What a terrible way to end a stellar international career. Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, retired from international football on the losing end of a 3-1 score despite singlehandedly keeping Holland in the match against Russia with stunning saves and exhorting his colleagues to wake up and play! Alas it was to no avail as after 120 minutes of football, Russia went through to the European Cup semi-final match against Spain after successive defensive errors left van der Sar unprotected in extra time.
What rubs salt into the wound is that the Dutch were done in by one of their own. Guus Hiddink, 61 is a special breed of international coach bringing discipline to what had been chaos in Korea, Australia and now Russia. Add to that his leading PSV Eindhoven to club and European championships and you begin to get the full measure of this giant-killing man.
In the 2002 World Cup (co-hosted by Korea and Japan) he led a Korean team that had never won a world cup game in its history, all the way to the semi-final game (and were indeed a lone goal away from playing for the trophy). He became a Korean national hero and his birth town, the sleepy Achterhoek village of Varsseveld, 100 miles from Amsterdam, erected new village welcome signs in Dutch and Korean owing to the large number of tour buses that passed by his birth home.
He then took a disorganised and underperforming Aussie squad deep into the 2006 Word Cup and moved on to Russia where they are currently in the semi-finals against Spain and could win it all yet again.
But to do it to your own countrymen? Guus, how could you?
You know the heartache of Holland’s beautiful game. They roared through the opening round with key revenge wins against Italy (for the exit in the semi-final against them in 2000) a game then watched by 11 million of 16 million Dutch citizens. They then demolished France 4-1 to knock them out of the tournament and swooped past Romania giving Italy second life until last night.
You broke my 8-year old son’s heart, not to mention mine. I was one of a sea of folks shedding their orange jerseys in disgust. Always so close yet so far away. Well next time I see you at the sauna don’t expect me to be civil. But then I imagine you may have to repatriate permanently to Russia after this one.
Seriously though, well done and well played.
It looks more and more that Russia is determined to become a world stage player. Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich is, I’m sure quite happy that the billions of Gazprom dollars are funding a new program of Soviet-style domination, this time in football. I’m not sure the rest of us are as happy.
See you for revenge match in 2009 WC qualifying? God, I hope not.
