EK 2008

It has been a long time since I wrote the last message,.. I know I’m a little bit lazy. But I have a new performance for this blog, did you notice? Yes, I’ve started to write in English. Why? It’s a good exercise for me, and I can reach more people (and friends). I will continue writing the Spanish version too. The Dutch version will be in a few years, when my level of writing is above the Tarzan level.
Since two weeks, I see orange everywhere. There is an orange fever!. In the biggest supermarket chain here, if you purchase more than 15 euros you receive a little lion with long-orange hair that you can stick anywhere. You find it stuck on bikes, cars, caravans, fridge, windows…, There also exists a large version, and the baseball-hat version. Why this fever? The European Football Championship 2008.
When I started working here I noticed that all my male colleagues knew a lot about football. They knew almost every player in the Spanish league, not only the players from Barcelona or Madrid, also players from Levante. Really, they read the sport newspapers every day to be informed. It’s surprising that there is a section, in one of the most important newspapers (Telegraaf) called: Financial Sport. In this section Clubs stock exchange results or profit-cost per player are analysed.
Now, with the good results of the Nederland team in the EK 2008, every Netherlander is really optimistic. They play well, and score a lot of goals. Before, the team and, its front man (coach Van Vasten), were criticized a lot for their poor play and for poor results against teams like Albania.
One of the most exciting experiences during the championship was watching the first Nederlands match on a big screen in a square of Nijmegen. It was against Italy, and I was there with,… my Italian colleagues. Dutch people are not dangerous watching National Team football, and it doesn’t matter if you are supporting the opposite team. But don’t do this in a Feyenoord-Ajax match, which will be really dangerous. By the way, it was amazing. All the people were wearing orange things: orange hats, orange shirts, orange lions, orange big-hands, orange toiletseats, … everything in orange except the fresh blond bier. They drank hundreds of liters, but in this case in little plastic glasses (normally they do in little glass glasses), and the feast was complete with the non-expected result of 3-0. Even the Italians said: Hup Holland!