Friday 26 / July / 2024
Budapest, Hungary: Goals from Tomas Holes and Patrik Schick helped the Czech Republic in defeating 10-men Netherlands to sail through quarterfinals of ongoing Euro 2020 on Sunday at the Puskas Arena.
The first half witnessed a rather cagey affair between two teams as it turned goalless at the break between the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. The Dutch started the better of the two teams with Matthijs de Ligt going close with a header from an acute angle while both Tomas Soucek and Antonin Barak have had chances off target for the Czechs.
Just before one hour mark in the game, Netherlands were down to 10-men after Matthijs de Ligt deliberately fouled and denied Schick a goalscoring opportunity resulting in Russian referee Sergei Karasev producing a red card for the Juventus man after a lengthy VAR review.
It was all hands on deck for the Netherlands after they went down to 10 men as they sat deep in their half and soaked a lot of pressure, with the Czech Republic pushing forward at every opportunity.
But Czech's persistence paid soon as they went ahead from a deep corner, which was met at the back post by Tomas Kalas who headed it back across goal as Tomas Holes then powered it into the back of the net from close range despite the efforts of Van Aanholt on the line.
Ten minutes from time Schick proceeded to rub the salt on wounds of The Oranje as he scored his fourth goal of the tournament to double the Czech lead.
