Socrates is dead and Oranges aren't what they used to be

Socrates is dead.  And so is the World Cup.

The 2022 World Cup is going to be played in fridges in the desert and the Dutch have started kicking people

I’m fond of saying that things aren’t what they used to be.  Well, the World Cup isn’t for a start.  The only thing that was like the 70s about the 2010 final was that it reminded me of Carl Douglas and his kung fu fighting.  Van Bommel and De Jong should have been running around in white pyjamas.  I wonder what Rep and Rensenbrink and Willy van der Kerkhof made of it all. 

The first World Cup I ever saw was in 1978, from Argentina. Some of the games were on very late at night and I sneakily watched them in my bedroom on a small black and white TV, with the volume on low so my mum couldn't hear.

This was in the days when I’d only ever seen about 3 football matches live on TV. A couple of England Internationals and the 1978 FA Cup Final when Roger Osbourne wore himself out from kicking the ball into the net and had to be carried off.

But thankfully the two games I remember best from 78 were on in the early evening and I got to watch them downstairs in colour.  They both involved the men in orange, although you didn‘t get the full effect of the orange, because they were playing teams in dark blue so they had to play in white with orange shorts.  No matter though.

They lost 3-2 to Scotland, courtesy of 'that goal' by Archie Gemmill and in the second round they beat Italy 2-1, in a game where the ultra-defensive Italians tried and failed to sit on a 1-0 lead.  In a tournament packed with long-range goals, the two by Ernie Brandts and Arie Haan which defeated the Italians are the two I remember the most. 

Arie Haan would shoot from anywhere.  And Johnny Rep wasn’t bad either.  In fact it was him who finally killed the Scots off with the second goal in the 3-2 defeat.  That was from miles out aswell.

Before the 78 final my primary school became divided into two camps, marching round the playground, either chanting ‘Argentina’ or ‘Those guys in orange.  We’re not really sure if it they’re called Holland or the Netherlands‘.  I was of course in the Orange camp.  Ever since I've always thought there was something special about the men in Orange. Their notion of 'total football' has a beauty about it which is worlds away from the blood and thunder of English football (although I enjoy that too). 

Maybe its just because I’m getting older, but every World Cup since 78 seems to have been worse than the one before and amongst other things, there seems to have been a decline in the art of kicking the ball into the net from a long way off.  Almost every goal in 78 was nearly from the halfway line.  In 1982 we still had Socrates and Eder whacking them in from distance.  In 86 we had Vasily Rats and Belanov.  Italy 90 was a bit of a blip but in USA 94 we had Hagi and Stoichkov who could could still kick the ball where they wanted it to go.  These days most shots seem to end up in the crowd or at the corner flag.

You know, winning isn’t everything.  Most of the teams I’ve seen in the World Cup that have captured the imagination have been knocked out by other teams that were more boring.  The Dutch deserved to win in 78, Socrates and his boys from Brazil were the only Brazil team I’ve ever really got behind, and they got knocked out in 82 by boring Italy.  They managed to lose a game by trying to win it when they only needed a draw.   In 86 the Danes and Belgians were fantastic, but as usual with small nations playing attacking football they lost too. 

In the fantastic book Brilliant Orange, David Winner took us on a wonderful journey through all things Dutch: landscape, art, politics, culture, architecture, and he illustrated brilliantly how a nation's character shapes its football.

You can't always judge a book by its cover, but with this one you can. It is both Brilliant and Orange. 

I’m only glad it was written before the 2010 final.  Otherwise the title would have had to be changed to ‘How the Dutch used to be Brilliant and Orange, but now they’re into Kung Fu Instead’.