So I was just looking at this current Dutch side and beyond a few names, it is an underwhelming roster, at least on paper. Which brings me back to the mid 90s, specifically the 1994 and 1998 Dutch sides. I was in my teen years but had fallen in love with their 1988 side that won the Euro Cup with such amazing names like Breukelen , Koeman, Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard . The team was so good, they easily won the semi-final and final against some legendary teams at the time.
So when he 1994 and 1998 cane around, specifically the 1998 WC, I was comparing them to the 1988 side and thought it was underwhelming, at least in hindsight. But if you look at those Dutch sides of the mid 90s, it took a legendary Brazilian teams made up of the likes of Ronaldo, Romario, Rivaldo, Bebeto to get over them, otherwise Holland could have won it all, especially in 1998:
Edwin van der Sar
Frank De Boer
Marc Overmars
Dennis Bergkamp
Patrick Kluivert
Clarence Seedorf
Edgar Davids
In fact , had my father not bought me those Pele comic books at age 7 in 1987 (a year before I saw that legendary Dutch side and fell in love with it) , I could have turned out a Dutch fan (of course, like Argentina, France and Germany , can’t stand them now) . In fact , I still have a memory of literally crying in 1988 when the Soviet player chipped the ball over a Brazilian keeper to score the second goal in the Seoul gold medal match.
Anyway, moral of the story is, sometime we can’t tell how good a team is watching them in the present time. With hindsight , we can appreciate them more. In other words, as good as the 1988 Dutch team was , the 1988 could have beaten them.
