Orange Fever!

When it comes to sports, the Dutch love ice skating and swimming a lot, but what we love most is soccer. Not so strange considering all you need for soccer is flat land and a ball, and we have lots of that (flat land and balls). In the Netherlands soccer is the most played game. Kids play it on the street and go to soccer clubs, and a lot of grown-ups play amateur soccer. When you climb a church tower in the Netherlands and look down on the roofs around, you will see many soccer balls laying there. Also, grabbing and throwing a soccer ball back over the fence to the neighbours is a popular past time activity for those who do not play soccer themselves. I'm no hero with the ball, in fact, I suck at it. As a kid I tried a soccer club for about two months and then I gave up because the ball refused to listen to my feet. Also, I am no good at the soccer conversations that people have here. I don't get it at all, they drop names I never heard of before, and heated discussions about the best player or team seem trivial to me.

Traditional Dutch Legion outfits

During the championships this changes radically. Something amazing happens in the Netherlands when our National Team gets together to play ball. Supporters and hooligans of rival teams take off their club colors, and people like me who never cared about soccer turn into soccer enthusiasts, joining discussions about team tactics and star players like experts. This knowledge seems to be nested somewhere deep inside Dutch DNA, because suddenly we know it all and our view on the game is always the most sensible. Like a Dutch reporter once said, during the Championships our country has 16 million coaches.

Orange Fever at its peak

In a few weeks the World Championship Soccer will be played in Brazil, and it is in this period that the transition of the Dutch takes place. Like a caterpillar that changes into a butterfly, the average Dutch person will change into an Orange legionist. While our team is selected from the best players we have and goes off to training camp, the dutch citizens also prepare for the exciting times that are coming. The closer the date of the first match, the more enthusiastic we become. This phenomenon is called Orange Fever. It starts slowly, with some Orange t-shirts and funny stuff in the supermarkets, and slowly it grows on us. People start to put Orange stuff in their cars, hang Orange flags in their streets, television commercials are more and more Orange themed, and the first new Orange soccer songs are made. And then, suddenly, Orange Fever strikes hard. People start painting their cars Orange, some paint their houses Orange, and in the supermarkets there is not a single product to be found that is not Orange. Orange cheese, orange macaroni, orange deserts, orange toiletpaper with the smell of grass, there is no ending to it.

Orange toilet paper with the smell of soccer field grass

After this transition, the Dutch are no longer an ordinary people, but we are known as the Orange Legion. With our orange uniforms and armed with funny stuff we are ready to cheer our team to the finals. All we care about is winning the championships, or, at least win the match against our rivals, the germans. We are proud, and we should, because we have done amazingly well in the past championships for a country with just 16 million inhabitants. We came in second in the world championships in 2010, and we have high hopes for the next. When the games are played, we all get together and watch the match, big screens are raised in bars and on squares, and from every open window you can hear the sounds of the match on the tv´s. When we loose, we are all sad. But when we win, the whole country goes crazy and we celebrate in the streets.

Orange Camping

Part of the Orange Legion travels to the hosting country for local support, and we create a small Orange invasion there. People stay in tents and trailers on the Orange Camping, and when our team plays they all march to the stadium in full orange gear. They sing songs like `Go, Holland, Go! Don´t let the lion stand in his underwear!´ and ´Viva Hollandia!´ If our team plays well, they will be honored in Amsterdam during an amazing celebration. The team will be driven around on a boat on the canals, and the party will reach ultimate heights. And when everything is over, the summer vacations start. The Dutch who go abroad to the mediteranian beaches will have great conversations with the people from other countries. They will shout ´Holland!´ and give a thumbs up, and show their respect by dropping names of dutch players. We proudly nod, even the people like me, who normally don´t know shit about soccer, and could care less about it.