For someone like me who was almost a year old when Euro 1988 happened, that shows how much I am being out of the loop. Other than me only remembering that tournament for one moment: The goal which Marco van Basten scored in the final. It was being brought up all over again in the papers here during Euro 2008 tournament ahead of the Netherlands facing Russia, considering van Basten scored against the then-USSR.

Sometimes I actually wondered if I was born in the wrong era. Whenever my father talked about football personalities, matches which stood out for him for whatever reasons…it happened before I came into this world or when I am too young to know anything. I have to always read up on what made my father felt the way he did.

- Ronald Koeman exchanged jerseys with Olaf Thon after the Euro 1988 semi-final and then posed with it pretending to wipe his ass with it. That’s why.

‘He will find it easy to win German hearts with sarcastic remarks about Ronald Koeman.’
What do you mean by that, Jan? That has been puzzling me whenever I re-read this page.

Unless it has to do with Timo Hilderbrand’s time at Valencia when Ronald Koeman was the coach there? Or does it has to do with the video you posted? I remembered reading something about Koeman and Louis van Gaal had never see eye-to-eye with each other when the latter was the technical director at Ajax. And now Koeman is his successor at AZ Alkmaar…I thought it was quite interesting.

Jan, I remembered watching the first video you posted. Forgot where I first watched it though but, it still makes me laugh.

Psst, to be honest…I had been reading at the Netherlands World Cup Blog more often than before on whatever I can find interesting stories about the new Bayern coach. The discussions at the Bayern Munich Offside almost drove me crazy. And speaking of Ronald Koeman…irony of ironies, he is now Louis van Gaal’s successor at AZ Alkmaar.

One thing which struck me when I was watching this video compilation (which I found on the Netherlands World Cup Blog) that as a player (it showed Louis van Gaal during his time at Sparta Rotterdam), he is able to um…stand out from the rest. Just look out for the first man in the video compilation.

Where I found the video compilation – http://netherlands.worldcupblog.org/1/rene-van-der-gijp-winger-and-joker.html

The article is actually about Louis van Gaal’s former Sparta team-mate Rene van der Gijp. It did had a short anecdote on what happened when he met van Gaal when the latter was the Ajax coach.