96.2% of the Brits back the Netherlands with Euro 2008

[smegma]

Going Dutch for Euro 2008

Guardian readers say Brits must back the Netherlands at the tournament
Barney Ronay
June 4, 2008 11:58 AM

It has taken a labyrinthine process of celebrity endorsements, two rounds of voting and the unravelling of an intricate internet election scam.

But Guardian readers have finally produced a definitive answer to the big question about Euro 2008, at least if you're British - who to support in the first major football tournament without either a British or an Irish presence since 1984. And the answer is: the Netherlands. The final verdict was arrived at via an online poll from a shortlist of Romania, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.

The result has already been greeted with jubilation, and a little inadvertent schadenfreude, by the Dutch embassy. "As we are not unfamiliar with missing out on a big tournament, we are especially proud and honoured that the country that is the cradle of football has chosen to support the Dutch national side," the Dutch ambassador, Pim Waldeck, said last night.

There were 48,232 votes cast in the poll, the overwhelming majority of them - 96.2% - for the Netherlands. Spain came second with 1.8% of the vote, followed by Germany (1.4%); Sweden (0.4%) and Romania (0.2%). If the level of support for the Netherlands seems surprisingly high, it is because Dutch ingenuity even extended to hacking into and trying to rig the Guardian's online poll.

In the final days of voting, the Dutch website GeenStijl (literally "no style") instigated a campaign to tilt the balance their country's way, eventually spawning a triumphant piece of hacking that gave Holland an improbable percentage of the votes.

Since they would have won without cheating, the Guardian decided not to disqualify the team.

The formal rallying call to the Dutch had been issued by Geoff Hurst, who wrote with some passion about the style of play, a fusion of "technique and playing with imagination". He also noted the appeal of tulips and, perhaps more crucially, the reputation of the Netherlands as a "nearly team", a bunch of almost-champions with a history of almost-triumph.

The British have always loved a runner-up. The Dutch team of the 1970s reached two successive World Cup finals and lost both of them. British football supporters will feel their pain. As the journalist Juan Gabriel Vásquez pointed out, this sentiment could have led us into the arms of Spain. Vásquez hoped that "the British will relate to Spaniards' record of pain and defeat".

The pop singer Robyn took up the cudgels for Sweden, mentioning Abba and the fact that Sweden is "a world leader in fighting climate change".

Comedian Henning Wehn told voters to back Germany because Germans are "efficient and logical human beings" who have no truck with self-deprecation and, interestingly, because the Dutch can be annoying when you live next door to them.

Finally, the Liberal Democrat housing spokesman, Lembit Opik, told us to support Romania because he is engaged to a member of pop group the Cheeky Girls.

At the end of which, the decision to back the Dutch has much to commend it.

There has long been a sense that the Dutch play football in the "right" way, with a style based around technical expertise and tactical acuity, allied to the more physical, typically northern European attributes of our own game. We like the way the Dutch play; we also like the Dutch player himself, a famously outspoken individual in the dressing room, unafraid to voice articulate and contrary opinions.

Now get out there and bring back that trophy. "Hup Holland Hup!" as we say in the orange section.

What to say
He's big, he's Dutch, he doesn't let in much (on Edwin van der Sar)
Hij is groot, hij is Hollands, hij laat niet veel door

We're walking in a Marco van Basten wonderland
We wandelen in een Marco van Basten wonderland

Ruud van Nistelrooy, tra la la la la (to the tune of Brown Girl in the Ring)
As above

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/06/04/going_dutch_for_euro_2008.html