TV Review - Saturday 26th June - Holland v Sweden

But they are bothering. "England would have played the winners of this" is Des' take, as opposed to, say, "the winners of this play Portugal". Holland are "slight favourites", whatever that means, while Ally refers to "questions whether he can do it outside Scotland", because he was nothing before moving to Celtic, wasn't he? Alongside him Robbie refers to "one of the few Dutch players who play in Holland", er, Ibrahimovic. Well, we're not going to tell him. "Next we'll meet the players" Des promises before the first break, but of course there's no such thing unless you count the players coming onto the pitch. Clive's in the box, warning "you may wish to fiddle with the colour controls on your remote... ITV1 will be rather yellow and orange for the next couple of hours, you may wear sunglasses if you wish." Those crazy foreigners with their non-primary coloured kits, eh? He then refers to "some red raw European flesh on show to match the red raw European nerves", which is a distressing thought. The colours obsession continues with a reference to "oranges and lemons", even though Holland are playing in white, eventually working round to proper sarcasm, "the referee tonight, by the way, is Edgar Davids of Holland" as Davids and the actual ref argue. Well, it's a start, give him a break. Clive reminds us that Sweden made it here after notoriously drawing 2-2 with Denmark, but "I can assure you I was at that match and it was all fair and square", and anyway they wouldn't be in that position were it not for the goals of Henrik Larsson, such as his header against Bulgaria "which I know is a favourite goal of the championships for many of you". How does he know? Does he have written proof? He will go on to call the countries "neighbours", which is stretching it a little, in mentioning that they haven't played each other since 1983 but club duties mean there's "not too many mysteries out there". van Nistelrooy goes down easily in the area and is threatened with "a card the colour of their (the Swedes') shirts". Let it go, man! Andy, in common with many other co-commentators, wields the word "simulation" as a damning criticism, Clive commenting "there are one or two million nodding heads around the country" at his reference to Ruud's diving. No bitterness there. A few minutes later at a free kick Andy refers to his "usual offside position" with a mixture of scorn and anticipation. It comes to nothing, luckily for us all. So little is happening by this stage Clive is reduced to talking about Midsummer's Eve celebrations in Sweden. "What's going on, Ally?" What does go on is Des almost desperately having to stop the sometime McHaddock going on about Ruud and offside again, and then issuing a "steady, chaps" over the latest close-up of a bikini topped female fan. For the second time in two days an ITV commentator reminds us at half time that the game may well go to extra time and penalties with reference to England. Not that they're obsessed. Ah, Manolo. "You'd love to be sat next to him, wouldn't you?" Clive remarks, as if he were your mum. He then continues his occasional habit of captioning cutaways, offering a "cheer up, Dick" at Advocaat looking slightly concerned. His big decision is to take off Davids, "not exactly derring-do from Dick Advocaat, but there you go" says Clive, who adjudges that "the fall of night here in Faro has brought the temperature down a degree or two, and the quality of the game has gone up", a game, in fact, "now dancing to a rather quicker beat". Not quick enough, though, to stop Clive from really stretching for a reference for those at home to grab onto, settling as he does for "you're not old enough to remember Roger Davies of Derby County? Ibrahimovic reminds me of him". Age must be doing something to him, as he speculates "it's getting to that time of night when the children of England are hoping for extra time and they might just get to stay up a bit later again tonight. No school tomorrow - why not?" No, Clive. Just... no. Michael Reiziger's throw-in technique comes in for close scrutiny, Tyldesley observing it "looks like a foul throw... he comes round the side" before wondering if "one or two cricket umpires would like to have a look at that action - Muralitharan..." He gets no further with that thought, possibly on realising it's pointless. He goes on to offer no proof that "they call him Balloo in Sweden, Tommy Soderbergh" before playing the home card again - "the more we see, the more we wonder what a chance England had... nothing to fear here". Plenty to fear, surely? "That is the end of 90 goalless minutes" eventually, and into the ads we go, after which Des has just enough time to admit it's "not quite the classic we've been expecting" before interrupting the punditry in mid-flow because the game's about to restart and Clive has to attempt to explain the silver goal rules as if it's further maths, coming up with "the best way to think of it is two mini games of football" as if he's Humphrey Lyttleton introducing One Song To The Tune Of Another on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. "Not one player on the field tonight has looked like he's wanted to get hold of the game and be the man" is Andy's hypothesis, conjuring up all sorts of thoughts of Ruud, who according to Clive "doesn't always see the pass", suddenly declaiming himself as if he were Eddie Murphy. Holland nearly get the break when Isaksson lets the ball bounce away and - "lucky, lucky man!" - onto the post. "He looked like the little boy who didn't really want to play cricket today so they stuck him on the boundary and suddenly the ball was coming at him a little bit faster than he wanted" Clive continues with his other obsession, adding "they should move him to third man quickly". That'd screw up the gameplan. A Swede goes down in a heap after Ruud "just caught him right on the Adam's apple" accidentally, but Andy's not so sure, replying "you're not convincing me, you know". Clive's "I'll do it to you after the game and see how you like it" is a little too forceful for comfort. Even after a half of extra time "a pin and a blindfold" is still needed to determine what we must now refer to as the man, and so "another mini-game" ensues. Or just extra time continuing until the normal end of proceedings. Jaap Stam lines up a free kick, which would be odd to most of our untrained eyes but not to Clive, who assures us "I've seen Stam take free kicks and when he strikes them they stay struck". It sails over, but not as badly as "Cocu... I know what word I want to say to you, as that's what Cocu's just done". What word's that, then? With the game "gradually being shaken and opened up" - what, again? - but heading for a goalless end Clive bites the bullet and has to sound serious while declaring "those of you waiting for the Stars In Their Eyes Celebrity Special" will have to wait. An immediate cutaway of the Swedish bench brings the almost inevitable, if scientifically inaccurate, "tonight, Tommy, I will be a European Championship semi-final match". Patronisation follows as he reckons "the Dutch do bring colour to every game, and they do support their team in a really engaging way, as do the Swedes". Engaging. Now there's a word you don't see often enough in celebrations of fan culture. Clive then elects to take the piss out of Ljungberg's declaration he'd like to play in the Olympics, wondering what Wenger would say. Two small points here : the Olympic competition is essentially a under-21 world cup now but with overage players allowed, and moreover Sweden didn't qualify for it. Finally it's finished and we can "enjoy the sight of someone else's nation's players going through the agony of a penalty shootout". And of *course* ITV head straight for a commercial break on the final whistle and rejoin as the keepers head for the goal. "it's a lottery, of course, but it's thrilling" remarks Des, while Clive goes for satirism in mentioning "the penalty spot didn't move". "Advantage Holland!" Townsend analyses where Ibrahimovic went wrong, claiming "most people come at the ball these days from a slight angle, he ran straight at that one". Ljungberg gets his enormous, if technically illegal in a shoot-out, stroke of luck, and he "cannot repeat that - I thought he'd scooped it over". Andy's advice on going past the five penalties is "not a penalty taker? Hit it." Mellberg doesn't - more Villa! Juan Pablo Angel's getting the spot kicks next season, then - Robben does and "it's Holland's turn - overdue turn". The Dutch celebrate like they've won the thing, Kluivert and van der Sar bringing their kids out for the lap of honour, Tyldesley captioning the latter "my dad saved a penalty tonight!" Andy can only hark back to the Republic's 1990 triumph "15 years ago", a mathematical error possibly explained when he wonders "I wonder if the Dutch players will be able to drink as much as we did." "I'd like to see them try" is Clive's response. Finely tuned top level athletes there. Much of the ITV talk is about how great penalty shoot-outs are, Robbie defending them with the line "it makes great TV" while Ally reckons "they're compulsive viewing". Nobody actually thinks this outside ITV pundits, do they? "It's as if they didn't both want to lose" Earle somewhat obviously declares. And of course they now have 15 minutes to pad out by talking at length about David Beckham, so all's well that ends well. If you're ITV.