“At last. It took until three quarters of the way through its 3-2 semifinal victory against Uruguay, but the Netherlands that sparkled in its last three pre-tournament friendlies finally arrived at the World Cup on Tuesday. It is not the fluency of Oranje myth (which hasn’t existed since 1974), but there was finally a pleasing crispness to the passing of the front four, a directness and an incisiveness that had been absent in South Africa, and it wrenched a game that had seemed to be slipping away back into Dutch hands.” (SI)