Clear victory for the Netherlands over Romania; Euro 2024 quarter-finals earned and Oranje, for the first time, convincing.
It is likely that many, in the round of 16 of this European Championship, identified this match as one of the most fascinating or at least the most hard-fought of those that would have started the knockout phase of Euro 2024. And so it promised to be, this Romania-Netherlands: if the Netherlands, who qualified a little under the radar in our imagination, risked stumbling on the enthusiasm of a surprising Romania, the clash in Munich disappointed these expectations, and showed us what the real balance of power between these two teams is. The Netherlands are going to the quarter-finals of Euro 2024who clearly triumphed after a match of serene superiority in which, although the score remained in the balance until the final minutes, the impression is that it could never have gone differently than it did.
The first 15 minutes of the first half promise a match that we will never actually seewith an aggressive Romania determined to press the Netherlands very high, taking their breath away from the first possession. The illusion is that the plan can work, leaving a foretaste of suffocating full-court duels throughout the match but, as often happens, the initial enthusiasm ends up slowly waning, giving way to a settling-in phase. As soon as Romania shows signs of fraying, Schouten’s vertical play tears through their defenses, giving way to the action that, going from Xavi Simonsleads to the goal of Cody Steel. And that dilutes the Romanians’ impetus, starting another match.
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The game we actually see is in fact decidedly different, with the Orange who forcefully take control of the operations, cornering a Romania that is struggling to limit the damage. It is on the wings that Koeman tries to break down Iordanescu’s defense, and in fact they are precisely the external chains to create the most favorable situations: on the one hand Dumfries it’s a piston, especially in the first half with the support of Mountain wineon the other hand it is precisely the tandem formed by Simons and Gakpo (highly inspired) to score the 1-0 goal, while Grinding from the bench adds two lines to the scoreboard. It ends up being a monologue in orange tones with the Netherlands, masters of the game, not spreading further only because of the lack of a more cynical centre forward and a somewhat baroque streak by Xavi Simons in the final meters.
The European of the Romania It ends with a match that, almost symbolically, in its development seems to be the mirror of the entire tournament of Iordanescu’s team. Really credible only at the debutthe surprising 3-0 victory against Ukraine had teased us with the idea that the Romanians could be a real wild card in the tournament, but their hopes remained stuck on that 17th June. The defeat against Belgium has normalized the level of this teamwhich never confirmed the danger glimpsed in the first match. Overall, Romania’s remains a positive tournament (it had not reached the knockout stages since Euro 2000), but with a hint of disappointment for what it had implied, and which instead did not happen.
On the contrary, never as convincing as in this match the NetherlandsThat They show their claws just when the moment becomes most important. The team of Koeman had been effectively “postponed”, after a group stage passed only thanks to a regulation that also saves the best third-placed teams, but it was expected to make a leap in maturity now that there is no more room for mistakes. If injuries had forced Koeman to solve a puzzle to redesign his team, orphaned of some fundamental pawnsThe Orange they seem to have now run in this 3-4-3 a bit hybrid as the most suitable outfit to play their cards in the tournament. The side of the draw is the weakest: if the Netherlands are this team, Maybe it’s time to really take them seriously.
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2024-07-02 18:35:12
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