…To Meet England in 2nd Semifinals on Wednesday.
Eniola Olatunji writes for Newspot.
The Orange Boys of Netherlands on Saturday night at the Olympic Stadium, Berlin had mother luck smile on them as they edged out Turkey in a pulsating quarterfinal clash 2-1 which was the first of the quarters not to go into extra time.
Two text book headers gave two goals, the opener from Turkey in the 35th minute when Guller crossed the ball and Fenerbahce’s strong Central Defender, Samet Akaydin jumped to head it in from the right side of the Dutch goalkeeper.
The result of patient probing of the Turkish defence paid off with an equalizer in the 70th minute when Depay sent a pass to Inter Milan Centre Back, Stefan de Vrij who also headed home a brilliant one.
From that equalizer the match became tense and rough and in the 76th minute Fenerbahce’s player, Mert Muldur tipped in a ball into his net in an effort to pass to his Goalkeeper to give Netherlands the winner.
Turkey played 5-4-1 blocking the Defence while Netherlands played 4-2-3-1. There was super tension from both sides especially Turkey that Yellow cards flew on the field and on the bench. A Turkey Striker, B. O. Yildirim got the Red in 90+6th minute from the bench.
Twenty three yellow cards, 4 to Netherlands and 19 to Turkey with a red to Turkey were issued. It was 15-7 foul calls against the Dutch; the Turkey guys made 24 – 13 crosses in front of goal.
Netherlands will meet the Three Lions of England in the 2nd Semifinal on Wednesday, 10th July at Dortmund. The 1st Semifinal between Spain and France will take place in Munich on Tuesday. The finals will be played on Sunday 14th July in Berlin.
Turkey was 2nd in group F after Portugal with 6 points each scoring 5 goals and conceding 5 goals. Turkey beat Georgia 3-1; lost 0-3 to Portugal beat Czech 2-1 before dismissing Austria 2-1 in the Round of 16 matches at Leipzig.
Netherland came in as one of the best losers placing 3rd in group D after Austria and France with 4 points scoring 4 goals and conceding 4 goals. Netherlands beat Poland 2-1; drew 0-0 with France and lost 2-3 to Austria. She dismissed Romania 3-0 in the Round of 16 at Munich.
The Orange Boys called Netherlands has been on the Euro podium since 1976 when she beat Yugoslavia 3-1 in the semifinal after extra time; in 1980, she defeated the Soviet Union 2-0 to clinch the title and in 1992 lost the semifinal to Denmark 5-4 after 2-2 at Gothenburg on 22nd June. In 2000 she again lost the semifinal to Italy on penalties 1-3 after a goalless game at Amsterdam and in 2004 she lost the semifinal to Portugal on 30th June at Lisbon.
The best result of Turkey was a 2-3 loss to Germany on 25th June 2008 at Basel before a 39,374 crowd that Ref Massimo Busacca of Switzerland handled.
Netherland won 4 games, had 2 draws and lost twice to Turkey. In 2001friendly match they played a goalless draw; in another 2010 friendly Netherlands won by a lone goal. On the way to the 2013 world cup qualifier at the 1st round group D the Dutch won at home 2-0 and repeated the same goal margin in the 2nd leg.
At the 2015 Euro championship qualifier Group A Netherlands played 1-1 in the 1st leg on 24th March and lost the 2nd leg on 6th September 0-3. Turkey won 4-2 on 24th March 2021 in a World cup qualifier Euro zone, but the Orange boys trounced them 6-1 in the 2nd leg on 7th September. There were two FIFA world league matches in 2020, the first on 31st August which Netherlands won at Istanbul 3-0 and the second on 2nd September that ended 1-1.
This is the 17th edition of the European Championship that has now seen 108 goals scored with 2,492,720 attendances as at today (Attendance for today’s England vs Switzerland was 46,907 while attendance for the Netherlands vs Turkey match was 70,091). There are four joint top scorers in Georges Mikautadze of Georgia; Jamal Musiala of Germany, Cody Gakpo of Netherlands and Ivan Schranz of Slovakia all having three goals each.
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