The future is orange though not necessarily very bright

You could sense before the game that there was concern in the Dutch camp.

“If we don’t beat Denmark it will all be very, very difficult,” said Wesley Sneijder, and after 90 minutes of mounting frustration the 2010 World Cup finalists already seem to be one false step away from elimination.

One thing that might give the Netherlands cause for hope, if not optimism, is that when they became European champions in 1988 they also lost 1-0 in their opening game, to Russia — who they then went on to beat in the final.