Dutch people think, debate and philosophize more than most. Calvin taught them to question the Bible (and therefore, to question everything) and subsequently the country’s dense urbanisation and the proximity between village, town and city allowed groups to get together and develop these thoughts with each other. This created less a cafe culture, more a club culture. Thousands upon thousands of local and national clubs were established covering a myriad of subjects of varying degrees of importance but always with a rigid devotion to debate and discussion. As a consequence, when a Dutch person offers a theory on something important it is rarely ill-thought through and always complex. This attitude has served to enrich but also complicate one of the great topics in the history of European football - the Dutch national side’s propensity to fail at the final hurdle.

Why? Because when a Dutchman offers a theory on this topic it will usually encompass centuries of history, presume knowledge of Holland’s complex religious social and religious make-up and may even use words you have never heard before.

The question of Dutch footballing near-misses has so often been discussed that answers will almost always skip over the basics. Here, therefore are some facts; professional football only emerged in Holland in 1954, twenty years before they reached the World Cup final where they took an early lead against the hosts Germany before losing. Four years later they were within 4 inches of beating the hosts again in the World Cup final (this time an Argentina side with the gentle push of a military dictatorship behind them). In 1998, they outplayed the eventual winners Brazil in their semi-final, igniting a dull tournament with an orange tinged version of samba football, before losing once more. As hosts in Euro 2000 they missed 5 penalties in one semi final in another thrilling semi-final defeat against Italy.

With this history, it’s no wonder the Dutch window-dress their failure in complex, ethereal theories - the facts are just too bloody depressing. Of course, this June, the Dutch got the pulses racing again before, with self-parody Woody Allen would have been proud of, capitulating tamely when the tournament seemed theirs. What was most interesting though about the precocious brilliance of the Dutch at Euro 2008 was the way in which they were viewed by the scions of the Dutch game. Although Dutch football has reached many peaks in the last 35 years, their defeat against Germany in 1974 is the one which has cast the biggest shadow and it was with this thrilling team, schooled in Total Football, to which the current Oranje were briefly compared.

There was good reason - firstly Rinus Michels’s side of 1974 had been similarly committed to attacking football and secondly Van Basten’s tactical ambition and nerve echoed the high-risk tenets of Total Football where, if the midfield lost the ball - the entire team would move forward in unison and render the opposition forward line offside. Van Basten’s maverick touch was seen further up the pitch where he introduced Robin Van Persie and Arjen Robben for two defensive wingers just as France were beginning to find their feet early in the second half.

It was no surprise that Holland’s thrilling brand of football in ‘74 was the sole reference point for admirers of the Dutch game and even the Dutch themselves. Total Football was the last tactical invention which genuinely left the football fan open-mouthed in amazement (search for it on YouTube if you want to test the theory yourself) and the Dutch failure to beat an obviously inferior German side was, as David Winner has argued, Holland’s Kennedy-assassination moment - everyone remembers where they were and what they felt.

Some of the best football books and the best football writers have brilliantly analysed the role of ‘74 in shaping Dutch football and another less distinguished voice need not be added to the list. The side of the Dutch game which is just as fascinating, however but less often looked at are the other times at which the superior technique of the Dutch has come unstuck.

The closest of all Holland’s near-misses (and the most puzzlingly overlooked) is their loss in the 1998 World Cup final. The details surrounding Argentina’s triumph (Peru’s previously impressive defence leaked 6 goals in what was essentially the semi-final to ensure Argentina went through, FIFA agreed to the governments demand that the final’s referee Abraham Klein be changed to the Italian Gonella who had previously looked kindly on the host nation) are well known that it seems surprising that Holland’s ability to come so close hasn’t been lauded more often. Moreover, most people don’t realise just how near it was - with 3 minutes remaining in normal time and the score at 1-1 Rob Rensenbrink, Cruyff’s reluctant heir, squeezed in a shot which hit the post and rolled to safety. Mario Kempes secured victory for the Argentines in the Extra Time which followed.

Why was ‘78 forgotten about? Firstly the entire tournament left a bad taste in the mouth which meant all footballing purists (and many of these are to be found in Holland) wanted to forget it as quickly as possible. More significantly, there was no Total Football to stun the world this time - its architect Rinus Michels had departed as coach and its chief protagonist Johan Cruyff had de-selected himself from the squad subsequently citing fatigue, moral indignation at Argentine politics, the fragility of his marriage and an attempted hijacking depending on whichever of his many reasons you choose to believe. More importantly though it was because of the opposition. Conquering the Germans in Munich just thirty years after they had left Holland as occupiers was such a tantalising prize that the team’s failure to achieve it was so devastating - partly a surprise given Holland’s brilliant football partly unavoidable given Holland’s place in the world.

Munich in 1974 defined the Dutch footballing mentality to such an extent that it can explain some of the team’s subsequent near misses. In the hot night of Marseille in 1998, a Dutch team brought together and mollycoddled into playing brilliant football rather than arguing by Guus Hiddink taught Brazil how to play stylish football but lost to a penalty kick?. It was 1974 all over again - Brazil were not hosts but there chuntering marketing machine and iconic status as favourites made their passage to the final seem unstoppable much as a German home victory did twenty four years earlier. The Dutch way was to play the best but fall to a pre-destined team. Two years later, the Dutch shrugged off their unlucky defeat to Italy consoling themselves again with the knowledge of technical superiority and ignoring the frankly distasteful penalty shoot-out which had sent them home. There is a trail of insecure arrogance in all these attitudes which stems back to 1974. The Dutch defeat in ‘74 was the most Pyrrhic of defeats - unlike most major losses it didn’t shock people into questioning how or why it had happened it just confirmed the existing idea of Dutch footballers as the artisans bound to fail at the hands of darker forces in the game.

1978 doesn’t fit this pattern however and it might not be too churlish to argue that it is precisely because this particular near-miss was actually a genuine achievement of hard-graft and triumph over adversity that it hasn’t figured much in the creation of Dutch football’s somewhat self-pitying defeatist complex. Van Basten’s side of this year ran out of steam against a younger Russian side in Austria but there was more throughout the tournament to suggest Holland’s new crop of young players will reach their peak in two years time. Rather than applying an age-old stereotype, it might be worth contemplating that the future could well be Orange after all.