ROBIN Van Persie ran into the space between Gerard Pique and Sergio Ramos, awaiting a cross by Daley Blind at the Arena Forte Nova in Salvador on Friday.

When it reached him, he flicked his head, powering a stunning header that gave Iker Casillas no chance and pulled the Netherlands level.

The Dutch would go on to score four more after that to seal a stunning 5-1 win over the reigning champions.

But it was the goal by the Man­chester United striker that stood out, with Gerard Houlier — a member of FIFA’s Technical Study Group (TSG) — on Saturday hailing it as ‘phenomenal’.

“It was absolutely phenomenal,” former Liverpool and France coach Houllier said at a news conference at the Maracana on Saturday.

“Everything about it from a technical point of view was at such high level. The way he watched the ball, the way he moved, a diving header but more.”

Some 36 kilometres away, the scorer of that goal was taking selfies with Brazilian kids who had flocked to the Estadio da Gavea during a training session of the Netherlands team.

Having scored a brace against Spain, he alongside Arjen Robben — who also scored twice on Friday — and the other players who started the game did light training for half an hour while the reserves played a match against each other.

Blind only did some cycling besides the pitch, while the other starters walked around, before sitting down to watch the reserves play after the families and friends of the Dutch players had arrived at the team’s hotel to give them some welcome distraction from football.

However, there was no doubt which player was the most popular amongst the local kids who had gathered at Flamengo’s training facility.

After being greeted by a loud applause onto the pitch, Van Persie walked towards the youngsters, who crowed him to take their photos with him on a relaxed training day for the squad that humiliated the reigning world champions.

The Netherlands play Australia next in Porto Alegre on Wednesday and back at the Maracana, Houllier said that from the opening few games, the TSG had noted that the teams were committed towards playing attacking football.

“I can feel it’s going to be a World Cup with positive, open and attractive play,” he said. “The team that wins will really attack and take risks. It looks like teams are here to score goals.”

He said Spain’s hammering could be exactly what they needed following an era of dominance of world football.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to keep the hunger, the motivation,” he said. “But sometimes maybe one good defeat brings you back to reality and you get back into it.”

He said Spain played a good first-half but were overrun in the second, where according to him the Dutch were ‘untouchable’.

“There was a key moment when [David] Silva missed the second chance [to make it 2-0] because maybe the game would have been killed. From one moment to another the confidence shifts.

“Spain played extremely well in the first-half, the second half maybe they were affected by the goal. But the opposition were untouchable and sometimes you have to admit that.”

Houllier also said that it was too soon to declare Spain’s tiki-taka — their quick-passing, possession-based style of play — had been rendered obsolete.

“It’s very difficult to say this is obsolete, we need more direct football. This is the beauty of football. You have trends you have cycles,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2014