EURO 2008 DIARY DAY 7: NETHERLANDS … 5 HOLLAND … 5 (DUTCH progress to next round … of FOOTBALL FU**ING HISTORY!!!)

We can only leave the Lawrensons, Linekers, Beglins and Drurys to their own ignorance. It’s as if they’re some prudish, uptight husband, scared of allowing their wifely audience from mixing with the dark, exotic pleasures of “other men’s football”, lest she realises what she’s been missing all these years and fucks off. Me? I’m a slut anyway. Holland could very well crash and burn in the quarters - their last couple of games may well just be a temporary if spectacular upturn - but I don’t care - I already have the memory of their two passionate nights in Bern. Someone else will thrill us soon, no doubt. Another team or two will give us no promises but all the cheap visceral fulfillment we need. Give me more of this, EURO 2008 - give me more! - PILE IT ON, BIG FELLAH!!!! DO IT TO ME! DO IT TO ME HAAAAAAARRRDDDDD!!!

The Future is indeed bright - the future is pale blue, white, red-white-and-blue trim and ORANJE!! The future has again been brightened by the Dutch national team. The future holds as many years as we have left in our lives always able to think back to ANOTHER classic Dutch side and SENSATIONAL Netherlandish voetbal genius emblazoned onto our mind’s eye for all eternity. I’m sorry. I’m excited. I’m not making much sense. But I’m gonnae go out on a fat limb here. I’m gonnae go OTT and I’m gonae say that these two Dutch performances, in the last four days, have been BETTER than anythng provided by the tulip-munching, clog-wearing, toke-taking, liberal-thinking-rules-on-prostitution-legeslating teams of 1978, 1988 and - yes, I’m gonnae say it … Don’t try to stop me … I’m gonnae fucking say it … I don’t care - BETTER THAN THE TEAM OF 1974!!!

I said it after their 3-0 win over Italy and now, after the 4-1 destruction of France, I’m actually gonnae start believing my own pish: This Dutch team have FOUND THE WAY! They have sifted through the fool’s gold of Total Football and saved only the nuggets. They’ve maintained their tactical nous, they’ve retained their athletic style but they’ve harnessed their cynical side and dumped the internecine spirit. William Morris was a mawkishly patronising upper-class cunt - a Victorian version of today’s 4×4 school-runners with their agas in the kitchen and rock-climbing on the weekends - but, in terms of fitbaw aesthetics, I live rigorously by his dictum that nothing useless can be truly beautiful. The Dutch teams of 74 and 78 could harldy be described as useless when they twice reached the final of the World Cup. However, the Dutch mind-set since then has been that “They don’t really want to win those world cups” because, ye know, that would have been tacky and would have involved some of that filthy stuff called “pragmatism”.

Basically, they’ve been such arrogant bastards for the last forty years, such pathetically bad losers, that they’ve changed the entire point of football, just to put a retrospectve gloss on one particularly massive failure (the 74 world Cup Final) and to attempt the most childish ever swipe at the success of the country they hate the most (and who can blame them): The Germans. But now that all seems to have changed. Holland, it seems, have finally grown up. From a nation who were so gutted by their fuck-up in the 74 world cup final that they lived in denial for 30 years, to a nation who has suddenly found a new enemy to be smited: Results.

Spain are the biggest under-achievers in Europe, yes. But the Dutch - also with just one European Championship to their name - are a close second. Holland has a much smaller population than the big gun of the Iberian peninsula and they have a much better record in the World Cup. But when Dutch teams have been so often SOOOOO good, so obviously capable, so tried and tested while WITHIN a tournament, so often reaching the quarters and semis, and yet have decided, when faced with a 1974 final situiation, to CHUCK IT, then their shame is greater. Spain just seem to fade and die. The Dutch almost consciously sacrifice their potential on the need to mainatin the myth about their “Victory of style” at the West Germany World Cup of the mid-seventies.

No more, though. Cruyff’s criticism has united this squad. The press slaggings have united this squad. They’ve finally realised that their own worst enemy is themselves and - man, oh, man - how UTTERLY THRILLING it is to be watching the phenomena I always wanted to witness at a major tourney: Holland just DOING IT. They get steamed in with all the vim and vigour of a junior side in the White and Mackay cup semi-final. Franck Riberry was the latest to discover that the new Ducth hunt in rabid packs whenever a talented opponent gains posession. The counter-attacking is breathtaking. The goals will live with us forever. The teams they’re defeating are the world champions, then the world vice-champions - and they’re beating them all by three goals - and WHAT goals!

And yet, the most amazing thing, the most promising aspect of this Dutch team is something so obvious that even the stunningly myopic Alan Shearer picked up on it during BBC1’s dusgusting coverage of the latest Dutch game: The way the bench and the players react to the goals. The manager - a legend - and the subs - all potential huffs - come pouring off that technical area, onto the pitch after each goal. Van Basten jumps so high he looks like he’s going for that header against Lokomotiv Leipzig in the 1987 Cup Winners Cup Final all over again. The scorers all head for the bench too. This is a Ducth team with no divisions. This is a Dutch team with no hang-ups. This is a Dutch team with GENUINE TEAM SPIRIT. This is a Ducth team, ONCE AGAIN, with limitless possibilities … and, for once, no internal bars on those possibilities.

Even the BBC - Shearer slated the Dutch’s dodgy defence when they’ve lost just one goal in two games against the best two sides in the world!!! - were forced to acknowledge, finally, that this is a blisterngly great tournament. The Holland-France game left even those nazis with microphones no choice. 0/10 for Motson and Lawrenson - the former can’t get excited at the right times because he’s too old or just not interested and the latter has no capacity for joy in his entire sorry being. The frequent periods of dead air when they hand back to the studio in Vienna are embarrassing. Three men who can’t decide how to be sarcastic and critical of a phenomenal game and one man - Martin O’Neill - who daren’t be positive lest he loses the gig.

Thank god the fotball did all the talking for us on Friday night. I said the second Dutch goal against Italy was the best of this tournament, that nothing would better it. I think Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and co must have heard me. They did their damndest to top it last night and, like the Italy Romania clash earlier in the day, we had the double-bonus of both sides scoring in a minute just to up the thrill factor several dozen notches.

“A goal made in Chelsea and scored by Arsenal!”? So said Motosn when Van Persie made it 2-0. But Robben’s been at Real Madrid for a year. How can you not just be LOVING this football, Motty? How can you not just let go of the pathetic Premiership angle in the face of such glorious soccer??!!

Och, fuck them. Who cares about the commentators when the drama is so great. Yet I’ll give Jon Champions and David Pleat 7/10 for their lovely commenatry on the thorougly lovely game from Zurich. David Pleat’s Malapropisms have actually become quite endearing because, although strictly-speaking they are rooted in unhealthy ignorance, they usually come to the fore when he’s whipping himself into a frenzy of enthusiasm. Yes, that’s right - “enthusiasm”. Remember that, Lawrenson? Jon champion too can be heard just getting genuinely excited about the drama and the quality on show. Such innocence will soon be punished by his bosses I’m sure. Never mind the little-engerlander angle - Champion and Pleat just like their fitbaw. Why is that so hard for anoyone else in British broadcasting to understand? ITV has been so much kinder to this tournament than the BBC. Their production values are always cheaper, ITV, and Beglin and Drury are utterly horrendous in their xenophobic disdain, their accent on the negative, but BBC’s ENTIRE DIRECTORIAL REMIT puts Beglin and Drury in the shade. After an entire life-time of preferring Auntie Beeb to channel 3, I’ve finally been won round to honest, cheap commercialism.

Watching Italy being out-Italianed by the Romanians was nearly as much of a buzz as the Bern classic. Romania’s defending was sensational, full of the last-ditch heroics of a team destined for the semis. Their keeper’s name sounds like Labotomy - I’m sure Mark Lawrenson would have picked up on that school-boy slagging! - but he had more than enough upstairs for the Italians. He pulled off some great saves, his defensive mates pulled off some stunning last-minute tackles and there was blood wounds, there was an off-side goal, there was Italy on the verge of elminiation. But just when Mutu put Romania ahead and put me in Schdenfreude heaven, the very wanker who eliminated us at Hampden, put Italy back in it.

Panucci’s equaliser means the Italian press, players and FA will now have a reason to start the exact same campaign they started at this stage of EURO2004. “Someone else is gonna cheat us!!!” Judging the Dutch and Romainains by their own standards, the Italians will protest that the other final game in group c could be fixed in Romania’s favour just to eliminiate the French and talians. The Azzurri started all this pish when a Sweden-Denmark draw at Boavista could eleminate them from the tournament in Portugal four years ago, no matter if they defeated Bulgaria in their own game. It did. But, really, on the evidence of the italy performances so far, why would Holland potentially want to face their nemesis Romania again in the knock-outs when they’ve just totally humped both Italy and France??!!

Disturbing to see Maura Camoranesi doing a Mariah Carey and suddenly remembering he’s black. That hair-do and under-beard were even scarier than the wee boy’s home-made cowboy outfit worn by keeper Gigi Buffon. But his save from Mutu’s penalty (a GREAT decision by the ref!) was far from cowboyish - that was a world class keeper at the top of his game. Mutu was giving that penalty his all. After what happened to certain Korean players in Serie A after the Italian elmination from the 2002 World Cup I wondered if Fiorentina’s Mutu would really be trying that hard.

But then I heard the chants of “Mutu! Mutu! Va fan cuolo!” and I understood why, apart from basic professional and patriotic pride, he was giving it laldy. And then he scored a belter of a reaction goal - against the World champions - when he couldn’t manage one in 210 minutes against Rangers. What a defence we had last season … ahhh, WHAT A DEFENCE.

Have you noticed the stadium announcements at EURO 2008 are all in English, yet no English-speaking nation is taking part. Okay, maybe it’s the obvious Lingua Franca but one hopes the 16 teams at this tournament never hear the comments from that top English-language outlet, the BBC. With every raising of the bar in this magnificent championship the Beeb becomes more bilious and hysterical in their desire to paint it as shite.

We can only leave them to their own ignorance. It’s as if they’re some prudish, uptight husband, scared of allowing their wifely audience from mixing with the dark, exotic pleasures of “other men’s football”, lest she realises what she’s been missing all these years and fucks off. Me? I’m a slut anyway. Holland could very well crash and burn in the quarters - their last couple of games may well just be a temporary if spectacular upturn - but I don’t care - I already have the memory of their two passionate nights in Bern. Someone else will thrill us soon, no doubt. Another team or two will give us no promises but all the cheap visceral fulfillment we need. Give me more of this, EURO 2008 - give me more! - PILE IT ON, BIG FELLAH!!!! DO IT TO ME! DO IT HAAAAAAARRRDDDDD!!!

EURO 2008 Microphone League standings after Day 7:

Pearce&Lawrenson - 0/20