Sal­vador–Robin van Per­sie and Ar­jen Robben in­spired Hol­land to a stun­ning 5-1 win over de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Spain in a thrilling en­counter that will go down in World Cup his­to­ry.The Dutch avenged their de­feat by the same op­po­nents in the 2010 fi­nal in out­ra­geous style, with four unan­swered goals in an ir­re­sistible sec­ond half dis­play in Sal­vador.Van Per­sie and Robben scored two apiece, with each man's first a mi­nor clas­sic in its own right. De­fend­er Ste­fan de Vrij net­ted Hol­land's third.Vin­cent Del Bosque's side, who al­so lost their open­er against Switzer­land four years ago, had ac­tu­al­ly tak­en the lead through Xabi Alon­so's dis­put­ed penal­ty, a lead they held un­til Van Per­sie's in­stinc­tive fly­ing head­er lev­elled mat­ters just be­fore the break.Af­ter that, Hol­land were ram­pant, lay­ing a big mark­er down for the re­main­der of the tour­na­ment and rais­ing the prospect of a Brazil-Spain sec­ond-round clash.Hol­land should have tak­en the lead af­ter just eight min­utes, but Wes­ley Snei­jder botched a won­der­ful open­ing.

Robben pro­duced the pass that sent Snei­jder bear­ing in on goal but he snatched at his loft­ed shot and al­lowed Ik­er Casil­las to thrust his right glove up and make the save.Spain ral­lied quick­ly from that scare and soon be­gan to stamp them­selves on the game.By 20 min­utes the Dutch were be­ing dic­tat­ed to by Xavi, Ini­es­ta, David Sil­va and Xabi Alon­so, with Ron Vlaar pro­duc­ing at least two des­per­ate blocks.The con­tro­ver­sial penal­ty fol­lowed in the 26th minute, start­ing with Xavi's beau­ti­ful­ly weight­ed pass for Cos­ta.He surged in­to the area and took two touch­es be­fore turn­ing De Vrij, who ap­peared in re­al time to trip him.By the time Xabi Alon­so had buried the spot-kick, re­plays showed Cos­ta ap­par­ent­ly ini­ti­at­ing con­tact.Hol­land re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly but need­ed Jasper Cil­lessen to paw clear Sil­va's in­stinc­tive lob af­ter a glo­ri­ous pass from Ini­es­ta in the 43rd minute.

That paved the way for Van Per­sie's lev­eller, the Man­ches­ter Unit­ed man read­ing the space per­fect­ly as he leapt to head Da­ley Blind's hang­ing cross high over the help­less Casil­las.The re­ac­tion was de­light, not least from the high-fiv­ing Louis van Gaal on the touch­line.The cel­e­bra­tions were even bet­ter eight min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, when a piece of Robben mag­ic gave them the lead.Van Per­sie's chip picked out his team-mate, but he had plen­ty still to do as he con­trolled the ball bril­liant­ly with the out­side of his boot be­fore turn­ing Ger­ard Pique and Ser­gio Ramos, con­vert­ing with a slight de­flec­tion off the lat­ter.Things might have un­rav­elled com­plete­ly for the hold­ers had the ref­er­ee spot­ted Cos­ta's ap­par­ent head­butt on Bruno Mar­tins In­di, but the in­ci­dent went un­seen.There was no hold­ing Hol­land back, though, Van Per­sie crack­ing a vol­ley against the cross­bar on the hour be­fore De Vrij made it 3-1 from Snei­jder's curl­ing free-kick.

Casil­las came to claim but failed, with De Vrij on hand to bun­dle home at the far post.The pace on­ly in­creased from there, Sil­va's close-range fin­ish chalked off for off­side be­fore Hol­land ex­tend­ed their lead to three in the 72nd minute.Casil­las was whol­ly cul­pa­ble this time, turn­ing a harm­less back pass in­to one dread­ful touch and an open goal for the alert Van Per­sie.

Robben com­plet­ed Spain's mis­ery with 10 min­utes left, col­lect­ing Snei­jder's pass and then re­duc­ing Casil­las and his de­fend­ers to a floun­der­ing mess as he made room for an em­phat­ic fin­ish.

Hol­land might have scored two more had they been more clin­i­cal, and Spain's Fer­nan­do Tor­res made a woe­ful blun­der from close range, but their state­ment was al­ready well made. (AP)

World Cup Glance

Yes­ter­day's Re­sults

Group A

Mex­i­co 1 (Oribe Penal­ta, 61) vs Cameroon 0

Group B

Hol­land 5 (Robin Van Per­sie 44, 72; Ar­jen Robben 53, 80, Ste­fan de Vrij 64) vs Spain 1 (Xabi Alon­so 27th pen)

Chile 3 (Alex­is Sanchez 12, Jorge Val­divia 14, Jean Beause­jour 90) vs Aus­tralia 1 (Tim Cahill 35)

To­day's Fix­tures

Group C

Colom­bia vs Greece, Be­lo Hor­i­zonte, noon

Ivory Coast vs Japan, Re­cife, 6 p.m.

Group D

Uruguay vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, Forteleza, 3 p.m.

Eng­land vs Italy, Man­uas, 6 p.m.

To­mor­row's Match­es

Group E

Switzer­land vs Ecuador, Brasil­ia, noon

France vs Hon­duras, Por­to Ale­gre, 3 p.m.

Group F

Ar­genti­na vs Bosnia, Rio de Janeiro, 6 p.m.

To­day's Main Game

Eng­land face odds-de­fy­ing task

Italy head in­to to­day clash as slight favourites as they look to jus­ti­fy their sta­tus at the head of the bet­ting to win Group D.In the clos­est to call of the eight groups, Eng­land are con­sid­ered third in the bet­ting, with Ce­sare Pran­del­li's men lead­ing the mar­ket.Mario Balotel­li is con­sid­ered the biggest threat to Roy Hodg­son's back­line to break the dead­lock fol­lowed by Ciro Im­mo­bile, who net­ted a hat-trick in their fi­nal warm-up game against Flu­mi­nense.

Wayne Rooney heads the bet­ting on Eng­land's side with strike part­ner Daniel Stur­ridge.Plen­ty will be ex­pect­ing a tight af­fair for such a cru­cial open­ing af­fair, with the draw odds slight­ly short­er than usu­al and over 2.5 goals odds-against.Eng­land have on­ly won two of their last 11 in­ter­na­tion­als against Italy (D3 L6), los­ing to them on penal­ties in the quar­ter-fi­nals of Eu­ro 2012.

The one pre­vi­ous World Cup meet­ing be­tween these two for­mer win­ners came in the third place play-off in 1990; Italy won 2-1.Italy have scored in each of their last 14 games at the World Cup, the longest cur­rent run. The last time they failed to score was on 3 Ju­ly 1998 against France. (AP)