The Dutch team secured its first European Championship quarterfinal appearance in 16 years with a 3-0 victory over Romania on Tuesday, marking their best performance yet at Euro 2024.
Cody Gakpo opened the scoring in the 20th minute, and substitute Donyell Malen added two late goals, propelling the Netherlands to their first quarterfinal in the tournament since 2008.
“I think the whole performance today was outstanding and that’s what we need to have a chance to continue in this tournament,” coach Ronald Koeman said. “This is the level. If you go down in that level, then we don’t reach the final.”
The Netherlands missed several earlier opportunities to extend the lead, with captain Virgil van Dijk hitting the woodwork. Nonetheless, this performance was a significant improvement over their disappointing group stage, which ended with a 3-2 loss to Austria.
Koeman’s team might face Austria again in Berlin on Saturday if Austria wins against Turkey in the last round of 16 match later on Tuesday.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to explain why you play bad,” Koeman said. “Even today, the start was difficult. They were really aggressive. But finally we found our ball position.
“What we created was good football … Maybe one critical point was that it took too long to score the second one. … It’s difficult to explain why one time you play badly and the next time you are really sharp from the beginning.”
Romania, backed by a vibrant crowd of yellow-clad fans, made only its second appearance in the knockout stage of a European Championship, finishing as group winner. The enthusiastic supporters cheered and applauded their team long after the final whistle, providing a memorable send-off.
“Today we ended a great story, which we started two years ago. We continued that story here in Germany along with the fans of the national team,” Romania coach Edward Iordănescu said. “The team gave a great effort, but there is some sadness.
“We wanted more, but we gave our all. Thank you to my lads, the supporters and Romanians everywhere in the world who supported us.”
Romania controlled possession until Gakpo’s goal but failed to challenge Netherlands goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen. Gakpo scored following a forward surge by Xavi Simons, who passed to the Liverpool forward on the left. Gakpo then cut inside Andrei Rațiu and fired into the bottom corner, marking his third goal of the tournament and placing him among the top scorers alongside Germany’s Jamal Musiala, Georgia’s Georges Mikautadze, and Slovakia’s Ivan Schranz.
“We tried to surprise the Netherlands today and I think it worked well until the 20th minute,” Iordănescu said.
The goal boosted Dutch confidence, leading to several more chances to extend their lead. A significant portion of their orange-clad supporters thought they had scored again six minutes later when Stefan De Vrij’s free header on a corner narrowly missed, hitting the side netting.
Despite good goalkeeping from Florian Niță and inaccurate Dutch finishing, Romania remained in contention until seven minutes from the end.
Van Dijk’s second-half header hit the post, and Gakpo had a goal disallowed for offside. Gakpo later assisted Malen’s first goal by keeping the ball in play and passing it back from the byline for Malen to score.
In stoppage time, the Dutch sealed their dominant performance when Simons released Malen for a run from the halfway line, and Malen slotted past Niță. Malen had to evade not only the Romanian defense but also a shoe on the field, likely thrown by a Romanian fan.
Niță had already kicked away the other shoe from the same pair as Malen approached his goal.
