Dear Holland,

I'm sorry, but it's over between us.

Along with millions of other schoolkids, I became besotted with you 40 years and a week ago - on June 19, 1974, the day of the Cruyff turn.

It was a difficult time: Sir Alf Ramsey's World Cup-winning team had broken up and England hadn't made it to the 1974 tournament in West Germany.

What is worse, Scotland had.

Into this emotional void strode coach Rinus Michels's team of strutting demigods headed by Johan Cruyff, the original Footballer With Attitude.

I loved everything about that team: the swagger, the ball skills, the patterns they wove, the rather outré orange shirts (I was too young for Matthews's Blackpool).

But what I loved most of all was the impression they gave that playing beautiful, freewheeling, flowing football was more important than winning.

Much more important.

Johan Cruyff was at the centre of a Dutch team that captured the imagination of everyone at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany ©Getty Images

This attitude was shared, I felt, by the Chelsea of Peter Osgood and Alan Hudson, whom I also had a soft spot for, and contrasted very satisfyingly with that exuded by my pantomime villain of the time, Don Revie, whose Leeds United side, you felt, wanted to win all too badly.

Of course, I now realise that this insouciance was illusory.

Losing two consecutive World Cup finals, in 1974 and 1978, must have been a gut-wrenching experience.

Nonetheless, while Chelsea quickly fell from grace, consecutive Dutch teams at major tournaments managed unfailingly to convey the impression that football artistry was what really counted.

And in 1988 they actually won something when the exhilarating side of Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten and Arnold Műhren walked stylishly away with the European Championship.

There was an aura too about the 1998 vintage, graced by the De Boer brothers and iceman Dennis Bergkamp, which lost on penalties to Brazil in the World Cup semi-final.

Holland, led by Ruud Gullit, celebrate winning the European Championships in 1988 ©AFP/Getty Images

With the turn of the century though, the magic seemed to vanish.

I wonder if the change came after the 2000 European Championship, a tournament which the Dutch co-hosted and that they should have won.

Instead, they went out once again in the semi-final, victims of a miraculous defensive display by Fabio Cannavaro, Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini for 10-man Italy - that and their own inability to master the prosaic art of converting spot-kicks.

That crushing disappointment led, initially, to failure.

They somehow contrived to finish below Ireland in their 2002 World Cup qualifying group.

And while they got to Euro 2004, I remember watching them be outpassed by a terribly mediocre German team in Oporto's Estádio do Dragão.

Since then, it is as if winning, which appeared so joyously incidental to those delectable 20th-century Oranje teams (even if I'm sure it wasn't), has become every bit as much of an obsession for Holland as any other international side in the high-stakes world of big-time football.

Where once style seemed to be everything, now it is plainly subordinate.

Everyone remembers the ruined 2010 World Cup final, but the Dutch exit from the 2006 competition - in the clash with Portugal that produced 16 yellow and four red cards, including two yellows for Dutchmen in the first seven minutes - was just as grim.

Holland knocked Brazil out of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa but their aggressive approach drew lots of criticism ©Getty Images

In South Africa, Bert van Marwijk's men did spring a surprise by eliminating Brazil.

I somehow missed that match, but Richard Williams's report in The Guardian spoke of "an afternoon full of physical confrontation, some of it spiteful".

On the eve of the game, Williams recalled, the two coaches had "been unanimous in their declaration that total football and samba football were archaic concepts with no relevance to the present day". More's the pity.

Such, though, was the depth of my four-decade infatuation that I held out the hope that the spectacle of Brazil 2014 might yet enable us to patch things up.

Surely they must see that the 2010 final represented the logical extreme of the "win-at-all-costs" mindset, I reasoned.

And with artists of the calibre of Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie they remained better-equipped than most to pick up some of the threads of the glorious last quarter of the 20th century under revered coach Louis van Gaal.

Van Persie's breathtaking headed goal against Spain, and the era-ending demolition of the world champions that ensued, raised my hopes higher.

Robin van Persie's sensational header in Holland's 5-1 victory over defending champions Spain at this year's World Cup in Brazil was a reminder of the old times ©Getty Images

But now the tactically-astute but spirit-sapping victory over Chile has made me realise that the flame can, in all probability, never be rekindled.

Van Gaal's team shut down Chile's mesmerising pass-and-move game partly by harrying them relentlessly and partly by fouling them.

I thought they were extremely fortunate to receive only one yellow card.

The 25 fouls they committed brought to 68 their total for the tournament - the most of any team in Brazil and 15 per cent more than Costa Rica, the next worst offender.

Furthermore, while their offensive game is effective, I find it far from exhilarating, though, it is true, there was no Van Persie for the Chile clash.

This is because when you have a forward as brilliant as Robben, it reduces the incentive to be inventive.

One of the saddest sights of Brazil 2014 for me has been how Sneijder has so far laboured for relevance in the Dutch system.

Robben, though, is a highly unusual type of football genius.

Whereas France's Zinedine Zidane, say, or Van Persie, are brilliant in part because of their utter unpredictability, Robben's brilliance resides in how opponents know exactly what he is going to do, yet are frequently powerless to stop it.

This can be fascinating to observe, but is rarely if ever spellbinding after the manner of Cruyff and his team-mates of 40 years ago.

At least not for me, especially when the height of his ambition so often seems to be to win a free-kick within shooting distance.

And so, reluctantly, I am drawing a line under 40 years of football devotion.

You, Holland, may well be one of Europe's best shouts at winning this World Cup. But this time I will not be rooting for you.

Yours regretfully,

A football romantic.