Dutch courage, Dutch Masters... can there be Dutch Champions?

Petulant, impudent and outrageously talented, specifically in that order, is what Dutch football is all about. Until Friday, July 2, that is. 

Now, the joke about 'Dutch courage' may need some reinventing. As may all the 'going Dutch' and 'Oranjes and lemons' jokes pseudo football fans, who, pouncing on the zeitgeist with all the predatory skill of Wesley Sneijder, have peppered social networking sites with. 

The fact is this petulant (Robin van Persie), impudent (Arjen Robben) and outrageously talented (Sneijder) Netherlands team went toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with the most powerful defence in world football – Brazil - and came out on top.

It may still be too early to dust off the 'Dutch Masters' epithet, but for a world starved of the Total Football of THE Dutch Master, Johann Cruyff, this latest crop of footballing talent from Holland may indeed provide the renaissance.

I honed my footballing skills (writing about it, that is), in the Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rikjaard era. Add to that mix Ronald Koeman, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, the de Boer brothers and then Dennis Bergkamp and you wonder, in fact are simply amazed, that all Holland have won in world football is one European Cup. 

Instead of translating that wealth of talent into a cupboard full of trophies, the Dutch game became better known for spitting incidents, red cards, rabid infighting and spectacular meltdowns. 

I remember asking a group of Dutch blokes I met in Thailand some years ago (not the best place for serious footballing insight, I know) what they thought the problem was. They said, unanimously, that players had simply lost the desire and pride to win for their country. That lust for victory was not there.

Is it there now? Maybe. But still, only in flashes. Against Brazil, they needed only two flashes – one of good luck and one of great vision – to win. Brazil will be still smarting from the fact that just two mistakes cost them the game.

The Netherlands on the other hand will now boast the belief that they can beat anyone. 

For my money, this team is still not performing at its best. It still is in third gear. Van Persie is running his socks off, but has been struggling in the final third. Robben's suddenly looking like a one-trick pony – feint right, cut in on the left and shoot. Which leaves the redoubtable Mr Sneijder to conjure up all the tricks. Mark Van Bommel, Nigel De Jong and Dirk Kuyt have been superb in the engine room, but, to beat Argentina or Spain (one of whom I believe will reach the final) they will need to get into fourth gear. 

On the other hand, competing teams may look at the Dutch and feel that this is their peak. That they can't go beyond this. Man-mark Sneijder, always show Robben down the right and let Van Persie frustrate himself into substitution. 

The Dutch, never having minded being an adjective down the years, may this time truly believe that can attach themselves to the noun that matters most – Champions.

After all, they beat Brazil.

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