Hotdog & Friends

Beautiful. No other word can describe the game.

Today, the Netherlands demonstrated all that is good and beautiful in the sport of soccer. After the Oranje’s comprehensive, 3-0 victory, Euro 2008 officially kicked off. And to have it come at the expense of the Italians - so much the better.

I wrote earlier that the Italians were the counterattacking masters. Holland’s Man of the Match, Gio van Bronckhorst, certainly flipped that notion on its ear.

In one amazing sequence, he cleared the ball off his own goal line, broke up the left wing like a bolt, and finished the play with a header goal in the heart of Italy’s penalty box. Simply scintillating. He beat the entire Italian team up the park!

And what about Orlando Engelaar? Earning only his eighth cap for his country, one would have thought it was 80. An absolute revelation. How he controlled the middle! Nary a peep from Andrea Pirlo the entire game, so engulfed he was by Engelaar. The skipper of FC Twente (my hometown team from the Netherlands), standing two meters tall, completely swallowed up the Italian attacks in the middle.

The Azzurri normally like to keep it compact and work it up the center of the park - Engelaar forced them to abandon their prime strategy and play long balls to Toni.

And finally we turn our attention to Dirk Kuyt. What a special game he turned in on the right side. Presumably starting only because of Robben’s injury, Kuyt showed the world what Liverpool fans have long known - he does everything to help teams win. His work rate, his unselfishness, his tackling - so special.

(Let’s not talk about how he was twice exposed defensively in his own area. This is a happy day. And as we’ll get to later, the soccer Gods had put a wall in front of the Dutch goal.)

Oh, and the defense. I don’t know what kept the ball out of the Dutch net - all I can think of is Destiny. Even in stoppage time, Massimo Ambrosini’s shot from not eight yards away skipped of the chest of a Dutch defender and trickled wide. There was something divine in that.

My heart rate’s still a bit elevated from that supreme encounter. When the Netherlands settled the matter with their superb third goal, I let out a primal scream that no doubt set the areas seismometers a-twitter.

Part of it was exhilaration, and part was gratitude for beautiful match I’d been so lucky to see. I don’t go to museums for art - I watch games like that. Part of being a soccer fan is never knowing when games are going to live up to the hype. When it happens, it makes it all worth it.

I’m still breathless. I haven’t felt that kind of joy in years.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 2:28 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.