Holland wins first match!

Holland didn’t swing against S&M, who weren’t capable of creating anything themselves. The individual class of the Chelsea winger gave Oranje a great start. The Serbian team manager had revised his gameplan. Djordjevic was brought on to mark Robben and Duljaj was added to the line up as an extra lock on midfield, instead of Koroman. It was a mistake. The Serbian midfield couldn’t create anything and Robben’s personal opponent was never able to stop him waving his magic wand. After a quarter of an hour of play, van Persie passed the ball in one touch to the sprinting Robben, who showed his aloofness in the box; 1-0. The Dutch defense did tremble every now and then, which meant you were never feeling secure about the outcome of the game. Luckily for Holland, the Serbian strikers couldn’t benefit from the defesive flaws of Oranje. The Serbian coach corrected his mistakes and brought Koroman, but S&M couldn’t put pressure on the focussed Dutch team. Illustrative for the Serbian frustration was the taking off of Kezman. The lack of Serbian power was not enough for Holland to motivate them into scoring more goals. Van Basten must have witnessed how his defense fumbled every now and then and his midfield and forwards were not able to keep ball possession. But, Holland did hang on to the 1-0 lead, primarely also, because van Nistelrooy and his understudy Kuyt came inches short of scoring at free kicks of respectively Sneijder and van Persie. A well deserved 1-0 win for the Dutch.