Dutch Advance after Topping Swedes in Penalties
June 27, 2004
The victory put Holland's reoccurring penalty nightmare finally to rest. The Dutch had lost shootouts in the last three European Championships and the 1998 World Cup. The Oranje fans will now see their team advance, but the Swedes didn't make it easy.
The stifling heat in Faro and solid defense on both sides made it not the high-scoring affair that had been predicted and the evenly-matched teams ended 0-0 in extra time. Deadlock after two hours of football on a stamina-sapping night ended in the dreaded but morbidly fascinating spot kicks, with the Dutch prevailing 5-4 with Chelsea-bound Arjen Robben getting the decisive goal.
"That is the greatest moment of my life," said Robben, whose performances here have shown how much Manchester United has missed out on after he opted to go to Chelsea instead. "To score the decisive penalty in such a big tournament is amazing. But I wasn't really afraid indeed I was very confident."
Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic missed Sweden's third penalty attempt but that was cancelled out when Dutch skipper Philip Cocu's hit the left post. Sweden's skipper Olof Mellberg then had his saved by Edwin van der Saar before Robben coolly stepped up to slot the ball to the right of Swedish goalie Andreas Isaksson.
Extra time
Only into extra time did things really beginning to heat up. Two 15 minute halves saw Ruud van Nistelrooy put the ball in the back of the net only for the goal to be disallowed for offside. And Freddie Ljungberg had his head in his hands after he had a superb strike ricochet off Dutch keeper Edwin van der Saar's left post.
"When you come to these goal-scoring chances it's a question of perhaps centimeters," Sweden coach Lars Lagerback said. "I don't know if you call it good luck, or back luck, or a bad day. It doesn't matter for me."
The Netherland's only had a handful of chances in the first half, notably when Robben ducked inside Mikael Nilsson out on the right, but his shot was tipped over the crossbar by Isaksson. Defender Michael Reiziger then unleashed a powerful shot from 20 meters which would have troubled the Swedish keeper if it hadn't gone wide.
Sweden's veteran striker Henrik Larsson had earlier tried to curl a direct freekick around the wall but it lacked legs and bounced off the wall and out of danger. Van Nistelrooy for once was largely out of the picture, but he made a bold start to the second half with a header edging over the bar and then he came up with a cagey back-heel chip that was saved.
The Dutch were lucky to escape when a half-hearted clearance by Jaap Stam was pounced on by Ibrahimovic but Cocu kept his shot out. Seconds later Ibrahimovic was booked for diving after depriving Bouma of the ball.
Sweden: 1-Andreas Isaksson; 7-Mikael Nilsson, 15-Andreas Jakobsson, 3-Olof Mellberg, 14-Alexander Ostlund; 18-Mattias Jonson, 8-Anders Svensson, 6-Tobias Linderoth, 9-Fredrik Ljungberg; 10-Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 11-Henrik Larsson
Netherlands: 1-Edwin van der Sar; 2-Michael Reiziger, 15-Frank de Boer, 3-Jaap Stam, 5-Giovanni van Bronckhorst; 20-Clarence Seedorf, 8-Edgar Davids, 6-Philip Cocu; 7-Andy van der Meyde, 10-Ruud van Nistelrooy, 19-Arjen Robben
Referee: Lubos Michel (Slovakia)