After three wins in their home town of Amsterdam, the Dutch footballers lost their ease on the 1,100-kilometer flight to the round of 16 to Budapest. The Puskas-Arena in Hungary’s capital shone in orange thanks to thousands of fans who traveled with it, but its highly regarded footballers could not live up to expectations. From the 55th minute onwards due to a handball-related dismissal for defensive boss Matthijs de Ligt in the minority, they could not prevent the two goals by Tomas Holes (68th minute) and Patrik Schick (80th). Oranje lost 0-2 (0-0) and was eliminated from the European Championship. The passionate, clever and highly effective Czechs will face Denmark in the quarter-finals on Saturday in Baku.
“Everything goes through my head. We haven’t done enough. I know that the country’s love for us has grown over the course of the tournament. It’s very painful, very difficult,” said Oranje captain Georginio Wijnaldum on TV NOS: “We couldn’t recover from the red card.” Hoffenheim’s Pavel Kaderabek said: “I have no words. I’m proud of the team, we deserve to make it to the quarter-finals.” And goalscorer Holes said: “The feeling is unreal. To beat the Netherlands 2-0 in front of a full house and your own fans is great. We were uncomfortable, we didn’t leave them any space.”
For the first time since 2008, the Dutch wanted to move into a European Championship quarter-finals, although you have to bear in mind that the quarter-finals were the first knockout round and the Dutch were shocked back then: they had all won their group games before and were already secretly cherishing them Title thoughts. But then it was over, they lost 3-1 to Russia after extra time. Ruud van Nistelrooy, then a striker and now assistant coach, told the current team this scary story. As a reminder. But it was of no use. Oranje repeated the mishap of 2008. Now it’s getting tricky for the bond coach Frank de Boer.
The Czechs deliver everything, the Dutch look contrite
Because he wanted to show counter-strength, the coach opted for sprinter Donyell Malen (22, PSV Eindhoven) instead of the tall Wout Weghorst (28, VfL Wolfsburg). Another Bundesliga legionnaire, on the other hand, received his first European Championship opportunity in the Czech jersey. The full-back Pavel Kaderabek (29, TSG Hoffenheim) had not played a minute before, but was thrown into the deep end by the national coach Jaroslav Silhavy. Schick (25, Bayer Leverkusen) naturally marked the top of the storm.
The Oranje coach’s plans could hardly be implemented on the field. There was no room for his speed in painting. The Czechs delivered everything. The Dutch soon appeared contrite. In addition, there was the latent danger from an increasingly self-confident opponent who dared to step forward more and more often from an initial defensive position. The best chance in the first half did not have Oranje, but Czech Antonin Barak. The Hellas Verona attacker, who came into the team for the injured Vladimir Darida (Hertha BSC), shot over the goal from six meters in the 38th minute.
De Ligt’s dismissal is one setback too many
The four youngest and most talented players on the field all belonged to the Dutch team (Matthijs de Ligt, 21, Donyell Malen, 22, Frenkie de Jong, 24, Denzel Dumfries, 25). But a great future is often not worth that much in the here and now. In the 52nd minute, Malen ran with the ball alone towards Czech goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik, had plenty of time and space, but let the ball stolen from his foot. Three minutes later, de Ligt saw red because he was the last man to deliberately handball.
The cards for Oranje got worse and worse after Tomas Holes (Slavia Prague) headed the 1-0 in the 68th minute. Now Weghorst came for the high desperation balls. But the Dutch Schick missed the final push with his fourth goal in the tournament (80th). Orange turned gray. The Czech Republic shone.