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read about the home-coming of the Dutch national football team earlier this week and thought of putting up some closing remarks about the lost final match against Spain. It was a fricking ugly game after a fairly efficient Worldcup run: I say fairly efficient, as I thought that the Dutch players didn’t show any quality football and relied on too many lucky events to make it to the finals. There were some good moments: I thought Van Bronckhorst was consistent and even scored a goal that would have made it into the list of much discussed ‘best of World cup 2010′ goals if not for that final.

Maybe that’s the point I’m trying to make: In the build-up to the final, it appeared that the foreign press was in favour of the Dutch winning the worldcup, reminiscing the finals of 1974 and 1978. Sadly, of the 2010 World Cup final, the only picture the 2010 final that sticks out is the De Jong karate kick: intentional or not.

On the good side: now might be a good time to start rebuilding a new Dutch national team. Most of the current members of Dutch squad were also involved in the ‘Battle of Nuremberg’.

I watched the Dutch play the other day, against Brazil and saw them win that game in their particular style they’re now known for: messy football with a teeny bit of flair and luck. After the equalizer, that unfortunate mix-up from Cesar and Melo, I was surprised to see the Brazilian team completely collapse, physically and emotionally. There was a remark by one of the guests at the CBC who said it the best (quoted as best as I can):

“There was this total lack of emotional balance in the Brazil team: From Dunga literally kicking and beating up the dug-out to his players losing it on the field”

God. Sometimes I just hate this game for all the theatrics of the players and coaches.

The FIFA Worldcup 2010 has started a couple of days ago and I noticed that I haven’t seen any of the matches yet only because the matches are a broadcast at impossible times. For a lack of better links (or rather, laziness), the following days I hope to watch the Copa Mondial on CBC’s website (live streaming apparently).

I’ve only briefly mentioned the Van Der Sloot case on this blog (to be honest, hardly is a better word). In summary, guy who was main suspect in Aruba case is arrested by Peruvian police for the homocide of the daughter of a Peruvian multi-millionaire uh wait. There are so more colourful details to this case that I’m 100% certain that Hollywood will make a movie out of this. Unfortunately, most of the saillant details seem to come from the Dutch press.

One of the most compelling stories from the Internet (“Right now, On the Internet”, cue typical news program music) is the story about Keanu Reeves. The Guardian perfectly summarizes the story but alas, no links (“What, horrors!”). Here ya go then.

So, Obama has become the Democrats’ presidential candidate, which reminds me of his best moment of his campaign, a rebuttal to laughter from Hillary Clinton on the question why there are so many Clinton advisers on his team:

Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me as well.

It also appears that Obama is highly favoured in countries outside of North America. It’s the economy, stupid!

During my brother’s visit here, we didn’t have much time to watch the Euro 2008 (Soccer/Football). Later this afternoon, I found out that the Dutch team is doing very well. It’s their second win in the “Pool of Death”, which means that they’re literally going to the quarter-finals. I was able to watch the tail-end of Supersport’s coverage of the win and watch the commentators discuss the Dutch coach’s (Van Basten) options for their last (pool) game against Romania: sent in his best players or have a ‘B’ team play.

Not that I’ll be able to watch the next games, or lets say, summaries of the older games: the EUFA (the European soccer association) has complete control over who is allowed to broadcast their games, how it’s being sent to soccer fans and the amount of money they charge to them. Watch for a crackdown on YouTube the next couple of weeks.