'Orange fever' swept the Dutch press on Saturday on the eve of the Netherlands World Cup final meeting with European champions Spain.

Indeed one psychologist told De Telegraaf that such was the positive feeling among the country's inhabitants as the 'Oranje' marched to the final that it could do a collective good.

"Orange fever is effectively group therapy," Jaap van Ginneken told the newspaper.

"It is good for everything, for as well as raising the morale of the consumers, it also cuts out the cost of a visit to a psychologist, psychiatrist or a psychotherapist.

"It is a reward: for we live in a strongly individual society where everyone is for themselves and God is for everyone.

"It is an attraction for something that has disappeared, to be together with everyone else."

Popular daily AD devotes two pages to Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder, joint leading scorer at the finals with five goals, and classifies him as the 'footballing hero of the country' while they also have an interview with his 76-year-old grandmother Thiele.

While she confesses to understanding nothing about football 'they (the footballers) tread on everything like animals' she is photographed sitting on her sofa with an orange boa draped round her neck and a large photograph of Sneijder in the Inter Milan strip.

According to Christian daily Trouw, 60 per cent of Dutch people are expecting their team to win the country's first World Cup title while according to the same journal a brave eight per cent admit they have not followed the team's fortunes during the finals.

And if those Dutch people who are going to watch the match at home were expecting to avail themselves of a pizza being delivered to their doorstep then they can think again.

One of the biggest pizza delivery firms in the country will not be open for business on Sunday night.

"Our employees who deliver the pizzas all want to watch the final. They would prefer to be fired than not to be able to watch the match," its managing director told AD.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry too has gone into overdrive as it revealed.

"A lot of embassies and consulates are going to transform themselves into 'Orange Houses' for the final and will adapt themselves to welcome Dutch nationals as well as foreign supporters of the 'Oranje'," it announced.

The stereotypical image prior to such a match gets an airing as Dutch hardman midfielder Mark van Bommel - who once played for Barcelona - is pictured in De Telegraaf outfitted in a matador's strip with the title 'Oranje Ole!!!'

And come what may there is to be a fireworks display at the final whistle in the seaside resort of Scheveningen, situated near The Hague.

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