National Hamstring day

6th of June, Approximately 22.40 hours CET: “I want to be there when we are crowned World Champions, because with this team we have a very good chance to win it all. I will do everything in my power…I just don’t want to disappoint the boys.” With this simple but powerful message the National Hamstring day came to a satisfying end.

It all began a day earlier late in the afternoon: Friendly match, Holland v Hungary, Arjen Robben laying in agony and grabbing his left hamstring. The stadium, filled with 50.000 people dressed in orange who were jubilant and full of joy just 30 seconds earlier, went silent. Robben just attempted a fancy back heel and failed miserably. What’s worse: this failed fancy flick looked like the cause of broken dreams. No! Kids crying, grandma looking on in anger and disgust, tough- looking men putting their hands before their eyes, this can’t be true!

Robben, looking unstoppable since he came on the pitch, now looked broken, stopped by his own ill-advised fancy football. TV commentator Leo doesn’t know what to say, co-commentator, former Dutch international; Wim Kieft trying to explain it all to the public at home (and failing horribly) sighs and says: “it looks like his hamstring.” This makes sense, since he is actually grabbing his hamstring! Thank you for the analysis Wim!

Game over, Holland won 6-1 but nobody is smiling. It feels like somebody just pooped in our clogs, this must be a very bad joke. Maybe pundit Ronald Koeman can give some perspective on the situation. Koeman looks like he just watched Schindlers List and says: “It doesn’t look good, without Robben Holland is 20% less.” Ronald, who evidently had a calculator in his back pocket, is joined by Wim Kieft in a cramped studio in the stadium. Wim sighs again: “It looks horrible, it’s over.”

The six o’clock news opens with Robben’s injury. Our favorite son Joran van der Sloot, who is on a killing spree, is clearly unimportant; some oil spill, killing thousands of fish and birds is insignificant. The news about our national election -which is just a few days away- can wait. This man who runs after a round object for a living (admittedly he runs quite fast) is more important than the people who make sure that we all still have a job tomorrow and are responsible for keeping the nation safe. And it all makes sense, the nation is in shock.

National sports show Studio Sport of course starts with the hamstring analysis. The presenter looks sad at pundit Youri Mulder and she asks him: “Youri, what were your first thoughts when you saw this?” Surprisingly Youri is not flabbergasted by the question which normally is reserved for people who just witnessed a fatal disaster: “I thought: there goes our World Cup…” His analysis consist of thoughts like: he trained too little…he played too much…can’t make this move with 30 degrees Celsius…Bert van Marwijk, who protected Robben like Kevin Costner protected Whitney Houston (but probably without the romance), was accused of not being careful enough.

In the meantime the Dutch team traveled to South-Africa without the unlucky left hamstring. While poor hotel employees are singing and dancing welcoming Oranje, a Dutch reporter puts a microphone in Bert van Marwijk’s face and asks him if he heard anything about Arjen. Bert didn’t. Captian Gio van Bronckhorst is asked the same question; he doesn’t know anything either but he exchanged texts with Arjen. One minute later it reads on various Dutch news sites: “Robben keeps Gio informed via text message.”

It’s news over here that Robben’s hamstring is news at other places. It sounds better over there though, the Dutch language just isn’t suited for headlines like the English language: The Sun reads: "The Dutch could be Rob-bed of Arjen.” And the Dutch language just doesn’t sound as electric as the Germans; Bild opens with: “Der Robben-Schock.” And of course #robben is very trending on twitter.

Dutch TV news can’t report anything new on the hamstring and repeats itself each hour. National sports show Studio Sport, showing tennis and field hockey this Sunday, vows to keep us informed of new developments but none are coming. Various reports appear during the evening, all news sites copying of each other (none checking if it has anything to do with the actual truth): “No news today, Dutch FA will come with statement tomorrow” followed one hour later by: “Possibly some news this evening.”

At approximately 22.40 hours CET Arjen is on the telephone with popular opinionated football TV show Studio Voetbal : Apparently it’s just a little hamstring tear, it can be treated and he can be back within a week. “I want to be there when we are crowned World Champions, because with this team we have a very good chance to win it all. I will do everything in my power…I just don’t want to disappoint the boys.” The presenter, who looks like he lives in a tanning bed, says Arjen’s words just gave him goose bumps.

And so the day of the hamstring ends. Arjen Robben is still very injury prone, Holland has a pretty good team with or without Robben, our back four is still questionable and we will still probably lose in the quarter-finals to Brazil. Really nothing has changed since 48 hours, but it was just a lovable day of World Cup madness in Holland.