We did it again!

Hooray! The Dutch lion has bitten the Mexican chihuahua in its ass! The whole neighbourhood here is cheering, blowing horns, shouting and I even thought I heard gunshots. Loud Oranje music is playing and I bet it will be a great party downtown again. We are on to the 1/4 finals against either Greece or Costa Rica.

It took a while until we got going. It was way too hot for soccer, even the grass looked tired. I was getting a little bored with the game, and then Mexico scored. The neighbourhood got very silent. I was worried, and I didn't understand why our reporter who was commenting on the game was still so relaxed. No problem, he said, all we have to do is make a goal too. Like we weren't trying that for the first 50 minutes. I was thinking of the disapointment if we would loose. Orange fever would be over immediately, and no one would talk about soccer again. People who would wait another day with cleaning up the orange flags and decorations would get nasty stares from their neighbours, and the people who painted their car orange would have to travel by public transportation. But, something changed. Our team changed tactics and the Mexicans got confused. And that's all it took, we came back and kicked ass!

Orange fever is getting stronger. Where in the match against Spain there were 17.500 people on the Museumsquare in Amsterdam watching the game, and 20.000 in the following two matches, this time there were 45.000 people dressed in Orange and they had to close the gates because even more were coming. We will be eating more orange food, wear even more orange shirts and weird stuff, and we will prepare for an even bigger party next time we play.  

Even Sinterklaas and Orange Pete were there to support our team!