It will be interesting to see how the key figures in the Dutch camp rationalise it all this morning when a severely disappointed nation seeks some answers. The bulk of their players were out on the pitch last night simply holding their hands up, admitting to having made a mess of things. Barring that, it's pretty hard to see them coming up with anything more convincing.

Frank Rijkaard will doubtless take the rap for bungling what turned out to be a giftwrapped opportunity to go through to Sunday evening's final, but so many players played poorly that it is difficult to lay too much blame at his door. After all, if the coach had the opportunity to take either of the two penalties his side got during the original 90 minutes, they would almost certainly be preparing to meet the French this morning instead of making with the hard luck stories.

Of course, Rijkaard is not entirely blameless. For most of the night he sat by as a team that had progressed to this stage of the tournament by taking the game to their opponents managed to lose the initiative completely against a side that had been reduced to 10 men just a third of the way into the game.

If ever there was a time for the Dutch to excel at what they do best it was last night, but suddenly Patrick Kluivert found himself stranded up front without the support to make a serious impact against a defence who knew all about killing a game off.

But then that can hardly have been a surprise to anybody in the Dutch camp. For years the Italians have based their international success on a strong defence so neither Rijkaard nor his players can seriously suggest that their approach last night came as a shock. From the outset there was only one way that Dino Zoff's side was going to play and after Gianluca Zambrotta was ordered off it was only going to change things for the worse.

What the Italians do, though, they do well and if the Dutch weren't capable of getting in behind them and even testing Francesco Toldo with a few decent attempts on goal then it is very difficult indeed to have any great sympathy for them.

If Kluivert had some support and Dennis Bergkamp had been allowed the freedom to play in behind a front two, I believe they might have been able to make the breakthrough. As it was, the Italians were rarely even stretched around their penalty area.

Amazingly enough, on two of the very few occasions they were put under serious pressure they conceded penalties but neither Frank de Boer not Kluivert's efforts deserved to win such an important game. When they went on to make such a mess of the penalty shootout it was impossible to avoid the feeling that they got precisely what they deserved.

In an interview with Emmet Malone