"We don't like it because we try to keep everything calm and this might be seen as a provocation, " he said on Wednesday. "It is a screaming line and we contacted FIFA in an attempt to change it but without any result. We have to settle with this line." Happy the man who can afford to sweat the small stuff.

Although it seems relatively small beer, there's the hint of a lesson hiding in there too. Van Basten won a European Championships with Holland but has often admitted that there would probably have been a World Cup in that squad had they not let collective egomania bring them to despise the sight of each other at Italia '90. Not that he was blameless . . . his club manager at the time, Arrigo Sacchi, once in the same breath called Van Basten both the best and most difficult player he'd ever coached.

The point is, the stereotype isn't misplaced. They do like a barney. They do like a to-do.

Nothing wrong with that if handled properly, of course.

Indeed, Van Basten has pointed out that full and frank exchanges of views is the price you pay for the honour of having a lot of Dutch people in a room at the same time.

"If someone in Germany is told to do something, he will say okay and do it, " he said in the build-up to the tournament. "But us Dutch are not like that. Here, if someone says something it is always followed by someone else standing up and saying, 'Yes, but. . .' That is how we work and how we have been brought up. It is a different way of being.

"On the one hand this is good because if you have an opinion and say something about it, it means that you are thinking about things and will have a good discussion about it. But the key is to have respect for others. If you don't listen to what someone else has to say then you won't come together as a team and you will create a rift. We are trying to pick players who fit into our way of thinking."

It is a way of thinking that, famously, finds no room for Edgar Davids or Clarence Seedorf or Patrick Kluivert or Andy van der Meyde or Roy Makaay in his squad. It is a way of thinking that means for the first time for as far back as anyone can remember, they'll start a World Cup match this afternoon with at most three and probably only two players from Dutch football's three traditional powers . . . Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven . . . on the pitch. And it is a way of thinking that doesn't want the side of the team bus bragging to all and sundry that glory is on the way (even if neither all nor sundry is likely to have any great grasp of the Dutch tongue).

The Van Basten way is to dampen expectation, to talk the whole thing down a notch.

Holland as one of the favourites? Perish the thought. "We are in the second tier of nations, " he says.

"I've told our players that we have to concentrate on ourselves. Not the so-called group of death, not our opponents. If we stay together as a team, nothing else is that important."

Spoken with the conviction of a man whose managerial career has yet to feature a defeat in a competitive match.

When he left AC Milan after the 1994 Champions League final, he swore he'd never go into management. But as the years passed, he says, the game pricked and prodded away at him until he finally relented and did a coaching course with the KNVB (Dutch FA). By 2003, he was working with the Ajax reserves as assistant to former teammate Johnny van't Schip.

When the deeply unpopular Dick Advocaat walked after Euro 2004, it was to Van Basten the KNVB turned. Initially, he wasn't interested.

Surprised and flattered, but not interested. They gave him some space to think about it and in the meantime sent Johan Cruyff around to see could he change his mind.

Ten days later it was done, the original master's influence having tipped the balance. It is an influence that's never very far away.

"As a former major player Cruyff still is very important in Dutch football, " Van Basten says. "I have had the advantage to have played with him, to have had him as coach and I know him as a friend. So I know him in a lot of different ways and that is a good situation. He is our advisor. He can play a role because of his experience. We give him a call and he gives his perspective on the situation."

Once in possession of the natty blazer the KNVB like to impose upon their main man, Van Basten went about setting a tone. Clearing out the great and the grating caused ructions at the time but he stood firm. Yes, they were fine players, Champions League winners among them.

But the old saw about the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result each time was perfect for this situation. The Dutch had always had the players but the players had never delivered. So it was time for them to go, for them to be replaced by some who would do what he told them.

And he wanted to set a style as well. Ever the aesthete in his playing days, he wanted to find a balance between staying true to certain principles and arriving at success's door well-dressed and spit-polished.

"It's important to entertain the people, " he said in a press conference during the week.

"It's important they see something spectacular, but it's also important to play to win. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. If you play good football you also have the right to win, and no one can say it wasn't fair. You start playing football because you like it. If it's only about winning, winning, winning, you create a problem.

"I'm not afraid to lose, I like to play well. I'm also sitting on the bench and hope to watch a good game.

I like to have the initiative, to play and create. But there's also the opponent and if they're strong, you have to decide if it's wise to attack because you also have to win.

Everybody wants to win, but I can accept losing, I have to.

It's part of the game. If you're afraid to lose, you use your energy in the wrong way. It's acceptable to lose if a star player like [Thierry] Henry makes the difference. Maybe I'm still an idealist, and maybe if you work too long in football you lose that a bit, but it's good to have ideals."

Those ideals are what laid the foundation for the most impressive qualification campaign of any European team.

Their 32 points was the most gained by any side, their three goals conceded was bettered only by today's opponents Serbia and Montenegro. Because of that (and despite national under-21 coach Foppe de Haan taking a pop at him on Thursday for not bringing Ajax striker Klaas Jan Huntelaar to Germany), he's managed to get most people in the country on his side.

In Holland, more than anywhere else, that's an achievement in itself.

NO POINT TAKING AN EARLY RISK IN THE GROUP OF DEATH GROUP C SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO v HOLLAND 2.00, Leipzig Live, RTE Two, 1.30; BBC1, 1.45

This group is the party nobody wanted to be invited to and, as a consequence, the chances of it taking off into a frenzy of cartwheeling bacchanalia are decidedly slim. None of the participants especially enjoys the company of the others and each of them knows that a wrong move will likely end in embarrassment.

And so . . . to throttle a metaphor to its final squeak . . . it's probably unwise to expect the badinage to flow like fine wine, at least at the start.

Serbia and Montenegro kept clean sheets in nine of their 10 qualifying games; Holland weren't breached in 10 of their 12. That, coupled with the natural fear of losing the first game, makes about as compulsive an argument for a scoreless draw in Leipzig today as you'll get.

The Serbs will delight in that.

They know well that common wisdom has it that in the group of death, they've taken over the Ivory Coast as the deadest of the men walking. This, for a side who qualified unbeaten from a group including Spain and Belgium, is bound to pinch the pride a little.

Their solidity is usually based around the tight triangle of centrehalves Nemanja Vidic and Mladen Krstajic (right) . . . a pair against whom you have to go some to score from a header . . . and busybee midfielder Igor Duljaj. But Vidic is suspended having been sent off in their last qualifying game so Duljaj will drop back to right back with Goran Gavrancic . . .

a natural centre-half . . . moving in beside Krstajic. Veteran Albert Nadj is likely to fill Duljaj's spot in midfield. It will be his job to cut off any infield runs made by Arjen Robben or Dirk Kuyt (assuming the Feyenoord player is preferred to Robin van Persie).

Will it be enough? If all their ambition stretches to is a blank scoresheet, then probably. Holland are quick and young and, under Marco van Basten, seemingly rid of the ego-fuelled yapping that killed them in the past. But they rely heavily on Ruud van Nistelrooy's goals and if they've dried up . . . as Alex Ferguson seems to think . . . Holland are in serious trouble. Kuyt has been plenty prolific at home but for all Van Basten's independence and lack of respect for reputation, it's inconceivable that Van Nistelrooy could be dropped. All Holland's youth and brio will be for nothing if they can't cash in with goals.

There is no time to waste in this group, no easy game to afford the teams a breather. In a perfect world, that would mean the teams going all out to get a win on the board and ease the pressure on themselves. Given the choice, though, the suspicion is that they'll plump for easing themselves in gently and not scaring the horses.