Brilliant Orange

Just read David Winner's Brilliant Orange for my sports book group. Written in 2001 it's still a classic 17 years later. Winner writes superbly of how Dutch football relates to the uniqueness of the Netherlands as a country. In a nation that has reclaimed so much territory from the sea and has many straight lines of fields, drains and dykes, he links Dutch football to the nation's ability to find space and relate to it in new ways. 

He also puts football in the context of social movements, pointing out that Holland was quite a boring authoritarian place until the counter culture of the 1960s that took place in Amsterdam. That questioning spirit helped spark the great Dutch side of the Cruyff era and perhaps also resulted in a famously anti-authoritarian stance and numerous fall-outs with national managers. 

Winner also brings Dutch painting and architecture into the equation. There are excellent chapters on the trauma of the 1974 World Cup Final, when a kind of national inferiority complex against West Germany resulted in the Dutch side trying to humiliate their opponents, but after netting a first minute penalty they ended up losing two-one. 

The later edition also has an added chapter on the 2010 World Cup Final against Spain when the Netherlands played a heavily physical game that seemed in direct contrast to the total football of the 1970s. But for such a small nation to reach three World Cup Finals there's clearly something special going on. A fascinating read and still brilliantly Orange.