While the Republic of Ireland were able to move their thoughts on to Andorra yesterday, the team which had just put five past the part-timers, Holland, left their memories of Barcelona behind. Portugal in Porto await Louis van Gaal's men now, and as one of them, Marc Overmars, said yesterday: "This is the real challenge." Overmars had just described Holland's double-header against Andorra and Portugal as "our week of destiny", and there is a growing sense within the Netherlands that defeat tomorrow night against the group leaders and Holland's World Cup campaign would be pronounced deceased.
Whether the strident manager, Louis van Gaal, would agree with that analysis is another matter. Van Gaal decreed that he was "satisfied" with Saturday's work, particularly that three of his strikers, Patrick Kluivert, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Pierre van Hooijdonk, made the scoresheet. Holland have 11 goals from their four games, two more than Portugal. Van Gaal likes goals - he has nine forwards in his squad and four defenders.
That they gave van Gaal enhanced pleasure was perhaps due to the memory of last October in Rotterdam when the Dutch created little in the way of chances against Portugal's obdurate defence. They lost 0-2. Holland had entered that game having just scored four in Cyprus, while the Portuguese had drawn at home with the Irish. It was the Portuguese who were under pressure. Now it is the opposite story, though van Gaal thinks that defeat in Porto would still not be the "disaster" Overmars has spoken of.
For van Gaal, the crucial match in determining who comes second - he will accept Portugal as group winners should Holland lose tomorrow - will be the one scheduled for Dublin for September 1st. Van Gaal would be confident about the outcome of that match, too. But then a lack of self-belief has not been one of his more obvious characteristics. Now 49, when he took over from Frank Rijkaard nine days after the Dutch lost to Italy on penalties in the semi-final of Euro 2000, van Gaal declared: "My ambition is to make this team world champions." Though he had just signed a six-year contract, van Gaal was not talking about the 2006 tournament.
Despite the undoubted hangover the Dutch were feeling at the time - it was the fourth occasion in the last five that they had left a competition on penalties - van Gaal's eyes were focused on reawakening the enthusiasm in a group of players, many of whom he had known for more than a decade.
Players like Overmars, Kluivert and the De Boer twins had first emerged under van Gaal at Ajax. He became manager in Amsterdam in 1991 and three years later they were European champions. All were to follow van Gaal to the Nou Camp, but while he was successful at Barcelona, winning two league titles, van Gaal failed to pay sufficient homage to Catalonia and had little option but to resign last April after Valencia had knocked Barcelona out of the Champions' League.
He had planned a year off from football, but on the day he became Netherlands manager van Gaal said: "You see before you a very happy person."
The home draw with the Republic and the subsequent defeat by Portugal have dented some of the happiness. The vigour van Gaal was trying to implant has, perversely in a squad long known for its internal friction, been partially undermined by its settled nature. The players have known each other a long time and know there are few alternatives. The young players van Gaal is intent on introducing gradually have not shown yet whether they are good enough.
It has left the Dutch in a period always known as transitional in football. What is really meant is awkward. Defeat tomorrow night, combined with an Irish win over Andorra, and even van Gaal might admit that the situation is downright tricky.
