Netherlands began their quest to reach next years European Championships with a comfortable 4-0 win over Belarus in Rotterdam. Memphis Depay was the star with two goals and two assists.
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Ronald Koeman was hoping the good feeling from the UEFA Nations League fixtures in November would carry over into the start of the Euro qualifiers. The coach named a familiar eleven with Steven Bergwijn in for Quincy Promes and Denzel Dumfries instead of Kenny Tete the only changes from the 2-2 draw with Germany.
After only 50 seconds, Netherlands made the perfect start with Memphis Depay latching onto a poor backpass before slotting into the net.
Twenty minutes later, Denzel Dumfries cross found Memphis in the box and he set up Georginio Wijnaldum to make it 2-0 with a wonderful backheel assist.
Netherlands were comfortable and continued to pressure the Belarus defence. A third goal didn’t come, though, until the 55th minute. Memphis went down in the box and he netted the penalty to make it 3-0.
In the 69th minute, Koeman made his third change with Kenny Tete replacing Dumfries. However, shortly afterwards the right-back pulled up with a hamstring issue and Netherlands had to play the remainder of the game with ten-men.
Belarus tried to put Netherlands under pressure and Jasper Cillessen had to make a fingertip save to deny Stasevich. However, Netherlands added a fourth before the end with Memphis crossing for Virgil van Dijk to head in at the back post.
The victory puts Netherlands to the top of the group ahead of Sunday’s clash with Germany in Amsterdam. A good start for Koeman’s men.
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Pretty straightforward performance but good to get off to a winning start after the last 2 campaigns.
– Memphis was very good – still gets overly fancy and selfish sometimes but his quality shines through.
– Van Dijk has improved the ability of the team to defend corners tenfold. Headed everything clear without breaking a sweat.
– Didn’t understand the Tete switch at all. Thought Dumfries was the most dangerous player outside of Memphis in the first half. Koeman surely needs to call up a replacement RB because Promes definitely can’t play in that role.
Can’t read too much into this result though, as Belarus was pretty poor. A much sterner test looms on Sunday.
Congratulations to Ronald Koeman and his men in Orange. Well played.
It seems koeman wants to make something out of tete 2nd time he has replaced dumfries with tete.