The Fabulous de Boer boys. Two moments.

Number One: Ronald de Boer picks up a ball in midfield and dunts a perfectly weighted pass straight down the corridor and on to Dennis Bergkamp's head. Wisest little pass to Kluivert. Holland 1 Argentina 0.

Number Two: Frank de Boer seizes possession outside his own penalty area, relieving the siege at last. Looks up. Sails a pass of impeccable judgement, perfect length and nice weight some 50 yards into the path of Bergkamp. Swoosh. Holland 2 Argentina 1.

They come from Hoorn, a well-to-do little spot 40 kilometres or so north of Amsterdam. They know the road to the city well. Their mother Git de Boer (best to state the surname with a christian name like that) drove them down it several times a week when they were hothouse flowers in the Ajax nursery system. Three times a week for training. Weekends to see the team play.

Their lives have been virtual parallels from the womb onwards. Today they are both married, both the fathers of two daughters, both playing off the same golf handicap, both accomplished tennis players, and both deliberately wear the same watch as a private acknowledgement of their constant sameness. There's that and the football.

The football was in the rearing of them. And in the genes. Their father, Kees, played for AZ Alkmaar and had a promising career there terminated prematurely by injury. His twin boys carry on the trade.

Ronald, the oldest twin by 10 minutes, plies the wing. Frank, a defender by instinct as well as breeding, plays centre half for the national team, but often lines out as left full back for Ajax.

They have won virtually everything there is to win. Five Dutch championships with Ajax. One Dutch Cup for Ronald. Two for Frank. A European Cup together in 1995 and over 100 international caps between them. This evening they press on towards a World Cup final.

However, their orange rhapsody pans out, it was their destiny to play for Ajax. Supporting the team was part of the family history and when Louis van Gaal did the club a favour by discovering the twins when they were 12, he took a hand in shaping them as players over the next six years.

"He is probably the trainer who has had the most special influence over me, certainly the best trainer," Frank has said.

"The years spent with his were the best of my career," says Ronald. "I won everything with him. He is not just a football man. In terms of human relations, in terms of life generally, he carries himself wonderfully. He has a good brain and he is honest. He doesn't forget things like your birthday or your wife's birthday. He listens if you explain why you played badly."

That sort of tender cerebration is what the de Boers were reared on. They both express the philosophy when they speak of their role in the Dutch team.

"The team is first," says Frank, the captain, "everything has to be suppressed for that. We cannot be twins, we must be team-mates, the same as everybody else. People cannot be individuals, they must be players for the team."

Ironically they made their club debuts against the same side, PEC Zwolle, though in different games the same season. Ronald was sprung from the bench one day in 1987 when he was just 17. It didn't begin auspiciously for him. Ajax were leading 4-2 when he joined the action. Ten minutes later it was 4-4. But it began memorably. Eventually Ajax won 6-4.

Several months later, Frank made his debut appearance, sprung from the bench like his brother. Ajax led 1-0 when he arrived on. Lost 4-1.

"Neither of us got blamed for those games," he says. "I suppose that's obvious."

It was van Gaal who was central to the only separation the twins have had during their playing careers. Ronald, unhappy with the shape of the team and his own role in it during Leo Beenhakker's reign at Ajax, followed his old mentor to FC Twente for two years in the early part of this decade.

His time there was spent happily - "two very good years," as he describes them. Frank continued to prosper at Ajax, winning a UEFA Cup with the club in 1992 and playing contentedly in the knowledge that his brother had found a suitable stage for himself elsewhere.

"But I prefer it when we play together. One knows exactly what the other is going to do, what way the other is thinking, what the other will do. We always knew, though, that given our job that it was likely that we would be separated at some stage."

In Amsterdam, however, they reckon that Frank's game suffered more than Ronald's during the separation and there was general approval when the club splashed out good money to bring their own protege back in 1993.

Inevitably they were both Dutch internationals at that stage. Frank made his debut against Italy in September 1990, the Dutch losing 1-0 in Sicily. Ronald joined him in orange three years later for a six-goal thrashing of San Marino in March 1993. He was a victim of his own versatility for a while, being switched from left wing to right and back again according to the needs of the team.

He has settled now into one of the lynchpins of the side, his creativity one of the factors which has propelled them this far. Frank has out-shone the ludicrously expensive Japp Stam throughout the tournament, holding a sometimes fragmented Dutch defence together in times of stress.

There are signs that their loyalty to Ajax is becoming exhausted as more lucrative offers flood in. Van Gaal is at Barcelona and has expressed interest. Ronald has let it be known that Arsene Wenger's Arsenal are of interest to him.

They have contracts that run for another two years, however, and they remain the sort of old fashioned footballers we seldom see anymore. Throwbacks. A rare loyalty to the club of their childhood dreams, short back and sides merchants of solid virtue and lovely skill.

And for now standing on the cusp of their greatest day.