If only he knew, this is going to be an Orange weekend in Greenock and at Glasgow Green, so much so that I'd even bet money on a fair number of my mates marching in the streets.
But around 3.45 this afternoon there was little prospect of any celebrating being done by those of an Oranje or Orange persuasion. Holland's World Cup dream was just about dead and buried, not only were they trailing to a superb Robinho goal, if Juan had not missed a sitter and Maarten Stekelenberg hadn't made an incredible save from a great Kaka shot, they were in line for a proper gubbing.
Everything that could go wrong for the Dutch had gone wrong. A pre-match injury to Joris Mathijsen forced the veteran Andre Ouijer to be pressed into service and Brazil looked likely to exploit any uncertainty in the defence. But as has been said so many times before, when the score is just 1-0, anything can happen. However, did anyone seriously picture Holland turning things around in the second half? I certainly didn't.
So what did we get? A free-kick from Wesley Sneijder, chaos in the box and the ball is in the net, then a near post corner from Robin Van Persie, a glance on by Dirk Kuyt and Sneijder heads home from point blank range. Mind you, with plenty of time remaining, I still fancied Brazil to come back, although the loss of the goals were sure to have caused a bit of internal strife..
Over the years they have been a touch fragile defensively but, with the Inter Milan trio of Julio Cesar, Maicon and Lucio at the back, this team looked different. Really? Back in the good old days of our nine-in-a-row heroes, I could picture The Goalie coming off his line to take the head off Richard Gough if necessary to get to a cross akin to Holland's opener. And whatever happened to getting to the ball first when facing a near post corner? These were pub team errors but they were, ultimately, the errors which ended Brazil's World Cup ambitions.
They huffed and puffed a bit after falling behind but, lifted by the remarkable turnaround in events, Holland were giving nothing away and, in truth, had a number of chances to stretch their lead in the latter stages. Suddenly Brazil's star quality wasn't quite so bright, Kaka was a big disappointment and all the euphoria which followed Holland throughout the 1974 and 1978 campaigns and again at Euro'88 is again in evidence. Could they do it in the land of the Voertrekker? Don't bet against it!!!
After all the drama of Port Elizabeth, I was resigned to Uruguay and Ghana just going through the motions, serving up a huge anti-climax, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It helped that Ghana went in front with Sulley Montari's long range effort and the South Americans rose majestically to the challenge, pressing incessantly until the shit-hot Diego Forlan got the equaliser. It was surely going to be Uruguay's night but Ghana wore the badge of Africa's sole survivors with some pride and, in the most amazing of finishes, they really should have motored through to the last four.
In the dying seconds of extra-time, they launched a free-kick (a soft free-kick btw) into the box, the ball was blocked in the goalmouth, John Mensah followed up with a header but Luis Suarez materialised on the line (what was he doing there?) to palm the ball away. It was a clear penalty, a red card and a suspension from the next match, which may not have to apply for a further two years. But Asamoah Gyan hit the crossbar with the kick, the tearful Suarez suddenly did a dance of joy in the tunnel area and it was all down to the Russian roulette of the shoot-out.
With Uruguay leading 3-2, John Mensah's kick was easily saved, then Maxi Pereira shot over the top, Adiyiah's shot was also saved and it was left to Sebastian Abreu to cleverly dink the ball over the keeper and into the net to take Uruguay through. In terms of drama, it just doesn't get more exciting than this and the Uruguayans face the very difficult task of coming down off cloud nine to focus on the serious business of Tuesday's semi-final with Holland.
It could go either way but I'm with the Oranjemen.
.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">Tomorrow: Germany v Argentina, Spain v Paraguay