ORANJE-DOOM
Tuesday was billed as D-Day for the Holland football team in their last-ditch quest to stay in the running for Euro 2016 qualification and so it came to pass: D for “Dutch defeat at the hands of the Czech Republic”, D for “didn’t make the play-offs” and D for “d’oh!” as Robin van Persie put the tin hat on a thoroughly miserable campaign by scoring past his own goalkeeper with a header even more memorable than that beauty he famously scored against Spain. From Total Football to total shambles. Short of the players donning bowler hats, banging Lambeg drums and insisting “we want to walk down that road”, this particular Oranje march out of Europe’s football elite since finishing third at the World Cup couldn’t have been more comical or peculiar.
Of course the good news for Dutch footba … hold on, that’s not right. Of course the less bad news for Dutch football fans is that even if they hadn’t repeatedly blunderbussed themselves in the foot against the Czech Republic, they wouldn’t have qualified for the play-offs anyway, what with Turkey doing enough against Iceland to secure third place and an automatic qualifying place for being best of the also-rans. The Dutch can also console themselves with the fact that they’ve bog-snorkelled their way through this particular slough of despair before, failing to qualify for other big football jamborees before emerging to regenerate like some sort of bicycle-riding, tulip-growing Doctor Who. Comparisons that The Fiver has heard likening them to beleaguered Scotland might be a little bit premature, so there’s no need for a lemming-like collective leap over the bank of the nearest canal just yet.
Despite spending much of Tuesday night’s match on the touchline staring very, very hard at his shoes and looking very much like a man who had no desire whatsoever to continue as coach, Danny Blind told reporters afterwards that nothing could be further from the truth. “I want to continue as coach,” he said, insisting unconvincingly that he’d been “in my right mind” when he agreed to oversee the current mess, which was only half a mess when he got there.
With so much Dutch misery and navel-gazing on show at the Amsterdam Arena, the contrast in mood at the Cardiff City Stadium, where Chris Coleman and his already-qualified players put on a show of Wales’s new brand of Dw I Heb Dy Weld Ti Ers Talwmn Total Football for a capacity crowd that was in party mood. With popular local beat music combo Super Furry Animals, purveyors of such bleep-infused tunesmithery as The Man Don’t Give A F**k, The International Language of Screaming and the catchily titled Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the ecstatic Welsh players were photographed celebrating their recent success by cavorting around the pitch, doing the Joe Ledley and glugging heartily from large bottles of champagne. Despite this carousing, it is a sign of their newfound football maturity that they still sobered up in time to beat Andorra 2-0 and round off their most successful qualifying campaign since the Cold War.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Just a reminder if tonight’s game ends in a draw, extra-time and penalties will follow” – with their team trailing MK Dons 14-0 in the Bucks & Berks Senior Cup, Didcot Town’s Twitter feed takes it all in decent humour.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: Jürgen Klopp headlines (yesterday’s Fiver letters). If he is ever forced to resign after a poor run of form, with the final straw being an attack on former Sunderland, Newcastle and West Ham forward Bryan Robson in a police station, then you can have the following: Top Flop Klopp Chops Pop in Cop Shop to Cop Kop Chop. I am bored. Sorry” – Rob McEvoy.
“If it all goes wrong for Sam Allardyce at the Stadium of Light and he’s dismissed on 27 February, you can have this headline on me: Wham Bam Thank You Sam, Boss Gets Can After West Ham Sham” – Simon McKenzie.
“Being the relentless, sneering, self-loathing, nihilistic Englishman that I am, I’ve always considered your coverage of the Three Lions to be positively jingoistic. Either way, I feel Stuart Comer’s criticism was particularly unfair (yesterday’s letters). The Fiver’s got at least a dozen tedious jokes it regularly falls back on. THREE! MORE! YEARS!” – Kraig Dixon.
“What nationality is Relentless Sneering Nihilistic Anti-English Fiver, anyway? Of the many possible options, I’m going for Ex-Pat” – Steve Bennett.
“In yesterday’s Fiver, did Stuart Comer come out as a Time Lord? If indeed he did ‘read yesterday’s Fiver for the first time in about three years’, that means the first time he read it was roughly 1,095 days ago. So, if Stuart is reading this either in the future or the past, could he please let me know if Herr Klopp will indeed snaffle Liverpool a title within the next four years and save me the chewed finger nails? Thanks in advance (or arrears)” – Alan Rushton-Woods (and 1,056 others).
“In light of Steve Hibbert’s letter (yesterday’s letters), it’s interesting to consider the parallels between Destiny and The Fiver. As he says, the game has a ‘whole cult of socially inadequate obsessives’, blew people away when it was first released, only for many to grow quickly bored, and continues to divide public opinion (hello Stuart Comer). In the game, players even take on the role of a Guardian. I’m hopeful that one of the game’s writers is a Fiver reader and includes Weird Uncle Fiver as a non-playable character in the next expansion” – Stephen Yoxall.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is: Rob McEvoy, who wins a copy of the Scottish Highland Football League Diary 2014-15, courtesy of these good people.
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BITS AND BOBS
Here come the Belgia … oh, they’re already here.
Dundee United have completed a scrupulous and exhaustive managerial search by appointing their former striker Mixu Paatelainen. “He was the first person we spoke to and also the last,” cheered chairman Stephen Thompson.
Sergio Agüero reckons he could miss Manchester City’s next seven matches due to his twanging hamstring.
USA! USA!! US … oh.
German football suit Wolfgang Niersbach has assessed the smouldering remains of Fifa’s underground bunker and deduced that now is the time to make a power-play. “I do not want and I will not shy away from playing my part,” he purred. “This thing can certainly not be won in the media. You only win it if internally you set a clear course for which you win majorities.”
And He fancies playing on with Real Madrid until he’s 40. “Many people say that from 30 you start to decline, but I don’t share that view,” he parped, before getting his third-person on in style. “If I end the season with the same rate of scoring per game as now, I would take that. Twelve games and 10 goals is perfect. Do the maths … [He] would sign up for that right now. For sure.”
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
FC Metz U-15s got talent, though we’re not totally sure what good it’ll do them.
STILL WANT MORE?
Ten talking points from the final 2016 qualifiers for you, yes you.
This week’s cartoon from David Squires features Beavis, Butthead, the Vengabus and Jones the Steam. All aboard!
Holland’s shambolic fall from Total Football to total desperation. By Jacob Steinberg.
Jacob’s been busy to compile the Premier League stats story of the season, including the player who has run the furthest and who has completed the most dribbles.
What’s the longest trip a club has made only to have their match postponed? The Knowledge has the answer.
Huddersfield’s Niamh McKevitt recalls her time as the girl who played boys’ football.
Football’s original breakaway league: the indoor event that ended in bankruptcy.
Goals of the week, goals of the week, goals of the week … goals of the week!
Win! Win! Win! Home tickets to Chelsea v Aston Villa and Newcastle v Norwichthis weekend.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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