Home team at a World Cup, Pokermonster?

Remember, they wouldn't even let England play in white at Wembley in '66. They tossed for it.

Well I wasn't. You see loads of anomalies at World Cups where the natural team colours wouldn't even clash but both have to change to their 2nd strip.

At least they are on the posters in my local.

This could be the best group of the tournament, especially if there's an upset later and Oz win.

None of this mattered in the days of black and white t.v.

Indeed, Kenny, just read about it.

Spain were designated as the home side and choose to play in their usual red shirts.  Fifa ruled, however, that red clashed with Holland's first and second choices and ordered Spain to change - hence both teams played in away kits.

at what point did Holland  (for football purposes) become Nederlands ?

as a lad it was ALWAYS Holland, i'm sure

Holland is a region and former province located on the western coast of the Netherlands. The name Holland is also frequently used as a pars pro toto to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. This usage is generally accepted, but some individuals, particularly from the other parts of the Netherlands, dislike the use of "Holland" as a substitute for "the Netherlands".[2]

From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the Counts of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the newly independent Dutch Republic.

Today, the former County of Holland roughly consists of the two Dutch provinces of North Holland and South Holland, which together include the Netherlands' three largest cities: the capital city of Amsterdam; the seat of government of The Hague; and Rotterdam, home of Europe's largest port.



The name Holland first appeared in sources in 866 for the region around Haarlem, and by 1064 was being used as the name of the entire county. By this time, the inhabitants of Holland were referring to themselves as "Hollanders".[3] Holland is derived from the Middle Dutch term holtland ("wooded land").[4] This spelling variation remained in use until around the 14th century, at which time the name stabilised as Holland (alternative spellings at the time were Hollant and Hollandt). A popular folk etymology holds that Holland is derived from hol land ("hollow land") and was inspired by the low-lying geography of Holland.[4]

The proper name of the area in both Dutch and English is "Holland". "Holland" is a part of the Netherlands. "Holland" is informally used in English and other languages, including sometimes the Dutch language itself, to mean the whole of the modern country of the Netherlands.[2] (This example of pars pro toto or synecdoche is similar to the tendency to refer to the United Kingdom as "England".).[5][6]

The people of Holland are referred to as "Hollanders" in both Dutch and English. Today this refers specifically to people from the current provinces of North Holland and South Holland. Strictly speaking, the term "Hollanders" does not refer to people from the other provinces in the Netherlands, but colloquially "Hollanders" is sometimes mistakenly used in this wider sense.

In Dutch, the Dutch word "Hollands" is the adjectival form for "Holland". The Dutch word "Hollands" is also colloquially and occasionally used by some Dutch people in the sense of "Nederlands" (Dutch), but then often with the intention of contrasting with other types of Dutch people or language, for example Limburgish, the Belgian form of the Dutch language ("Flemish"), or even any southern variety of Dutch within the Netherlands itself.