God, I'm glad I'm not in America at the moment. Somewhat tired of attempting to defend my homeland under normal circumstances, after recent events I feel I wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.

Also, it's not my responsibility to try to defend all of Northern Europe. If I were asked why only one Northern European team made it into the quarter finals of Euro2000, I wouldn't have a simple explanation, there is no simple explanation.

The cliché has always been that Southern European teams have more natural attacking flair. Italy have always provided a powerful argument against this view, generally employing a style heavily biased towards defensiveness. Watching Italy sitting on a 1 - 0 lead is as entertaining as watching a goose sit on an egg.

Similarly, Spain, who underachieve in the big tournaments sometimes have managed to appal with their arid, footling, messy football.

Until recently, the French had plenty of flair, and great players like Michel Platini to build the style upon. But the French commitment to total team excellence above that of individual excellence is shown in their reluctance to select two of their most gifted players of the past decade, Eric Cantona and David Ginola.

Portugal, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Turkey share neither common footballing traditions, nor one particular style of play.

But despite this variety of tradition and range of current appproaches, Southern Europe is currently beating Northern Europe inside out.

Why?

Well, there is more common ground north of the Rhine. Muscularity, directness, a certain rigidity all chararcterise northern football. In the Scandinavian nations which have tiny populations and football cultures much influenced by their bigger neighbours, such a reductive approach is understandable if not admirable.

Norway must try to bore the opposition to death, because that's the only way they're going to beat them. Denmark have become like a middling Premiership side, competent but limited. Sweden have Henrik Larsson and little else to recommend them to people who like watching the game played near the top of its possibilities.

England and Germany's adherence to their old styles is less easy to understand or forgive. England's victory over the Germans last week was feted by the English press as if some taboo had been broken: in fact it was an unimportant skirmish between two faded powers with clapped out ideologies. Portugal B's blasé demolition of Germany a few days later proved the insignificance of England's achievement.

England's woes have been pored over at length since the Romania match, so I won't bother to lay them out again. However, having witnessed Holland's glorious dismemberment of Yugoslavia on Sunday, you would be mad not to look to the Netherlands for illumination and instruction. For a start, the Dutch are Northern European so have no right to be any good. In fact, they look as if they are playing the game at a level as high as any previously achieved. What are they doing right?

I think the difference between the two footballing cultures may be related to the difference in the national cultures. Holland is a small country with a relatively large coastline. It has a long history of tolerance, and a tendency to look outwards from its own shores as much as inwards. Yes, everyone knows that they have liberal sex and drugs laws, but this liberalism comes out of a tradition: as long ago as the seventeenth century they were prepared to give a home to Baruch Spinoza, a controversial Jewish philosopher that no-one else was prepared to harbour.

Whilst Spinoza's impact on Dutch football has been minimal (in fact, it is possible that he leaned toward an Italian-style catenaccio strategy) I think there is a possibility that the Dutch tradition of openness to new ideas has led them to their position at the forefront of footballing innovation. Some point out that they have won major tournaments too infrequently to qualify as a great footballing nation.

However, taking into account the size of their population they are wild overachievers.

The English in contrast look ignorant, isolationist, belligerent and dull - the team as well as the fans. In footballing terms, England has been a fading power since 1970. In this context, the unwillingness to change that is baffling. When Terry Venables and Glenn Hoddle briefly brought new ideas to the party, the nation responded with delight. Euro 96 in particular was a source of pleasure and pride.

This tournament in contrast has felt like a throwback. In fact, in the same way that the cro-magnon fans hark back to 1945, whistling the theme from The Great Escape or singing Rule Britannia (pretty close to singing Deutschland Uber Alles, and with just as much laughable irony to it) the team appeared to be dreaming of '66: the slightly racist suggestions that the English have more determination, more 'bulldog spirit', more 'belief' than other countries. The notion that such 'belief' can substitute for excellence is offensive to reason.

At this point in our footballing history, we need brains not belief. It won't happen soon though - there is no country on earth more scathing of sporting intellectuals than England.

Yes, but with the prospect of a France vs Holland final in the offing, who cares till July 3rd? Such a final should be enough to make any European proud, whether he's watching it over anti pasti and barolo or beer and chips, like me.

•  Damian Lanigan's new novel Stretch, 29 is available now from Amazon.co.uk.