KIDWCKED
07-13-2010, 10:20 PM
c/p from sportnet.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Hundreds of thousands of fans lined Amsterdam's web of canals to cheer the World Cup runner-up Netherlands as the team cruised the waterways, swigging beer and blowing vuvuzelas, in an open-top boat Tuesday.
Looking to have finally shaken off the disappointment of the team's third second-place World Cup finish, the players drank beer and waved at fans as orange streamers, fired from cannons along the canal, drifted over them.
Midfielder Rafael van der Vaart sprayed fans with beer while defender Edson Braafheid caught a bottle of beer tossed to him by a fan and started drinking from it. Players had to regularly duck as their boat cruised under low bridges.
"I expected some people to come, but this is unbelievable," coach Bert van Marwijk said. "Can you imagine what it would have been like if we'd won?"
Scores of small boats, most of them pumping out loud music and packed with dancing revelers, followed the official flotilla.
In front of about 100,000 fans at the central Museum Square, winger Arjen Robben said: "Spain may have won the World Cup, but we have the best supporters in the world."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Hundreds of thousands of fans lined Amsterdam's web of canals to cheer the World Cup runner-up Netherlands as the team cruised the waterways, swigging beer and blowing vuvuzelas, in an open-top boat Tuesday.
Looking to have finally shaken off the disappointment of the team's third second-place World Cup finish, the players drank beer and waved at fans as orange streamers, fired from cannons along the canal, drifted over them.
Midfielder Rafael van der Vaart sprayed fans with beer while defender Edson Braafheid caught a bottle of beer tossed to him by a fan and started drinking from it. Players had to regularly duck as their boat cruised under low bridges.
"I expected some people to come, but this is unbelievable," coach Bert van Marwijk said. "Can you imagine what it would have been like if we'd won?"
Scores of small boats, most of them pumping out loud music and packed with dancing revelers, followed the official flotilla.
In front of about 100,000 fans at the central Museum Square, winger Arjen Robben said: "Spain may have won the World Cup, but we have the best supporters in the world."