Jan van Riebeeck, founding father of Cape Town, first left his tulip-laden homeland for this port paradise 358 years ago. On Tuesday, the Dutch coloniser’s successors reclaimed this town as their own, beating Uruguay 3-2 in the semifinal to enter the World Cup Final for the third time.
Not since the Rinus Michels-managed, Johan Cruyff-inspired team of the 1970s revolutionised the game with Total Football have Holland entered the final. Even the dream trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, who took the Oranje to the 1988 European Championship title, failed to ever get this far at the biggest stage.
But, for those expecting this team to be in the mould of he great team of the 1970’s look elsewhere. Bert van Marjwik is the anti-thesis of Michels, he is a Feyenoord man, Michels, like Total Football, was all about Ajax.
The midfield of the Total Football teams of the 1970s was orchestrated by the supremely talented Johan Neeskens. The current bunch has the tough as nails son-in-law of the coach – Mark van Bommel.
This team however is not short on flair though. The so-called Fab Four – Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben and Rafael van der Vaart – are at par with the best attacking talents in the world but van Marjwik knows the importance of defence and the only time the quartet have been together on the field was in the second-half of Tuesday’s match as they looked to break the deadlock against the Latin Americans.
“We’re in the final – unbelievable. We last made the final 32 years ago, so what we’ve achieved is, and I’ll say it again, unbelievable. I love beautiful football, but I also want to win. In the second half, we proved we’re a decent footballing side. We took control of the match. We actually should have made it 4-1, but it was a close-run thing at the end,” said van Marjwik after guiding his side to a sixth straight win in the Rainbow Nation.
The Dutch, owing to their flair, have often been referred to as the ‘Brazil of Europe’, and if they win on at Soccer City in Johannesburg on Sunday they will join the Samba Kings of 1970 and 2002 as the only team to win all their matches en route to the World Cup crown.