Oranje-Mania!



Perhaps in and of itself, a victory by Holland over the World Champion Italy was not entirely surprising. The Dutch after all, have always been a threat to burst open even if historically, these last several tournaments that they've actually qualified for saw them bow out without much fanfare. A low budget England in some respects.

But the magnitude of the victory; 3-0, the swiftness of two counter attacks, the dazzling offensive flair and indeed the final result shocked not only the football world in this, the most exciting match of the tournament to date, but also the Dutch themselves. The announcers, shrill with joy in Holland were repeating over and over again, "this is unimagineable, unbelievable, 2-0 against the World Champions, 3-0 against the World Champions!"

There are more than a few excuse makers for the Italians. Ruud van Nistelroy's first goal came amid a rather hysterical cry for offsides in what did in fact seem to be a blatantly offside play however, revisionist refereeing saw the official explanation toted up by the referee, Peter Frojdfeldt and his assistants who are adamant that they are correct.

Fifa rule 11.11 – a player must ask for permission to leave pitch and can be judged active and in play if he does not.

In regard to law 11, officials are advised that a player who leaves the pitch without permission and does not return immediately must be taken into account when determining offside. Presumably, this can apply only to a specific passage of play since a footballer with, for example, a broken leg could be stranded for a very long while. In the instant case, the Italy right-back Christian Panucci hurt himself while trying to deal with an attack and tumbled behind the by-line.

Irrespective of how the officials wriggled out of being hailed for a blown call, the Dutch were simply magical from the start, pressurising an Italian defence which was clearly lacking without Fabio Cannavaro acting as its anchor
and making two strong, powerful counterattacks that sealed the victory.

The first came minutes after van Nistelroy's opening goal. The Italians were threatening the Dutch goal and the lead when Giovanni van Bronckhorst created a magnificent box-to-box finish starting with a goal line clearance at his own end and ending with Van der Vaart carrying the ball upfield, passed to Van Bronckhorst on the left. The full-back charged forward and crossed to Dirk Kuyt whose header down was driven in by Wesley Sneijder. The move lasted seconds and Italy never recovered.

van Bronckhorst scored the final goal in the second half, also on a counter attack that sliced through the Italian defence with ease and gave the Dutch the securing goal which officially squashed any Italian dream of staging a miraculous comeback.

France 0 Romania 0: zzzzzzz.
Contrasting the brilliant performance by the Dutch was the snooze fest undertaken by a somnambulist French attack, resembling at times the traditional English sides in international tournaments for their distinct lack of pace, desire and technique.

The Romanians are clearly content with allowing the scoreless draw and played for it through the 2nd half. No doubt they will be looking for three straight such results to qualify, a la Switzerland in the last world cup, slinking in without having scored a single goal.

Based upon 6 matches through 3 groups with only Group D remaining, it would appear the current teams to beat are Germany, Portugal, Holland and well, there aren't any other favourites yet.