What a nice match! When lots of people expected an equally competitive match, what was shown today in Berne was a dominant Netherlands over a weak Italy. Van Basten’s squad was fast, skillfull and effective. Donadoni’s was slow, with a lot of bad passes and poor play choices. From Van der Sar to Nilstelrooy, the Oranges played as one amazing machine, scoring 3 goals over the Azzurri and leaving the feeling Italy’s World Cup winning squad might be getting a bit old.

Is that possible? Maybe Luca Toni, Materazzi, Zambrotta and co. are getting a bit old (they average around 31 years old - except for Barzagli, everyone is close of passed the age of 30). The Azzurri definitely does not have the same speed and power they did in 2006. Today, the squad seemed heavy on the pitch, making horrible passes and choices. And… Italy’s defense was a joke!

So when you put older, not so well prepared dudes against highly motivated and physically well prepared young players, you get what we saw today. The Oranges has only a couple players around 30 years old: Nistelrooy, Van der Sar, and Ooijer - but the 3 are extremely well prepared, and seem to have no issues keeping up with the young ones (all born during the 80’s - Bronkhosrt, Sneijder, Kuyt, Van der Vaart, Boulahrouz, Jong, Mathijsen).

Fitness, however, was not the entire problem. Italy’s players were not positioned well and lacked creativity or simplicity on the plays created.

Azzurri - get smart, get fit and start playing. Today you just made me choose a squad to root for.