What a day!! Or should I say what a night! Two breathtaking matches back to back and I must say, it was pretty eventful. The two teams I rooted for won!!

The first match at 1230 hours kicked off with England against Azerbaijan. Twenty-two minutes later, England's stand-in captain (and my ex personal favorite) Michael Owen headed in a goal rom a cross courtesy of Ashley Cole. Sadly, it was the one and only goal from then on. Even though England won the 3 points, making the top of their group in the qualifiers, a lot of us felt that it could have been better.

But well, I can't deny I'm happy for Owen. He deserves it after all he's been through. And Rio Ferdinand played a good game, as usual. Great defence from the dreadlocked defender. Where was Beckham?? Suspended from the game from the previous match's yellow card against Wales. I gotta say though, I felt that England kinda performed a little better without that guy and instead with Owen leading. But well, who am I to say what??

Now, for the match that I REALLY want to talk about. Holland vs Finland...woo-hoo!!! And yeah, I guess you know who won judging from this.

The match started right after the England one, taking place at home at the Amsterdam ArenA where a huge crowd of passionate Oranje fans gathered to support their beloved home team. And for good reasons, too. The team had had a miserable draw against Macedonia a few nights ago & o course, wanted to redeem themselves. Not only that, Ruud van Nistelrooy had come back from his 2-match suspension!! Yeah, baby!!

Okay now for the match analysis. For the first like, 20 mins, team Oranje sucked. Big time. They were messy, unco-operative & in a total disarray. They were just nonsense. Until a fellow Finn scored Finland's first goal in the 22th.

And that was all the Dutch needed to spur forward. 20-year-old Wesley Sneidjer kept hitting at the goal but to no avail, at least until the 39th min when ex-captain Cocu hit a high back-kick which went right into the path of Sneidjer who throttled it right home. And the Dutch equalized.

2 minutes later, a really really lucky goal came from the Dutchmaster himself: Ruud van Nistelrooy. It was actually Dirk Kuijt who initiated the long-range goal but it hit the crossbar. Castellan tried to send it across the goalsmouth under pressure from a defender but it was van Nistelrooy who flashed it with a tap of his foot. Not really a beautiful goal, if I do say so myself, but what the heck?? The Dutch were leading & that was all that mattered.

The beautiful goal came in the 2nd half at the 63rd minute & who should score it but van Nistelrooy again. That was one fantabulous goal. Because of a defesive mistake by a Finn player, Castellan managed to tackle the ball back, cross it to Ruud, who volleyed it all the way home in one powerful low-range shot. No matter how much Sami Hyypia tried to shadow van Nistelrooy, he still did it. Now that is Total Football. It's what the Duch swear by. Take that, Finland! Never underestimate the Dutch.

The only unfortunate thing that happened to the Dutch was when midfielder Rafael van der Vaart got hit behind the head by the ball. Which was kicked by his own teammate, defender Nigel De Jong. He just happened to jog across the field when De Jong kicked the bloody ball & it hit him right on. The poor guy went down in a daze!! And there & then, alone in her living room a die-hard Dutch fan cursed her heart out at De Jong for his stupidity & blindness while kicking the bloody ball. Honestly man, do you not know where & how to aim??

The other better players were of course, Captain Edgar Davids, Edwin van der Sar (with the exception of that Finn goal), Dirk Kuijt & Romeo Castellan. The rest of team were kinda blandish I guess. But bettter that during the Macedonia game obviously. That one was shitty.

There was a kinda funny incident, though. It was funny to me anyway. One Finn player got cramps in his leg & had to lie down for a while. So while he's like, holding onto his leg, guess who should trot by like a busybody looking all overly concerned? The 2-goal scorer himself, Mr. Ruud van Nistelrooy.

So Ruud's like jogging over to the fella & maybe it was for show, maybe it was for real, I don't know but Ruud comes over, bends down to have a few words, probably asking how the bugger's feeling or something. Then he straightens up, puts his his hands on his hips, walks around the player like an inspector & he nodds his head a few times & gives the guy a pat on his leg. Then he kinda gives a little grin & walks away. Nice touch there, Ruud.

See, the thing was, you could actually see & feel the Dutch persevering all the way up to the last few minutes where they just played around with the ball just to piss them Finns. Which they did. Even when the referee was kinda 'kayu' towards them. So, yeah, that's basically how one of my higly-anticipated matches went with my favorite team emerging as winner when everyone thought they were going down. And I could finally sleep in peace. Boo-yah! *pumps fist in air. Ahahahakz...

Laterz...
Lenny JC