Giovanni van Bronckhorst inspires next generation of Dutch daydreamers
Remember the day when you used to take a football down the park with your mates, step into the shoes of your heroes and recreate classic goals from big international matches, with the thought of someday making history of your own on the biggest stage?
No, just me then.
We should have known at the time that the dream of scoring a winning goal in a World Cup final for England was never going to happen - if nothing else, the constant harassment of next door’s doorbell, followed by ‘can we have our ball back please sir’ should have tipped us off.
It was all worth it though, the one time when we nailed the Paul Gascoigne goal against Scotland from Euro ‘96 was a fantastic moment – perfect control, even better flick over a despairing Colin Hendry (my mate Alan), a calmly placed volley into the bottom corner followed by a dentist chair celebration of the highest order.
If you ask any young Dutch footballer of a moment in the country's footballing history that they would want to recreate, most of them would respond with the goal that Marco van Basten scored in the 1988 European Championship final. Got to feel for those Dutch youngsters, must have taken them years to nail that routine. Maybe that’s why they're technically better than us English?
At the time of Van Basten’s wonderfully executed volley from the impossible angle, Giovanni van Bronckhorst was 13 years old and had just started playing for the Feynenoord youth side.
Dreams of representing his country, creating history at a major tournament and scoring a wonder goal were indeed just dreams. From a young age he clearly had the talent to be an international defender, so the first aspect of the dream scenario was possible, but to secure all three looked a tall order.
But in last night’s World Cup semi-final against Uruguay those dreams were made a reality, as Van Bronckhorst scored the goal of tournament to send Holland on their way to the final of the competition for the third time.
Picking the ball up from 50 yards out, he strode forward, and obviously forgetting he was on the world stage and not down the park trying to recreate World Cup goals, he decided to shoot from what in the end was measured as 41 yards out. The next, as they say, is history as the ball flew like an arrow into the top corner of the net via the inside of the post, past the fingertips of the flying Fernando Muslera. It was a moment of sheer brilliance.
Van Bronckhorst will no doubt be introduced into park football folklore in his homeland. Maybe somewhere in the parks of Rotterdam or Amsterdam at the moment, there will be young footballers striking a ball from 41 yards screaming “Van Bronckhorst” at the top of their voices.
Mission completed Gio, the dream of creating footballing history has been made a reality.
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