Marco: respect

oranje after the second goal

Bloody hell.

3-0? Against Italy? The world champion? If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. All respect to Marco van Basten, the coach, who everybody had already given up on. If you can thrash the world champion like this, you have proved all your critics wrong.

But damn, I thought my heart would burst at some point in the game. It is so un-Dutch to be so commanding in a game I kept expecting the Italians to equalise and then win the game. But they didn’t. For once we had a team that wasn’t just focused on attacking, but which was incredibly strong in defense too. Unbelievable. What a way to start Euro 2008.