20 years later?

With the Eredivisie season mercifully coming to an end last week, its time to turn our attention to what could be a very exciting summer for the men in Oranje. Am I looking at this schedule correctly? Is the Italy match really only 2 weeks away? Guess I'd better start looking for my oranje pigtails.

So its been 20 years since Holland won their only European Cup in those sweet wallpaper-esque shirts. Van Basten was the top scorer with 5 goals (including 3 against England in the group stages), a 2-1 win over hosts West Germany eased a bit of the pain felt after the '74 WC final, and a convincing 2-0 win over the Soviets (yes, that's how long ago it was), finally gave the Netherlands the respect they deserved. Since then, things have been...well, not so great. Despite being regarded as one of the greatest footballing nations in the world, the Dutch have also managed to be labeled one of the biggest disappointments as well.

Ok, enough of the history lesson.

In a sign of the times, with Heitinga gone and Hunetlaar pretty much out the door, Steks could end up being the only true Ajacied on Van Basten's final roster. And he's on the bench! Ouch. The team does look good though, and its nice to see some old familiar names like Melchiot and Van Bronkhorst still in the mix with the younger generation of players that dominates the roster these days. Whatever the final line up looks like, they are going to have a tough time getting out of Group C. Italy of course is always a scary team to play, but the team that worries me the most is the Romanians, a team that Holland could only muster a 0-1-1 record against in qualifying. I wouldn't be surprised to see France at the bottom of this group. If Oranje manages to get by the group stages, they would be pared with either the winner or runner up of Group D, which includes Sweden, Spain, Greece and Russia, all of which are beatable teams.

One thing is for sure, the last thing I want to see is for Holland to end up last in that group with Van Basten headed to 'rescue' Ajax.