Holland-Denmark 4:30am Dreamscape

no coffee – experiment in consciousness – the dutch and the danes – stream of thought football

are the dutch the greatest soccer playing country? of the eight group favorites (Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England), they have by far the smallest population – just over one-third the size of the next smallest of the group, Argentina – given the fact that the Dutch are perennial challengers, it’s safe to say their #1 per capita.

How and why? Major insight available in David Winner’s brilliant “Brilliant Orange: The neurotic genus of Dutch Soccer.” I can add a stray, unrefined thought on the matter – I lived in Italy in 1978 – pop culture at the time was utterly dominated by America along with young, greasy decadent Brit rockers – the dutch, the danes, the french, the germans – for all their new-found prosperity no one on earth, outside of their countries, gave a wit about their entire national cultural production unless you were a cinephile – but every boy in Europe, and most on earth, knew that Johann Cruyff was a God – to watch him was to witness pure genius unveil itself – I’ll return to this thought to wax (bad) poetic – for now let me conclude the point by saying that the effect on a nation’s consciousness that their most famous celebrated contemporaries are footballers cannot be underestimated – who out there can name a Dutch man or woman from the past four decades whose celebrity even approaches Cruyff’s, Neeskins, Gulliut, Van Basten, Berkcamp, and now Robben – true Rembrandt and van Gogh probably nip Cruyff in the larger arc of history, and maybe Spinoza and Anne Frank too, but a hell of a lot more people are thinking about Robben’s hamstrings this week than The Night Watch.

All that said the Danes had the better chances in the first half – Denmark is playing brilliant central defense and it’s clear that Robben is sorely missed, he’s been creating his own space firing rockets at goal in recent months; he’d certainly loosen up the Danish defense.

That was quick – Van Persie raises after, and beats the goalie to the ball 20 seconds after the 2nd hald kickoff, takes it in the corner (Holland using the entire, “total” field beautifully) lofts a threatening, but not wholly vicious, cross into the box and the Danes reverse the narrative by heading it into their own goal