As the orangemen trudged away from the Amsterdam Arena with that same numb feeling of anti-climax that Englishmen recall so painfully from Euro 96, they would doubtless have been thrilled to hear a big man with a big smile explaining down by the side of the pitch that, actually, Holland really needn't have bothered turning up for their Euro 2000 semi-final against Italy in the first place.

'The script for this match was written before kick-off,' said Francesco Toldo, the Italian goalkeeper who had just broken their hearts.

'You know, I think they could have played for the whole day shooting at our goal and they would never have scored.'

Everyone knew he was right, of course, but what a script. Some sporting tales simply defy any rational explanation, so you are forced to forget logic and start using words like destiny and fate. You could hear this stuff from thousands of Italian lips here.

'This field,' intoned Luciano Nizzola, the man who runs their national football federation, 'has been the field of miracles.' This was the miracle. That a team featuring some of the best footballers in the world missed five penalties from six attempts. That a goalkeeper who shouldn't have been playing in this tournament saved three of them. That the side playing all the football, some of it quite splendid, overran 10 men bent almost exclusively on survival yet still ended up losing, thanks to the unfathomable resistance and resilience of a thin but impenetrable blue line.

The Dutch would have none of this destiny lark, though. Dennis Bergkamp had another word for it.

'Stupid,' he kept muttering. 'So stupid. We only have ourselves to blame. I don't know why Holland can't win a penalty shoot-out.'

It was his last match in the orange but nothing ever changed. For the fourth time in eight years of major championship action, he'd seen them bow out like this.

He knew he shouldn't have been saying farewell at all. That should have been saved for a meeting with his mates Petit, Vieira and Henry in the Final in Rotterdam on Sunday.

He'd hit the post and missed two other sitters. He'd watched Toldo, the Fiorentina giant who only earned a place because Italy's No 1 Gianluigi Buffon had been injured on the eve of the tournament, make a dazzling save from Frank de Boer's 38th minute spot kick. He'd seen Patrick Kluivert strike the upright with another penalty in the 62nd minute.

Yet, perhaps just like the 50,000 who gradually became more anxious and subdued as wave after wave of attacks were repelled, Bergkamp could sense when he was brought off just before the 90 minutes was up that the party was over.

The bare statistics after two hours said it all. Possession - Holland 65%, Italy 35%; corners - Holland 8, Italy 3; shots on goal - Holland 21, Italy 4. The only one that mattered, though, was goals - Holland 0 Italy 0.

And a more epic 0-0 you never saw. Because, after Gianluca Zambrotta had received a second yellow card on 34 minutes for a foul on Boudejwin Zenden, what the Italians delivered has to be considered, even by their unmatched traditions in this department, one of international football's great rearguard actions, almost heroic in stature.

Outgunned in midfield with Edgar Davids leading the charge, it seemed impossible for them to survive for another 90 minutes.

Yet, marshalled by the calm courage and skill of Alessandro Nesta, in my book the outstanding defender of the tournament, they not only survived but also countered so menacingly that substitute Marco Delvecchio could have won it for them in injury time and also in extra time when only a tremendous save from Edwin Van der Sar thwarted him.

The enduring image was of Holland's final, desperate assault at the end of extra time, eight men in and around the box flailing to get on the end of Clarence Seedorf's free-kick only for Nesta to hurl himself through the air to head it to safety. The whistle went, Nesta picked himself off the floor and smiled at Luigi Di Biagio, who clenched his fists as though the game was won. Somehow, everybody knew it was.

It takes a lot to make the Italians, who'd never won a shoot-out before, resemble masters of this ordeal but Holland managed it.

De Boer missed again, shooting dismally straight at Toldo before Jaap Stam ballooned one so high it made Chris Waddle's 1990 special seem a model of precision. Paolo Maldini could even afford a failure since Toldo next kept out Paul Bosvelt's lame effort to seal a 3-1 victory.

It was all too hard to take for some of the Dutch. Was Ronald de Boer, who'd watched from the bench, prepared to give any credit to the Italians' monumental effort?

'No,' he barked. 'If you lose a game when you are so much better than your opponent, then it's our failure. They played with sometimes 10 men behind the ball. The only ones who deserved to be in the Final were us. But they'll be in Rotterdam and we're sitting at home. And it hurts.'

His haughty reaction once again illustrated the unbridgeable gap in footballing cultures. For an Italian, this was a consummate demonstration of the art of defence.

No Dutchman would call it art, though, and for all the remarkable grit of the Azzurris' performance there will be much sympathy even outside Holland for Marc Overmars' contention that a tournament so full of positive intent has lost its most attractive climax on Sunday.

'We did everything; played great football, created chances, did everything we should do. We played football that people enjoyed, attacking football, scoring goals, but if you miss two penalties maybe you don't deserve it,' said Overmars.

The Arsenal winger's future remains unclear. Asked whether he would still be at Highbury next season, Overmars, linked with a £15 million move to Italy, said: 'Who knows? There are some meetings going on with the club and I have to talk to them in the next week.'

Frank Rijkaard, the Dutch coach, was quick to decide his future. He certainly deserved better than last night's result but he was not hanging around to mope about it.

'I failed and I think now it's time for a new coach,' he said. 'The book is closed and I feel terrible for the players, but it's a law in football that when something like this happens it's time for someone else to take over.'

It's a law in some countries, at least. Rijkaard and Portugal's Humberto Coelho presided over marvellous challenges at Euro 2000, full of flair and invention, but still recognised it was time to resign. Oversee an ignominious failure in England and what happens?

With Rijkaard gone, Louis van Gaal wants to become coach of Holland but he could face opposition from Ruud Gullit.

Van Gaal quit his post at Barcelona after their defeat in the Champions League semi-finals last month, while Gullit has been away from the spotlight since walking out at Newcastle last August.

'My only ambition is to be the coach of the Dutch national team,' said van Gaal.