FIFA 2010 World Cup: Road to the Semi Finals – Netherlands
Netherlands are making only their 9th appearance in this year’s nineteenth edition of the World Cup finals. Their golden era was in 1970s when they had the luxury of naming Johan Cryuff in their team sheet. Netherlands has never won the World Cup but were just a victory away in West Germany 1974 and Argentina 1978 when they faced host nations on both occasions and ended up losing to the home advantage. After missing the subsequent two tournaments, the Dutch revived themselves on the international stage after winning the 1988 European championships.
Since then they have played in four World Cups, two of these campaigns ended in the Round of 16, one in the quarter-finals while they finished fourth in France 1998. The current World Cup was clearly their best chance in long time with players of class talent who are yet to hit peaks in their careers. Netherlands were the seeded team in Group E of the 2010 World Cup where they were accompanied by Denmark, Japan and Cameroon.
Netherlands 2 Denmark 0
Netherlands faced Denmark in their opening match and were in control from the very start. After the Danes had put off all the chances created by the Dutch in the first half, Simon Poulsen headed a cross on the back of his teammate Daniel Agger and the ball ended in back of the net within the first minute of the second period. A fine all-round performance from the Netherlands was rounded off with a tap in goal from Dirk Kuyt after the ball had come off the goal post from Eljero Elia's shot.
Netherlands 1 Japan 0
Although Netherlands completed two wins out of two to confirm their place in the Round of 16, they were made to work very hard by the Japanese side. Japan showed no fear against the attacking football of the Dutch side and continued threatening the goal. Netherlands needed a sublime shot from Wesley Sneijder to open the scoring and then fought hard to stick to it.
Cameroon 1 Netherlands 2
Robin van Persie got his first goal of the tournament in the first half to put the Dutch ahead. Netherlands had finished their previous two matches with clean sheets but a straight third was denied when Cameroon got a penalty kick after an unfortunate handball from Rafael van der Vaart. Samuel Eto’o scored from this penalty spot but it only proved to be a consolation as Klaas-Jan Huntelaar ended a magnificent move involving Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben.
Arjen Robben had missed the opening two matches and with his return to full fitness the Dutch squad was well poised to get better in the knockout stage. They had conceded only one goal in the group stage and won all their matches to confirm their top spot in the group.
Round of 16 – Netherlands 2 Slovakia 1
Arjen Robben marked his first start of the tournament with a well worked goal in only the 18th minute of the match. The Dutch did all that was required to keep Slovakia’s counter attacking fruitless and were in complete control of the match with less pressure on their defensive line. Wesley Sneijder once again proved to be the key player for the Dutch and was involved in almost every attacking build up of his side. He capped his wonderful performance with a simple tap in the open goal after he was laid off by Dirk Kuyt to put the result beyond doubt. Slovakia could only get a consolation prize through Robert Vittek’s injury time penalty.
Quarter-final – Netherlands 2 Brazil 1
Many would have thought that this could be the end of the Dutch campaign in this World Cup as they took on the five-time world champions and the fears were made worse when in only the 10th minute of the match when Robinho gave the Brazilians the lead from Felipe Melo’s pin-point through ball. In truth, the Brazilan goalkeeper Julio Cesar paved the return for the Netherlands as he gifted them the equaliser from a distant free kick from Wesley Sneijder. Brazilians were in control of the match prior to this equaliser but could do little as Sneijder’s grabbed the winner more than 20 minutes from time. Brazil’s return was made impossible when Melo got a straight red for a stamp on Arjen Robben and the Netherlands were through to face Uruguay in the semi-finals.
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