Opdam could be forgiven for wanting to make sure Van Basten knew who he was. He was hardly a household name in Holland when he was called up for the first time in September 2005 and previous coaches had not given the AZ Alkmaar defender, five months short of his thirtieth birthday, much thought.

It was reminiscent of Sven-Goran Eriksson picking Charlton's left-back Chris Powell for one of his first squads. The difference is that the Swede stopped experimenting after a few months in charge. Van Basten, on the other hand, has kept the Chris Powells coming.

AZ's Joris Mathijsen and Hamburg's Khalid Boulahrouz are going to Germany, while Dave van der Bergh of Utrecht, Feyenoord's Romeo Castelen and NEC Nijmegen's Romano Denneboom, have all featured in the 41-year-old's squads.

Van Basten has dropped Patrick Kluivert, Clarence Seedorf, Roy Makaay and Edgar Davids from his World Cup squad, while players such as the internationally inexperienced AZ defender Kew Jaliens, with one cap to his name, will travel to Germany. The reason is simple: Van Basten is desperate to avoid the constant bickering and arguing that have plagued so many squads in the past.

Dutch players, it seems, are incapable of getting on. At Euro 96, Davids stormed out of the training camp after telling Guus Hiddink to 'get his head out of the white players' arses' while two years earlier Ruud Gullit left the team before the World Cup had even started after arguments with the coach Dick Advocaat over tactics.

Van Basten, meanwhile, has admitted that the players did not get on at the 1990 World Cup in Italy, when the reigning European champions scraped through their group then went out to Germany in the second round. Van Basten was no angel himself and Arrigo Sacchi, his former coach at AC Milan, once described him as the best player he had ever coached - but also one of the most difficult.

In Germany this month, Van Basten has to make sure that there are no problems. "For me it is very important that every player plays for the team first and not for himself," said Van Basten. "That is the only way a country like Holland can go far in a World Cup. We are simply not as good as Brazil and Argentina. We have to rely on our collectiveness."

Van Basten, however, admits that the Dutch are probably more argumentative than other nations. "If someone in Germany is told to do something, he will say, 'OK' and do it. 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."

Van Basten's 22 months in charge have been refreshingly free of squabbling and Holland should not be underestimated. Out of the 32 teams at the World Cup, they had the best points-per-game average in qualifying, despite facing tough opponents in the Czech Republic, Romania, Finland and Macedonia.

They have also won their three warm-up games and on Thursday a reserve side beat Mexico 2-1. In Germany, they will also feel like they are playing at home, with tens of thousands of fans expected to pour over the border to watch the games.

Ruud van Nistelrooy will lead the line in Germany with Dirk Kuyt to the right and Arjen Robben to the left, although Robin van Persie has impressed of late and could still claim a starting berth against Serbia & Montenegro in seven days' time. Perhaps by impressing against Australia today.

The only injury worry is Hamburg's Rafael van der Vaart, who has had an outstanding season in the Bundesliga. He is struggling with an ankle problem and will be sorely missed if he does not recover as the other midfielders do not have his creative intelligence.

Phillip Cocu and Mark van Bommel are good at shielding their back four from trouble but are unlikely to unlock any defences in Germany. Van Basten's second main aim - after making sure that the players get on - has been to instil a tough, Italian-inspired defensive mentality. He learnt an enormous amount from his coaches at Milan, Sacchi and Fabio Capello, and the team did not concede a single goal in their last nine qualifying games.

Yet at the same time he is desperate to entertain. "I want my team to play good football," he says, "because I am there on the bench watching the game and it is not much fun seeing two teams defend all the time.

"There is always a lot of talk about what is most important in Holland: to play good football or to win games. I see it like this: if my team plays the best football and win the games then there will be no discussion afterwards."