penalty ... would it have been a different game? We will never know, but clverly Van Basten brought on Robben and van Persie, and they really turned the game around. Not only have Holland strength in their team, the bench is also a dream situation. They are my favourites to win this tournament now. 7 goals against the two finalists of the last world cup .... that fact stands for itself.
It looks like yis all had a great day .... brings back great memories of when Ireland had their moments in the 90s. I see it wasn´t all too patriotic though .... I spotted a few bottles of Murphys in between all the Grolsch and Heinekein!

Ola Guys

Well... to tell you guys the truth... This morning my world started out very small. My god what a party.

@ Bradley
Yeah I guessed that not too much people would huddle around in the bar in NZ to watch holland play at that time of night.
As for what Holland will do against Romania. It could well be that van Basten will put up a "B" team (if you can speak of that with such a bench) To give the best players fresh for the rest of the tournament. However I don't think Orange will let Romania just win... 9 points out of 3 is the goal for van Basten I think.

@ Mario
Yeah Mutu should have scored that penalty. But even before he actually hit the ball you could see it was not going to hit it. I said it would go over my dad said he would hit the goalie. But the other side is that Romania had a lucky escape when the goal of Luca Toni was not approved because he was flagged offside... which he wasn't.
You are indeed right that there are some teams who definately lead the pack of favourites. And indeed Croatia is doing quite a good job too being the winners of the poule. Great job.

@ Jean Bernard
I hear you about the maths on how and if a team could still go on. Holland has been subject of that kind of stuff so often during all the big tournaments I followed in my life. Often we indeed skipped the rope and somehow managed to go on in the quarterfinals.
How did france get the rooster as their national symbol? Outside being able to sing with both feet in ...

@ Frank
You are right there. It could have been very different. It could have been very very different. Last half hour of the first half and the first 10 to 15 minutes were more or less for France. We were very lucky with van der Sar who pretty much got everything france managed to throw in the direction of the goal. The really laidback way of playing that Engelaar uses was good against france were it brought back some rest in the midfield... against the quick attacking of France his style and lack of experience were simply not enough. The big gamble of van Basten to bring in Robben and van Persie really paid off. And the Ooijer incident... Yeah I think it wa shands too. I was under the impression Fandel thought it was accidental.
For the first time in years we come to a tournament with 23 Players who all are good... Some are a bit less but they were never my favourite players either (mathijsen) but thge more important is... they have fun in playing the game... and when you have fun... everything works out. And for the first time in years we have great individuals who play together like a team.
About the Murphies. The guy holding it on the girls head and the skinny guy showing the bottle are one and the same person and he is one of my best friends... The second bottle of Murphies is mine. The barowner got it specially for us. Very very nice beer

Kinda off topic, but.. both "Gaul" and "rooster" are referred to as "Gallus" in Latin. On the top of this, the British used to say that king Philippe Auguste was as pretentious as a rooster during the 100 years war. But the French took that as a compliment
How can anybody have forget this horror, which was the official puppet for the 1998 World Cup

Many teams would be glad to have such players as in Dutch "B" team. I guess it is normal to save the best guys for the quarterfinals (Croatian coach said he'll have 8 new players for the match with Poland), but I'd prefer to play all of the tournament in highest pace possible.

As for Mutu, yes, he was very nervous before taking that penalty. One could see that when Mutu was looking at the referee before the shot... I was also pretty sure he wouldn't score. I'm sure Romania is going to have a tough time with Holland but I wish they are the ones going forward to the next round instead of Italy and France.

A good Spanish game today. Sweden was a tough team, but Spanish attackers are just great.

Mario

@ JBA
Thanks for that explanation. Makes a lot of sense actually. And as for "Footix" as the mascot was called is not that bad really. There were a lot of worse logo's for World Cups.
http://www.planetworldcup.com/MASCOTS/mascots.html
I personally always thought the Italian mascot named CIAO for the 1990 WC in italy was pretty bad. Basically all the wc logo's were pretty corny. But for us the biggest foul ever committed in the WC logo business was in 2006 when Germany stole our Lion. And came with Goleo VI... Now that was really bad.

@Mario


While it is true what you say... The problem with the Dutch team has always been that they were never really a team... Certainly not the Orange teams after 1988. Up till now it was usually just so so ... So even though we might have had an A team of good players... and a "B" team with good players on the bench... if they can't work together you are going to loose. It's as easy as that and we have seen that go wrong a lot of times.
I too rather see Romania going on... We'll see what happens in the coming match.

The Spain was indeed quite good against sweden.. Sweden did not really manage to impress.

From the London (Ontario) Free Press:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/Columnists/Dalla_Costa_Morris/2008/06/15/5882251-sun.html

Ola Dave

Thanks for posting that article. I really enjoy watching how the press of other countries write about the DUtch soccer at the moment. Every morning after a play of the Dutch at Euro 2008 I browse around the internet to read other countries newspapers online. The German and British Newspapers. Even the French and Italian which I have to translate before I can read them. But what strikes me the most is that next to the papers writing about the prestations of the Dutch National Team I like how they write about the Dutch fans too.
I found this Saturday on the Site of the Daily Telegraph. I liked it very much
Dutch fans paint the towns and trains of Switzerland orange

And another nice thing. One of our Dutch members managed to score a ticket for the Match again France and he also made pictures. You might check them out on the Dutch section where a similar post is going
Pictures of Martijn van Luik made in Bern
You have to scroll a bit down for it till you reached Majorme's post.

Tomorrow we have our clash against Romania. Speculations here in Holland are pretty wild as to who van Basten will put up on the field to oppose Romania. My Orange shirt is in the washing machine now... I will pick out a nice headdress for tomorrow. Another batch of pics will be made too

Just to hit the nail harder, here is one joke that sent me one British friend, it took me quite a while to understand it to be honest

LOL JBA

That is a nice play on words. I like it.
Any predictions on France Italy? I believe every frenchmen now wants to see Domenech Leave. At least that is what I read in the Dutch papers

Happy you liked that joke Robert!
I see a nice 0/0 for France/Italy and a pretty boring match. But I may be wrong

Ola Guys

Just read the news in the paper that Marco van Basten will start with 9 new people in the match against Romania. Next to the fact that he will spare de Jong and Ooijer because they have yellow cards he apparently keeps another 7 on the bench allowing 9 new players to enter the field. Guess this is the time to see what our bench is really worth.

@JBA
You think it is going to be a boring match France against Italy? If romania looses then they both make a chance. So it is in their own benefit that they fight till the end me thinks.

Did anybody see the Match Germany Austria? I have never seen two coaches being send away in one match. Which was pretty much the only interesting thing in an Uber boring match. I guess Mejuto Gonsalez is going to be the ref for the final

Not impressed by Gomez's comedy miss from 2m out then?

David

@ David
Yeah you are right that was quite daft too. I guess he would even miss the goal while standing in it. After the match here you had some guys talking about it. They do it in halftime and after the match I don't doubt that it isn't the same in England... Usually they do the highlights of the match. In this case the guy a Dutch coach from a premier league team said "well it will not take much time to talk about the highlights of the second half... since we only saw one.

Of course I by the way meant that Gonsalez is propably not going to be the ref for the Finals.