Simon Cooper

Very well.

In the Netherlands, all good.

Yes.

So my twin sons are doing their final school exams in Paris, and it was felt that I should be around for at least bits of that.

So I'm going a week after the World Cup starts, which is fine because the first week this time will be meaningless.

I arrived in Holland 50 years ago from London with my family.

And it turned out we'd landed in the middle of the golden age of Dutch football, in fact, of global football.

It's the 70s, Holland are between reaching two World Cup finals.

So my first World Cup, I'm eight years old.

And the country I live in, the team I've come to support, is playing its second straight World Cup final against Argentina.

78th minute, Dick Nonnenka, Dutch substitute centre-forward, who is a flower seller in daily life because several of the Dutch players are semi-pros.

So he has a flower stall in a small town.

He heads the equaliser.

Last minute of extra time, Rob Rensenblink, brilliant, the snake, they called him, the snake man, hits the outside of the post.

So the Netherlands could have won a World Cup final my first time of asking.

So I grew up in Dutch football, which is obviously the highest form of football, which later became the world's form of football, played by teams like Klops Liverpool or Pep's Manchester City.

So, yeah, I have the origin story.

So the Netherlands is a social democracy, which is the best way to produce a good national football team.

And that's true, of course, in most of Western Europe, France, Germany, Spain.

With football, you can't see at age six who's going to be good.