24 June 2004

AMSTERDAM — Dutch soccer coach Dick Advocaat has endured a roller-coaster week. He became public enemy number one at home for a tactical blunder in the loss against the Czech Republic and at the same time a smash hit on internet search engines.

Before the 3-0 win against Latvia on Wednesday night — which secured the Dutch a place in the next round of Euro 2004 in Portugal — angry fans were busy scouring the world wide web for information about the coach.

Marketing firm Traffic4u reported on Thursday that Advocaat is the name currently most popular on the Dutch search engines Google.nl and Ilse.nl.

This does not mean that Advocaat — the coach and not the Dutch liqueur — is the flavour of the month.

His decision to replace fiery left wing player Arjen Robben with 30 minutes to go in the Dutch clash with the Czech Republic caused outrage. The Dutch had been winning 2-1 but the match ended 2-3 in favour of the Czechs.

The Dutch media called for Advocaat's head and Dutch fans bought the coach a ticket to go home — but in a final insult, the ticket would only have got him as far as Belgium.

Since the defeat, many internet users have been searching for "Dick Advocaat" on the internet — in combination with the Dutch word spotprent (cartoon).

On a more positive note, Arjen Robben is also a popular internet search query.

But Ruud van Nistelrooij who put a penalty and header into the Latvian net on Wednesday is currently the most popular Dutch player on the internet.

[© Novum Nieuws 2004]

Subject: Dutch news