PARIS—Ok, ok. So it looks like the Netherlands might be a pretty good side after all.
Saturday the Oranje matched, and perhaps even surpassed, the magnitude of their shockingly skilled victory over current World Cup holders Italy four days previous. In putting the screws to the French (the ’06 runners-up) in equally dominant fashion, Marco van Basten’s side have to be considered the on-form team of the tournament to this point, with Spain hoping to at least challenge for that position tonight with a good result against the Swedes.
I watched the game in a packed cafe right on the Place de la Bastille, at a spot where the cheapest pint of draft beer was €10.60, a new personal-high sighting. We (Mlle. Trotter, her brother, and I) opted to travel the bottle-of-wine route instead, this being the more French move anyways. We toasted les Bleus as the kickoff arrived, but we must have done something wrong because for the first twenty minutes the French looked completely lost, while the Dutch moved the ball around the park with ease and grabbed a 1-0 lead off a header by Dirk Kuyt, co-captain of the all-ugly team alongside his opposite midfielder, Franck Ribery.
The French dominated the rest of the half, but couldn’t manage to finish past Edwin van der Sar. And like many a side in this tournament, they would live to regret the lack of finishing when second-half substitute Arjen Robben, visibly gimpy on an injured leg, still had the wheels to beat the French defenders down the field and centre to Robin van Persie for a tap-in off the glove of Greg Coupet.
The mood was pretty grim at Le Bastille, except among the Dutch in attendance (or they may have just been anti-French), who now felt confident enough to reveal their presence. Thierry Henry, who we’d been bitching about for his ineffectiveness the whole game, brought France back to 2-1 with a bit less than a half hour left, and suddenly the place was jumping and anything seemed possible. But before the celebration had even cooled, Robben had delivered a second goal from an impossible angle that even he seemed amazed to have scored past a Coupet who was fairly unimpressive on all three Dutch goals.
Did I say three goals? I meant four, and when Wes Sneijder’s rocket hit the back of the net on the last play of the game, we were up and out of there faster than you could say merde, which is just one word so we were out of there like lightening is what I’m trying to say.
It’s not that the French didn’t have their chances in this one. They did, but the Dutch finished better and van der Sar outplayed Coupet by miles. The thing that really struck me was how, even when they were controlling play, the French offensive ball movement was urgent, panicked, furious. The Dutch looked cool and collected – they really did make a very hard game look very easy.
France now need a win in their final match against Italy, plus some help from the Dutch, to emerge from the group. Unlike the Italians, who were lucky to escape with a 1-1 draw after being outplayed by a suddenly attack-minded Romanian side, there is no scenario in which a draw will put the French through. The Italians were spared elimination by an eye-popping save by Gianluigi Buffon off a late Adrian Mutu penalty kick (which would have been Mutu’s second of the game and would have helped add weight to my to-this-point-silly prediction of Mutu as a Golden Boot winner).
The match on Italy should be high on drama, and, hopefully for the French, low on head butts. The French press is clamoring for manager Raymond Domenech to shelve his more experienced (read: old) dinosaurs and give France’s next generation – Benzema, Nasri, Gomis, Diarra, Clerc, Squillaci, and keeper Steve Mandanda – a run at the Azzurri. One thing’s for certain: if France is on its way home on Wednesday morning, Domenech will certainly be out of a job.
Friday recap
Winners: the Netherlands 3-1 (Italy-Romania draw)
Top player: Everybody contributed for the Dutch side, so it’s hard to single out one person, with van Nistelrooy and Robben being the standouts. Let’s give this one to Italian goalie Gianluigi Buffon, who kept his team alive in the tournament with a brilliant save on Mutu’s penalty – first guessing correctly, then throwing up his hand to get a piece of the ball, and clearing it with his boot. Probably the best penalty save I’ve ever seen.
Best goal: Wesley Sneijder’s cracking 35-yard strike as the clock struck midnight on France’s nightmare ball. I was out the door before Coupet had pulled the ball out of the net.
In-game beverages: a bottle of 2006 Le Mas de la Garenne (Languedoc white)
Tonight’s Games
Spain and Sweden meet in the early tilt. Both teams won their first games and will be looking to finish top of the group to avoid the Dutch in the next round. Spain looked fantastic in their first game, on par with Portugal and the Dutch thus far, but don’t forget that the Roja also scored four goals in their first game of WC ’06 versus the Ukraine and went undefeated in group play, only to fulfil their traditional knockout-round flameout versus the French. The second game, between Russia and Greece, might be a good excuse for an afternoon nap for those of you in North American time zones.
Predictions: Sweden 2-2 Spain, Russia 1-0 Greece
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