I’ll check out that story ursus mentioned.

Jan, I never said they under achieved before the last post. I pointed out, like Bashar did, relative to their talent they under achieved. Whereas, you can make an argument that Germany have over achieved in some WC.

I’m a fan of Dutch soccer and once wrote a piece about how they were among the best nations to not win a World Cup in history. As Bashar pointed out, they did reach three total finals which is excellent. Moreover, and as you point out, they have a strong track record. If only they were better on the kicks…it’s just one of those things. But I suspect Ronald de Boer got closer to the truth: they lack the killer instinct. At least that’s what my Dutch friend tells me.

Bashar, the UK actually has 58 million. France, Italy and the UK all basically have the same pop.

The Netherlands didn’t underachieve in terms of population. They underachieved in the number of tournaments actually won given the talent they had at their disposal since the 70s. If you can quantify talent (which you can’t) I think in terms of a trophies per talent ratio the dutch could be amongst the worst in Europe, rivaling Spain.

However it’s not population that nurtures talent. Developing football at a youth level is key. Having the necessary infrastructure in place as well as getting the opportunity to play in competitive leagues, being influenced by Maradona, Zola, Cruyff and the other players they have an opportunity to play with/against, etc… There are many other reasons.

A larger population does not mean a larger talent pool.. Or else China, India, USA and Indonesia would be the favorites going into every World Cup. Or if you consider regular WC participants with all the infrastructure necessary to grow and nurture talent it would be USA, Brazil, Russia and Japan.

England have 50 mn people while Italy have 57. Does that mean that the 7 mn made the difference of 3 WCs and 1 Euro, not to mention countless youth tournaments? No.

On the other hand, Uruguay have 3.3 mn people and 2 WCs. Thats around 1.65 mn per cup. Does that mean Italy needs to win 36 world cups to be as good a footballing nation as Uruguay? Does that mean Italy have to have 6 euros to be as good as Greece or 12 to be as good as Denmark?

Besides Italy have probably the 2nd best World Cups to population ratio behind Uruguay.

Anyone who has read Brilliant Orange will find the “plan” very reminiscent of the sensible advice that was rejected out of hand by the same organisation in the 90s.

We have done very well (as a small nation) to compete with bigger (and nowadays richer) football nations. We qualified for a number of tournaments and you can’t say we were lucky during those tournaments (except for 1988).

In 1974, we played the best football. You can’t dispute that. We did lose the finals.

In 1978 we didn’t play that good, but we did reach the finals. But everyone now knows that Argentina should never have reached the finals (was it the Peru game they bought) and I don’t think Holland was ever “allowed” to win that tournament.

In 1990, we again had a great group of names, but infighting did us in.

In 1994, we lost against Brazil in the QF due to two big ref mistakes: one goal was clearly off side, the third goal came from a free kick that wasn’t one.

In 1996 we were kicked out on penalties.

In 1998 we were kicked out on penalties (playing fantastic football yet again).

In 2000 we were kicked out o penalties (forgot against who )

In 2004 we disappointed.

In 2006 it was a warzone against Portugal. Could have gone either way.

So, only one disappointing tournament, one tournament with massive infighting and the rest were tournaments where the circumstances did us in, and I don’t believe those performances can be called “disappointing”…

Are we splitting hairs?