Thursday, July 8, 2010

Holland vs. Spain

The World Cup final is now to be played by the check-splitting Dutch against the flu-causing Spaniards. If only Phillip II was around to see this, the culmination of his Habsburg glory! Holy harelip, Batman!

Now before you go bullfighting in wooden shoes, remember that these two countries haven't faced each other in quite some time. In fact, both countries were neutral in both World Wars (okay, the Dutch technically were Allied, but their fighting lasted a shorter period than most soccer games so they might as well have been neutral). Their respective empires faded away long ago, with the only remnants being words like "Manhattan" and "Florida". These days they're just united in their hatred of the French and Germans.

So how best to celebrate this glorious rivalry that isn't really much of a rivalry? Paella with Heineken? Sangria under a windmill? Doing a poor job of hiding Anne Frank or defending San Juan Hill? The tournament has truly given us a challenge.

5 comments:

  1. I commented to a couple of co-workers with hispanic surnames that the final's going to be a battle of faded colonial powers. Strangely, they were split on who they're rooting for.

    If you're highlighting the Dutch participation in WWII you should, in all fairness, probably also make a mention Franco. Just sayin'.

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  2. Kelly--thanks!

    Foggy--true, but Franco was wise enough to not get involved as a full combatant--avoiding Mussolini's fate!

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  3. Inbreeding. Pure and simple inbreeding.
    Grab a cousin and get to it.

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  4. Brett, all I can say to that is, "EEEK!"

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