‘A lack of guts did for the Dutch eleven,’ headlines the Volkskrant. ‘At one point this display of monumental dullness had to yield a winner,’ the paper writes. ‘What could have been an ode to Alfredi di Stefano, the pioneer of attacking football, became a game of technical tricks thought up by the trainers.’

‘Sneijder couldn’t make the difference,’ writes Trouw. ‘His excellent play against Mexico and Costa Rica brought back the Sneijder of four years ago in South Africa. That is why the midfielder was given an important role to play in last night’s semi-final. But in his 105th cap Sneijder didn’t distinguish himself. He failed to deliver the sharp passes to Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie. The hermetically sealed midfield put paid to that and the strikers remained out of reach.’

Romero

‘Romero stopped two penalties,’ the paper quotes Van Gaal as saying. ‘That makes it worse. I signed him for AZ when I was trainer there. It was me who taught him to stop penalties. No, I’m not joking. But we did fantastically well in this tournament, let’s not forget that.’

Euphoria

‘The dream is over,’ headlines the Telegraaf. ‘No one expected Oranje to do well in this tournament but Louis van Gaal’s men brought the Dutch people many wonderful moments of euphoria,’ the paper writes. ‘Unfortunately a win to make up for the lost final of 1974 against eternal rival Germany wasn’t one of them,’ the paper concludes.

In NRC Arjen Robben has the final word: ‘You win together and you lose together. We don’t blame any one, we gave it our all. This sucks but we can be proud too and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.’