Triple Dutch proved one trip too much

It would be folly to focus too much of my World Cup final report on the match itself. For one, it was a horrific spectacle. Secondly, the team of the nation I watched the match in failed to win, score or endear themselves to just about anybody. Thirdly, despite having travelled for a month in anticipation of these 90 minutes, I didn’t pay much attention to it - I’d deduced the above factors within five minutes of the match kicking off. Sometimes games are slow starters that always retain a sense of intrigue throughout, often with the potential to explode into life. However, others you can call as a shocker before most of the players have touched the ball. A few people in England have since told me they quite enjoyed the game, but I suspect that has more to do with gratuitous violence and the overwhelming challenge Howard Webb was presented with.

In any case, even if the game had encapsulated me into watching all 120 minutes intently then I would have been in some serious discomfort due to strains on my neck, packed as Museumplein was from the late afternoon onwards:


The Dutch media reported that over a million had descended on the capital specifically to watch this match. Considering Amsterdam has a population of around 800,000, you can imagine it was quite the influx – which would explain why I found it near impossible to find anywhere to both enjoy a meal and watch the Germany-Uruguay third place play off the previous evening. Ultimately, I had to settle on a place where the owner had to be prompted by customers to wipe the tables clean and they gave me dinner without a fork (the child serving me seemed quite offended when I asked for one.)

Pre-match, merriment encompassed the city as far as the eye could see, whether it be with some Spanish-Dutch unity or folk just taking in some music:





Once I reached Museumplein, this sense of occasion upgraded its manifestations to piggybacks, climbing on top of lampposts and helicopters dropping flowers from the sky. “You know the police have told people not to come here today,” said one Oranje fan. “They say the city is full! No chance man, just look at this place… There’s people smoking joints out here man, this is just one big party!” Yeah, well, that’s not all they were smoking:


Still, you have to been smoking something stronger still to come to the conclusion that Holland deserved to win that match. Spain once more showed the indisputable irritating sense of perfection that dictated the trophy was worthily theirs. The Dutch defence weren’t stretched beyond all recognition nor was Maarten Stekelenburg’s goal peppered, but that’s entirely the point: like the three 1-0’s that preceded this, the result seemed beyond doubt and the Spanish seemed in complete control despite not offering a regular attacking threat. They just hold onto the ball and wait for the right moment – even if they have to wait until minute 118. So hearty congratulations to La Roja, which I’m sure that will mean a great deal to them coming from me.

As for the Dutch aggression, no one seemed to comment on it – people were more irritated that on the rare occasions they did have the ball, they did so little with it. Equally I felt little in the way of anti-Webb feeling – people didn’t seem to bemoan individual decisions, rather just the ultimate result: a third World Cup final loss. Cue emotional scenes:


My total record, by the way, reads: P15, W6, D3, L6. F15, A14. Curiously the six wins all came in a row (admittedly only achieved by Germany, Holland and Spain) as did the three draws.

Which just leaves me, regrettably, to wrap up. Firstly some thank yous. A huge thanks to my parents who, as well as making big contributions towards the trip being a possibility in the first place, also stepped in to help turn Madrid from a crisis into a mere inconvenience. Thank you to my employers, who did little more than raise an eyebrow when I told them I’d be away for the entire duration of the World Cup. Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest in this blog – even if this may have just been family and friends, most of whom have probably stopped reading by now, you at least encouraged me to pen to paper. Thank you to Andrew Jennings, Simon Kuper and Stefan Kzymanski for providing informative and entertaining reads for long, long train journeys. And, if you’re reading guys, a massive thanks to those of you who drafted and later signed the Schengen Agreement of 1985 and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 – your vision of a unified Europe really helped to make things easier, lads. And Timothy Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the internet – you are a legend.

The biggest thanks, however, must of course go to all those who made the travelling worthwhile. So, in chronological order, a massive shout out to Kostas and George; Snezana, Marija and Milica; Harry; Vlasto, David, Andrew, Andreas, Igor and the entire squad of the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies Association Football Club; Sara, Jure, Vanč, Ryan, Christina, Justin, Denise, Lana, Bole and Marco; Christor, Emir, Marco, Corrado and Luca; Nelly and David; Jilles and Yannick; Philip Rance, Daniel, Ralf, Ludwig, Paul, Julian, Philip Elam; Leen, Stefan, Rob, Ramon, Ron, Omar, Marcos, Jon, Joe, Alex, Peter, Lana, Chris, Jenelle, Brett, Laura, Ellen and Sam; Miguel, Jan, Sonia, Anthony, Kevin, Matt, Mike and Russ; and to Sam and Paul.

In particular, I must make a special point of thanking Snezana Bucic, Sara Soukal, Philip Rance and Jan and Sonia Fairey for going above and beyond to accommodate me. You guys most definitely make the team of the tournament.

So the moral of the story? Well, the corrupt incompetent insular and morally bankrupt group of people that run this game and retain full responsibility for the organisation of its flagship tournament, and the lucrative privileges that come with it – FIFA to you or me - will consistently refer to football’s, and the World Cup’s, power to bring people together. They will hark wistfully about how they facilitate the game’s ability to transcend race, class or gender the world over, from Algeria to Argentina. They’ll speak in the most corny of terms about romance, friendship, tolerance or passion. They’ll try and claim credit for all of the above.

Do, and don’t, listen to them. Listen to them because, corny as it might be, a lot of it is true. What I have seen first hand is that when a World Cup comes round, the buzz spreads like nothing else. There is simply no other occasion where I could find myself sitting alongside some Norwegians cheering on some Italians; at what other time could I, immediately upon introduction, enter into a debate with a Portuguese couple and their Greek friends in central Bratislava; when else could a pair of Americans cheer at the worst possible time in the midst of an overwhelmingly partisan Slovenian crowd and get away with it? If you live in a major city come the next one, get out there and see this – the multicultural times we live in mean you’re never far from someone who will have an interest in almost any game. And trust me, it makes the games a lot more fun when you’re with someone who cares.

Don’t, however, listen to FIFA because it’s got nothing to do with those clowns. Indeed, the games governing body in fact, through their blind arrogant blundering, serve to highlight the incredible power of the game as opposed to facilitate it – it takes a great game to bring the world together; it takes a truly special game to continue to bring the world together despite for decades and decades being in the grasp of greedy power-crazed beaurocrats.

Summarising the incredible power of the game, I’ll leave the final words to Nelly, a ridiculously captivating 80-something year old former languges teacher from Luxembourg whom I met on a train from Milan to Zurich. When discussing Italian celebrations she had witnessed following the previous tournament’s final, the woman apparently known as ‘The Priest Eater’ in her home country for her passionately secular views, highlighted to me just how dumbfoundingly popular the game really is: “The Pope must be jealous,” she said with a smile. I may have gone seeking to live off other teams’ glorious results, but for that moment I basked in the most glorious scoreline I had ever heard: Religion 0 Football 1. Like Spain, the result was never in doubt.

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GREECE 0-2 South Korea
SERBIA 0-1 Ghana
SLOVAKIA 1-1 New Zealand
SLOVENIA 2-2 USA
ITALY 1-1 New Zealand
SWITZERLAND 0-1 Chile
FRANCE 1-2 South Africa
GERMANY 1-0 Ghana
HOLLAND 2-1 Cameroon
HOLLAND 2-1 Slovakia
SPAIN 1-0 Portugal
SPAIN 1-0 Paraguay
HOLLAND 3-2 Uruguay
GERMANY 0-1 Spain
HOLLAND 0-1 Spain