European Football Championship 2012 / Netherlands

This article covers the Dutch national football team at the 2012 European Championship in Poland and Ukraine . The Netherlands participated for the ninth time. Except for 1984 , the Dutch team has been represented at all European Championship finals since 1976. The greatest success is winning the title in 1988 . Except in 1980 when 8 participants were eliminated in the preliminary round and most recently in 2012, at least the quarterfinals were always reached. In 2012, the Dutch team could not win a point in the group stage for the first time and were eliminated as bottom group in the preliminary round.

qualification

The Netherlands completed the qualification for the European Championships in the qualifying group E . Participation was confirmed after the third to last game on September 6, 2011.

Games

All results from a Dutch perspective.

date	Venue	opponent	Result	Goal scorers
09/03/2010	Serravalle ( SMR )	San Marino	5: 0 (2: 0)	1: 0 Kuyt (16./E), 2: 0, 3: 0, 4: 0 Huntelaar (38., 48., 66.), 5: 0 van Nistelrooy (90.)
07.09.2010	Rotterdam	Finland	2: 1 (2: 1)	1: 0, 2: 0 Huntelaar (7th, 16./E), 2: 1 Forssell (18th)
October 8, 2010	Chișinău ( MDA )	Moldova	1: 0 (1: 0)	1-0 Huntelaar (37th)
10/12/2010	Amsterdam	Sweden	4: 1 (2: 0)	1: 0, 3: 0 Huntelaar (4th, 55th), 2: 0, 4: 0 Afellay (37th, 59th), 4: 1 Granqvist (69th)
03/25/2011	Budapest ( HUN )	Hungary	4: 0 (2: 0)	1-0 van der Vaart (8th), 2-0, 4-0 Afellay (45th, 63rd), 3-0 Kuyt (54th)
03/29/2011	Amsterdam	Hungary	5: 3 (1: 0)	1: 0 van Persie (13th), 1: 1 Rudolf (46th), 1: 2, 2: 3 Gera (50th, 75th), 2: 2 Sneijder (61st), 4: 3, 5: 3 Kuyt (78th, 81st)
02.09.2011	Eindhoven	San Marino	11: 0 (3: 0)	1: 0, 6: 0, 7: 0, 9: 0 van Persie (7th, 65th, 67th, 79th), 2: 0, 10: 0 Sneijder (12th, 87th), 3: 0 Heitinga (17th), 4: 0 Kuyt (49th), 5: 0, 8: 0 Huntelaar (56th, 77th), 11: 0 Wijnaldum (90th)
09/06/2011	Helsinki ( FIN )	Finland	2: 0 (1: 0)	1-0 Strootman (29th), 2-0 de Jong (90th + 3rd)
07/10/2011	Rotterdam	Moldova	1: 0 (1: 0)	1-0 Huntelaar (40th)
10/11/2011	Solna ( SWE )	Sweden	2: 3 (1: 1)	0: 1 Källström (14th), 1: 1 Huntelaar (23rd), 2: 1 Kuyt (50th), 2: 2 Larsson (52./E), 2: 3 Toivonen (53rd)

table

Pl.	team	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Pt.
1	Netherlands	10	9	0	1	37: 08	27
2	Sweden	10	8th	0	2	31:11	24
3	Hungary	10	6th	1	3	22:14	19th
4th	Finland	10	3	1	6th	16:16	10
5	Moldova	10	3	0	7th	12:16	09
6th	San Marino	10	0	0	10	00:53	00

The top scorer was Klaas-Jan Huntelaar with 12 goals, with which he scored the most goals of all teams in qualifying. The 11-0 win against San Marino on September 2nd is the Netherlands' biggest win.

preparation

The Netherlands played four test matches immediately before the European Championship: on May 22nd in Munich against FC Bayern Munich (2: 3), on May 26th in Amsterdam against Bulgaria (1: 2), on May 30th in Rotterdam against the Slovakia (2-0) and on June 2nd again in Amsterdam against Northern Ireland (6-0).

Games of the Netherlands

EM preliminary round

At the time of the draw, the Dutch were placed second in the UEFA rankings as head of group B, and Denmark, Germany and Portugal were drawn. In the FIFA World Ranking of 9 May 2012, these teams met in the squares 2 (Germany), 4 (Netherlands), 5 (Portugal) and 10 (Denmark), resulting in space 5.25 on average. No other group in the preliminary round had a comparable quality.

The record against the Danes is positive (12 wins, 10 draws, 7 defeats before the European Championship), but was even at the European Championships (1 win, 1 defeat, 5: 2 goals before the European Championship). The overall balance against Germany is negative with 10 wins and 14 draws and defeats each, but it was positive at the European Championship finals (2 wins, 1 draw, 1 defeat, 8: 6 goals before the European Championship). Before the European Championship, however, the Dutch lost a friendly game against Germany on November 15, 2011 3-0 in Hamburg . The last game against Portugal was the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup , which the Portuguese won 1-0, with two Dutch and two Portuguese sent off with yellow and red cards. Even the only meeting at an EM, the semifinals at EM 2004 , the Portuguese were able to win against the Dutch. The record against the Portuguese is negative with one win, 3 draws and 6 defeats before the European Championship.

Preliminary group B:

All games took place in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv .

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Germany	3	3	0	0	005: 200	+3	09
2.	Portugal	3	2	0	1	005: 400	+1	06th
3.	Denmark	3	1	0	2	004: 500	−1	03
4th	Netherlands	3	0	0	3	002: 500	−3	00

Sat., June 9, 2012, 6:00 p.m.
Netherlands	-	Denmark	0: 1 (0: 1)
Wed., June 13, 2012, 8:45 p.m.
Netherlands	-	Germany	1: 2 (0: 2)
Sun., June 17, 2012, 8:45 p.m.
Portugal	-	Netherlands	2: 1 (1: 1)

Squad

On May 15th, bond coach Bert van Marwijk reduced the preliminary roster from 36 players to 27 players. Four more players had to be deleted by May 29th. On May 19, Vurnon Anita , Siem de Jong , Jeremain Lens and Adam Maher were eliminated from the squad. The most experienced players were Wilfred Bouma , John Heitinga , Arjen Robben , Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart , who also played in 2004 and 2008 . In the Dutch squad, as in the Russian squad, with 13 players each, there were most players with European Championship finals experience. Jetro Willems is the youngest player to ever appear in a European Championship finals. In his first game against Denmark, at 18 years and 71 days, he beat Enzo Scifo's record , who was 44 days older in his first game in the 1984 finals in France. At the time of the tournament, 16 of the 23 Dutch players were under contract abroad. The Premier League provided the majority of the legionnaires with seven players, followed by the Bundesliga and Serie A , each with three players. The Primera División provided only two players from the 16 legionnaires. The Portuguese Primeira Liga only had one player.

The roster at a glance:

Jersey no.	Surname	society	Games	Gates	EM games	Sp.	Gates	red	G / R	yellow
goal
22nd	Tim Krul	Newcastle United	3	0
01	Maarten Stekelenburg	AS Roma	50	0	1 (2008)	3
12	Michel Vorm	Swansea City	9	0
Defense
21st	Khalid Boulahrouz	VfB Stuttgart	35	0	4 (2008)
05	Wilfred Bouma	PSV Eindhoven	37	2	4 (2004), 2 (2008)
03	John Heitinga	Everton FC	80	7th	3 (2004), 3 (2008)	2
04th	Joris Mathijsen	Málaga CF	82	3	3 (2008)	2
13	Ron Vlaar	Feyenoord Rotterdam	9	1		2
02	Gregory van der Wiel	Ajax Amsterdam	35	0		3
15th	Jetro Willems	PSV Eindhoven	5	0		3				2
midfield
20th	Ibrahim Afellay	FC Barcelona	41	5	3 (2008)	3
06th	Mark van Bommel	AC Milan	79	10		2				1
08th	Nigel de Jong	Manchester City	63	1	3 (2008)	3				1
14th	Stijn Schaars	Sporting Lisbon	19th	0
10	Wesley Sneijder	Inter Milan	87	24	2 (2004), 3 (2008)	3
17th	Kevin Strootman	PSV Eindhoven	11	1
23	Rafael van der Vaart	Tottenham Hotspur	99	19th	3 (2004), 3 (2008)	3	1
attack
09	Klaas-Jan Huntelaar	FC Schalke 04	56	31	1 (2008)	3
18th	Luuk de Jong	FC Twente	7th	1
07th	Dirk Kuyt	Liverpool FC	90	24	4 (2008)	2
19th	Luciano Narsingh	SC Heerenveen	2	0
16	Robin van Persie	Arsenal FC	68	29	4 (2008)	3	1			1
11	Arjen Robben	FC Bayern Munich	60	17th	4 (2004), 2 (2008)	3
Trainer
	Bert van Marwijk					3
As of games, goals and club membership: June 17, 2012 after the game against Portugal. [1] , European Championship games = status before the beginning of the European Championship finals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ European Championship qualifying Group E (UEFA.com)
2. ↑ Van Marwijk downsizes squad
3. ↑ uefa.com: Bouma and Willems in the Oranje EURO squad
4. ↑ uefa.com: Willems breaks Scifo's record