Day Of The Dead: Holland crash out, Germany and Portugal progress

Portugal 2 Netherlands 1

Germany 2 Denmark 1

The Group of Death reached its' gory climax in Ukraine yesterday and both matches began with everything still to play for.

The exact Time of death (T.o.d.) for the group was probably the 80th minute when Lars Bender scored for Germany. His goal guaranteed quarter final places for Germany and Portugal and killed Denmark and Holland’s hopes of qualification. Until then, all manner of eventualities were  feasible — including an unthinkable but possible German exit.   

In the end, the night was a wake for Dutch voetbal. The team even dressed for the occasion, wearing all black rather than their famous orange, while the camera showed regular shots of moonfaced Nederlanders in full mourning and facepaint.

Holland coach Van Marwijk lacked defensive options and was reduced to playing a back four made up of various ringers and a kid they'd met on the coach journey over. Skipper Van Bommel was out due to poor previous displays, so the midfield consisted solely of Man City’s Nigel de Jong.

The formation invited disaster, and despite a stirring early goal from Rafa Van der Vaart, Holland’s soft underbelly soon made easy pickings for Portugal’s strutting birds of prey.

Pass the Dutchie. Nani on fire. 

Nani and Coentrão were excellent for Portugal, but Ronaldo was sensational. He tortured the Dutch corpse with endless dinks, chips, long shots, leaping headers, lethal passes, dangerous ball hugging runs — and then came back from the break (with freshly gelled hair) to do it again in the second half. At one stage late in the game, he controlled a fastmoving ball from high, turned as he took it, swooped past Van der Wiel with one touch, and reshaped his quiff for good measure. All in the blink of an eye.  

In stark contrast, Van Persie and Huntelaar were unrecognisable, zombiefied versions of themselves, lumbering towards the action always at least five yards behind everyone else. 

Elsewhere, the German victory against Denmark in Lviv meant that they had won all three of their group games to add to their ten wins from ten games in qualification.

The result prompted much talk of “mental strength” from the ITV studio pundits, never mind the fact that half the team derive from the notoriously neurotic Bayern Munich side, who suffer big match meltdowns with alarming regularity and show about as much “mental strength” as Robbie Williams in rehab. 

That said, Lukas Podolski’s opening goal yesterday on his one hundredth cap emphasised the youth yet vast experience of this German side.  Podolski (aged only 27), Schweinsteiger (27), and captain Lahm (28), are veterans with almost three hundred caps between them. Germany have only one squad player over the age of 30, and that's Miraslav Klose, scorer of more international goals than Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney combined. Hummels, Özil, Müller, Badstuber, Götze, Kroos and Boeteng are all under 24, yet all play at the highest level in the biggest games for their clubs. On paper, this could be one the greatest Germany teams of all.