[Willem van Oranje, circa 1555, by A. Mor. Staatliche Kunstsammlangen, Kassel. Photo Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.]

The Netherlands and Spain have never met before at the World Cup or, as far as I am aware, at the European Championships. Tonight is the first head-to-head at a major competition. And neither has won the WC before. The rest of the world may find it dull without the South Americans, but at least this is one area of global governance where Western Europe is still in control.

The tension of a Dutch-German final you would cut with a knife, but where is it to be found between the Dutch and the Spanish? The best the media can come up with is that in 1984, with both in the same qualifying group for the European Championships, the Spanish knocked off Malta 12-1. 11 goals or less would have meant the Dutch would qualify. 12-1 meant they stayed at home. Thats as tense as it gets in the 20th century. Beyond that it means trying to generate bad blood over the 80 Years War (1568-1648), but thats pushing it. However, the Dutch national anthem is an interesting item. Written in the 16th century to reflect the double-sided struggle of Willem van Oranje - loyal to the Spanish king but also loyal to the awakening Dutch nation – the last line of the first verse literally says “I have always honoured the King of Spain.” If the team belt that out this evening, I guess King Juan Carlos could actually be present to hear it.

Interesting also is how several in the media have picked up on the way the success of the football team has caused a sense of national unity – in stark contrast to the increasing dividing lines, political and social, that have opened up in Dutch life over the past decade. The Dutch team is not as multiculti as the Germans, and no-one has pushed that side of things like they have in Germany (football team as symbol for multicoloured national unity). But it is still enough of a mixed club for it to mean something. And the Dutch teams of the 1990s fell apart on black-white grounds more than once, a low point hopefully long overcome by now. Cracks in the facade of unity are passed over deliberately, as when Dirk Kuijt suggested that there were indeed egos at work in the team but they were being overcome. Who? Why? No-one asks. We Don’t Want To Know. Don’t spoil the moment.

Not only has the determination of the Dutch team to stick together and succeed been used as a model for 21st century Dutch nationhood (to last a few weeks and then fade away of course – unless they win tonight, perhaps…..), but the way some correspondents have pointed to the football as a religious substitute is noticeable. The Dutch, with their strict Calvinism and slack but well-meaning Catholicism, have it heavy with modern society’s drift away from the church, whatever shade it may be. The hope of the Socialists that Marx would fill that gap never really came together. But now we have football, and the universal sense of belonging on the long road to destiny is still intact. Coach van Marwijk and his solid belief in the mission, says Freek de Jonge says, makes him the prophet. And Rob Wijnberg comes up with the nice symmetry of Nietzsche pronouncing God’s death in 1887, one year before the Football League was begun in England to cover over the resulting void. He has a point.

But enough of this Sunday afternoon philophising. Who’s going to win? The Spanish by everyone’s reckoning are the better team. The way they dealt with the Germans in the semi was remarkable. Pass the ball, move around, search out the opening, keep it up for 90 minutes or longer if necessary. And if that doesn’t work, get the thug from the back to come up and thump in a header from a corner, and then start again, pass the ball, move around, search out the opening. Unbeatable? No, I don’t think so. I think the Dutch have the force with them this time. The Immovable Object of the Spanish defence is going to give something away. Third Time Lucky.