1977: Cruyff’s walking tour of Total Football
At some point, midway through the first-half Total Football masterclass that the Dutch dished out at Wembley in 1977, Johan Cruyff picked the ball up just over the halfway line. The England midfield, visibly petrified, stood off. Suddenly, on the TV coverage, a lone voice from the stands could be heard above 90,259 others.
“F*****g tackle ‘im, come oooooon!”
Young midfielder Jan Peters scored both goals in the 2-0 victory, but it was Cruyff who gave English football a 90-minute lesson, mostly at walking pace. The domination was such that Holland were given a standing ovation...at half-time.
“England joined the rest of the second-raters in the gutter of world football last night,” Jeff Powell scowled in the Daily Mail the next day. “The last dregs of self-respect drained away to the accompaniment of Wembley’s new theme tune, ‘What a load of rubbish’”.
1988: Lineker’s legwork
This pre-Euro ‘88 friendly was all about sizing each other up and, despite the absence of Marco van Basten, managers Bobby Robson and Rinus Michels would have taken plenty of homework from it.
Ruud Gullit - then the world’s most expensive player - waltzed around Wembley much like Cruyff had done eleven years earlier. Tony Adams contrived to score for both sides, shinning one into his own net before making amends with a towering second-half header.
England’s primary warning shot, though, was the pace and finishing of Gary Lineker. He raced on to a ball over the top of the Dutch defence - Ronald Koeman, for now, wasn’t able to get a grip - and poked the ball home. Everything would be fine at the Euros, right?
1988: Marco. Van. Basten.
Wrong. Gary Lineker - unwittingly suffering from the draining effects of hepatitis - hit the woodwork in the first half, as did Glenn Hoddle from a free kick, but England had no answer to the force of nature at the other end of the pitch.
Peter Shilton’s 100th England appearance was largely spent picking the ball out of the back of the net from a clinical Marco Van Basten finish. England lost all three group games, while the Dutch - and Van Basten - took things to a whole new level in the final against the USSR.
1990: Gazza’s star turn
Another tense tournament encounter that should have gone England’s way. Lineker had a goal disallowed for handball, then Stuart Pearce’s celebrations were cut short after he’d directly thwacked an indirect free-kick past Hans van Breukelen.
With Van Basten and Gullit being kept reasonably quiet by England’s sweeper system, there was room for another talent to emerge...
Paul Gascoigne there, properly announcing himself on the world stage by Cruyffing his way past the Dutch.
1993: Barnes, Bergkamp and a brutal elbow
The relative calm before the Rotterdam storm of 1993. England had scored 12 goals without reply against Turkey (twice) and San Marino, but the visit of Dennis Bergkamp and Holland was another matter.
John Barnes’ inch-perfect free-kick put England ahead but, not for the first time in the tragicomic attempt to qualify for USA ‘94, they were in for a disappointment. Bergkamp’s geometrically immaculate lob-volley over Chris Woods summed up everything he could do...and early-90s England couldn’t.
To rub salt in the wound of England twice losing a lead that evening, Gascoigne’s cheekbone was shattered by a horrific elbow from Jan Wouters, and Des Walker was scorched by the pace of Marc Overmars, pulling him down for an 86th-minute penalty. Graham Taylor made a mental note of that...
1993: Ronald Koeman is going to flip one
The nadir of Anglo-Dutch footballing relations. Once again, England knocked on the orange door - Paul Merson and Tony Dorigo hit a post each - but were undone by what could politely be described as some street-wise defending.
“WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN INSTRUCTED?!” Taylor memorably bellowed at the innocent fourth official after Koeman’s shirt-tug on David Platt was punished by a mere yellow card and a free-kick outside the box. Meanwhile, the home fans were in full, problematic costume...
Three minutes later, with football irony working overtime, Koeman had a set-piece situation of his own. His first, booming effort was charged down illegally by Paul Ince. Second time round, ITV’s Brian Moore tried desperately to warn everyone back home that Koeman was going to “flip one, he’s gonna flip one, HE’S GONNA FLIP OOOOOONNNNE!”...
...but it was too late.
1993: Teenage kicks
Lost, understandably, amid the World Cup qualification maelstrom, was England’s triumphant European Under-18s Championship campaign in home soil. Drawn against France, Spain and Holland in their group, England’s young guns cruised through, scoring 11 goals in the three games.
Four of them came against the Dutch at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium, where Leicester’s Julian Joachim - the star of the tournament - scored two and superbly set up another to outshine the likes of Clarence Seedorf and Patrick Kluivert. Joachim’s club manager Brian Little subsequently compared him to Romario, which turned out to be slightly off target.
1996: Shearer, Sheringham, Shearer, Sheringham
The centrepiece of England’s near-glorious Summer of Love at Euro ‘96...or a surprisingly patchy performance against an average Holland side. Whatever the reality, all that matters 22 years later is England 4 Holland 1.
11 minutes at the start of the second half was where the game swing England’s way, during which they scored three - the standout, without question, was Gascoigne, inside to Sheringham, massive dummy, Shearer, goal. A slightly imperfect goal that has nevertheless improved with age: that match in a nutshell.
2002: Remember the name
Wayne Rooney’s first goal in an England shirt came long before his rampaging introduction to the senior team under Sven-Goran Eriksson. Few names from England’s under-17s European Championship squad will be familiar - Stacy Long, David Mannix, Dorryl Proffitt not among them - but one player was always destined for the stratosphere.
Holland were merely his first international victims.
The barrelling gait, the thoroughly un-English comfort on the ball, and the belting finish without hesitation: all the ingredients were there.
2012: Arjen Robben’s unsecret weapon
With both nations wrestling with their respective limitations for much of the last decade or so, this fixture’s heyday remains rooted in the 1980s and 90s. They haven’t met in a tournament since that memorable day in 1996, going through the motions of seven friendlies since.
There have been some surprises along the way - Darius Vassell scoring a bicycle kick in Amsterdam, for starters - but, inevitably, Arjen Robben was going to cut inside on to his left foot and curl it into the far corner.
