Soccer finals world championships

July 11
The whole country was orange these last weeks. We always hope for a very good result but it had been a long time ago that the Netherlands was in a world championship final: In '74 and '78 I watched them loose the final games as a teenager. Of course I still have a vivid memory of the Dutch team becoming the European champions in '88. So everybody was very excited last Sunday, "we" would finally win a world championship.
I went out for a run about two hours before the start of the game. On the roads at least half of the people walking, biking or driving their car was wearing orange clothes. This really shows the impact this tournament has, it was BIG.
We watched the game at home and to prevent myself from being overly excited and anxious I decided to play around at the computer at the same time. It helped, it distracts and Sander could watch the game without my annoying shouting and (too) loud encouragements. Maybe I should have watched closely and shouted more, since we lost. Or was it the orange-white-red-blue decoration of "AH beesies" on our front door, or was my orange shirt not OK?
Surely we had a great four weeks which has been very good for sentimental national feelings. It works a bit like July 1th in Canada or similarly when Team Canada plays a big hockey game.