Holland brought the UEFA Euro 2008 finals alive tonight with a stunning performance that stunned the World Cup holders, Italy in the first half; and destroyed them with an exciting counter-attacking game plan in the second half.  It wasn’t as if Italy played particularly badly, just that Holland were simply on fire.

Holland 3 Italy 0 was the shock result of Euro 2008, so far.

It wasn’t quite the’total football’ of the 1980’s when Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and current Holland manager, Marco Van Basten ruled European football, but this was the kind of game the Euro 2008 finals needed; and the kind of performance that Holland have so often failed to deliver in the past.

The game lived up to high expectations and fortunately so, after the boring France v Romania 0-0 affair early in the evening.

Holland were very lucky to be awarded their first goal as Ruud Van Nistlerooy was miles offside.  What was the referee’s assistant thinking of?  But the second and third goals were truly sublime and gave the Italians no reason to grumble about the decision.

Holland must fancy their chances to qualify from Group C - ‘the group of death’ right now.

The current European champions Greece take on Sweden in the early evening kick-off tomorrow.  But I’m hoping Spain v Russia will be another firecracker with plenty more goals.