The weekend papers are full of praise for Holland’s impressive 4-1 victory in the Euro 2008 championships against France in Bern, Switzerland on Friday evening.

Oranje supporters in the big cities took to the streets in their hundreds to celebrate the victory but no major incidents were reported although parts of The Hague were cordoned off to prevent over-enthusiastic fans causing trouble, police said.
The Dutch victory, which followed a similarly decisive 3-0 win against Italy earlier in the week, guarantees Holland a place in the quarter-finals.
Trouw says the win against the French was ‘more miraculous’ than that over Italy. The powerful French were overrun by the Dutch in key moments in the game, it says.
The AD newspaper reports that Holland has become a ‘scoring machine’. But it adds that yesterday’s match was more difficult than the game against Italy.
According to the NRC Handelsblad, the win was due to the team’s ‘combatative nature and individual qualities’.
The Volkskrant describes the game as a ‘memorable 50th international’ for the team’s manager Marco van Basten. But the newspaper notes that Holland failed to show the same positional play they displayed in the game against Italy.
Holland’s four goals against France were scored by Dirk Kuijt, Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder.
Some 7.4 million people watched the game on Dutch television, nearly half of them women.