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GOAL! Holland 0-1 Denmark (Krohn-Deli, 24 min): Denmark like being the underdogs! Against the run of play, they've taken an unlikely lead after all those missed chances for Holland. Who saw this coming?
23 min: Another chance for Holland. Another miss for Holland. Robben slips a pass into the area for Van Persie, who turns Kjaer as if he wasn't there - the defender was far too weak - and then drags a right-footed shot wide of the far post.
21 min: This has been one-way traffic so far. Denmark have their work cut out just getting into the Dutch half, which is a forbidden land for them at the moment. "Spain deserve a bit of the blame, but only that - a little bit," says PK Adithya. "If their opponents actually press the Spanish midfield, there's no question of their passing being so slow! But most teams are afraid of pressing and leaving space in behind. Which leads to Spain cautiously, patiently probing for an opening." Maybe, but they do have quick players on the bench who could give them more of a thrust going forward.
18 min: Oh this would have been absolutely superb. With his back to goal on the right touchline, Robben completely bamboozles his marker with a wonderful first-time backheel to Van Persie. He had Daniel Agger up his back, but he turned, aided slightly by accidentally clumping the Danish defender in the fizzog, before slipping the ball back to the onrushing Robben. He steams clear down the right and into the area, but just seemed to want more time than he necessarily needed. He tried to poke the ball to the left to set up either Sneijder or Affelay for a tap-in but the pass wasn't good enough, allowing Kjaer to get a crucial toe-end on the ball and knock it back to his goalkeeper. Holland should be at least two goals up already.
16 min: Arjen Robben cuts inside from the right, on to his left foot and sends a low shot straight at Andersen from 25 yards out. Never seen that one before, Arjen! Good to see he's got some new tricks up his sleeve for the summer.
15 min: It's very hot in Kharkiv, I write from Kings Cross, so the pace of this game has been much slower than the two offerings from last night. Stamina is going to be key here. "After 40-odd years in Sweden, I can assure Mark Guthrie that unless the Swedish girl he mentions does not have his guts for garters she is not yet his girlfriend," says Fred Lane.
13 min: A chance now, for Holland, to threaten with a free-kick 25 yards from goal after a foul on Van Persie. He dusts himself down to take the free-kick, but slips as he takes it and knocks it straight into the wall. Denmark are hanging on a bit here though. "I think Spain deserve some of the criticism being passed around for the quality of that final," says Zach Neeley. "Holland fouled too much but they didn't necessarily take all the fun out of Spain's style of play, it can be pretty dire all on its own. 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, sideways pass, sideways pass." Oh definitely. Tiki-taka without Lionel Messi doesn't seem to be much fun. In fact, they're verging on self-parody.
11 min: This would have been a gorgeous goal and Holland have started very strongly indeed. On the right flank, Van Persie measures a beautiful, curling cross into the area that completely catches out the straining Simon Kjaer. It's just too heavy for Sneijder though and having ghosted into the area, all he can do is head harmlessly down into no-man's area, instead of going for goal.
10 min: Holland seem determined to switch their wingers at every opportunity. This time it's Affelay - my player to watch incidentally - who pops up on the left, takes on Jacobsen with a couple of stepovers and then fires a shot over the bar having cut inside on to his right foot.
9 min: Up the other end, Vlaar catches Nicklas Bendtner 30 yards from goal. Christian Eriksen, quiet in these opening stages, takes the free-kick but it's straight into the wall and ultimately leads to nothing but a goal-kick for Holland.
7 min: Robin van Persie? He's rubbish. He's no Roman Pavlyuchenko at least, or Georgios Samaras. Robben, who's started on the left, scoots to the byline and pulls the ball back into the area for Van Persie, who slashes a first-time effort wide of the near post from eight yards out. Given his form for Arsenal last season, that goes down as a bad miss.
6 min: There's a strangely muted atmosphere inside the stadium in Ukraine. This is the first game played there. Yesterday's were both in Poland and both featured eastern European sides. Is this what it will be like for all games featuring sides from western Europe?
5 min: Holland are starting to dominate possession. On the left, Robben hoicks a deep cross to the far post where Van Persie does excellently to turn the ball back into the six-yard box, but Affelay's under pressure and can only awkwardly hook a tame shot over the bar.
4 min: "They played the Dutch national anthem much faster than its supposed to be, WTH!" blasts Niek de Groot, who probably has an ear for these things.
3 min: At the age of 18 years and 71 days, Jetro Willems is the youngest ever player to feature in the Euros. He's only played 45 senior games for PSV Eindhoven. So how are the left-back's nerves? There are no nerves, it would appear, not if this is anything to go by. The ball comes to him 30 yards from goal and with barely a moment's pause he belts a fierce drive not too far over the bar.
2 min: An early free-kick on the right flank for Denmark gives them a chjance to test out the Holland defence. Simon Poulsen curls it in left-footed and Agger, from around 15 yards, flicks it towards the bottom-right corner, bringing a plunging but simple save out Stekelenburg.
Peep! The third match of Euro 2012 is underway and it's Holland, attacking from left to right, who get us going. It takes 10 seconds for someone to boot Wesley Sneijder up the backside. How do you like them apples, Holland? "I'd waited in great anticipation for the final in South Africa, had suffered the vuvuzela, waded through time zones and weather only to be left distraught by what the Dutch did that night," says Richard Tunaley. "If you know you're not going to win, why even go that far? I doubt I'll ever support Dutch football again, a very sad state of affairs. No apology. No remorse. Just the horror of what they did that night. Come on Denmark!"
The teams belt out their respective national anthems and then shake hands. All very respectful. That Alan Parsons Project song whistles out over the tannoy, giving us a handy sense of occasion.
Out stroll the teams. Holland are in their Beautiful Oranje and Denmark are in their natty white away strip. "I agree totally with your views about the expansion to 24 teams," says John Gibbs. "The World Cup has become a bloated monster played at half pace. Mind you, playing in the summer (Euros or World Cup) is bad news, especially for red men like Scholes."
More of your emails. It's better than listening to Harry Redknapp.
"Surely this Netherlands-Denmark match is the case of the resistable force (Danish strike force 'led' by Bendtner) against movable object (Dutch defence 'led' by Heitings)?" says Lou Roper. "How about 3-4 with Stekelenburg (however has he got the #1 shirt?) sent off?"
"It's heartening to see that, with Andrew James and Henry Rudd-Clarke's emails, I'm not the only one quietly tipping Denmark to do something in this group," says Mark Guthrie. "I say quietly as, if my Swedish girlfriend heard me, she'd have my guts for garters."
"Our 'Arry looks seriously narked off to be in the studio rather than where he obviously believes he belongs," says Phil Sawyer. "He also seems to have been taking posture lessons from young Jamie. That's now two generations of Redknapp crotches burned into my memory. Does anyone have any mind soap I can borrow? I suddenly feel in need of a good scrubbing."
Anyway you'd better enjoy this Group of Death. Not content with writing very angry letters about racism telling the perpetrators how angry they are, Uefa have decided in their infinite wisdom to increase the number of teams at the Euros from 16 to 24. Does scoring a hat-trick at a Euros give Michel Platini license to vandalise the tournament in this manner. This weekend we're treated by Holland v Denmark, Germany v Portugal and Spain v Italy. You won't be getting any of that in 2016. Why is it that those in charge of football are so insistent upon making a mess of absolutely everything?
Team news: Holland are as expected, with Robin van Persie preferred on his own ahead of Huntelaar up front. He'll be supported by Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder and the intriguing Ibrahim Afellay. Denmark line up in a similar formation but comedy fans will be disappointed to see that Christian Poulsen is only on the bench.
Holland: Stekelenburg; Van der Wiel, Heitinga, Vlaar, Willems; Van Bommel, Nigel De Jong; Robben, Sneijder, Afellay; Van Persie. Subs: Vorm, Mathijsen, Bouma, Kuyt, Huntelaar, Schaars, Strootman, Luuk De Jong, Narsingh, Boulahrouz, Van der Vaart, Krul.
Denmark: Andersen, Jacobsen, Kjaer, Agger, Simon Poulsen; Kvist, Zimling; Rommedahl, Eriksen, Krohn-Delhi; Bendtner. Subs: Lindegaard, Christian Poulsen, Bjelland, Okore, Schone, Silberbauer, Pedersen, Wass, Jakob Poulsen, Kahlenberg, Mikkelsen, Schmeichel.
Referee: Damir Skomina (Slovenia)
Pre-match emails.
"Watched Poland v Greece in London, jumped on a flight and have just arrived back in Australia for this one," yawns Andrew James. "Given the 21 hours of flying, everything has taken on a vague sense of unreality and suddenly I'm thinking the Danes could possibly nick this one. Maybe Glendenning was right with his call for Bendtner as Golden Boot? I need coffee."
"Why are Denmark consistently described as the weakest in this group?" says Henry Rudd-Clarke. "They are ranked higher in the world than Portugal and won the qualifying group with Portugal in, beating them once & drawing on the other occasion. So surely they are not the weakest team in the group, Portugal are..." I suppose it's because they don't have the international pedigree that Portugal have, while the Portuguse have the second-best player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Denmark have the best player in the world in his own mind, Nicklas Bendtner. But I agree, it's wrong to write them off and I definitely think they can beat Portugal. If they can draw today, you never know
"If yesterday's opening day is anything to go by Euro 2012 is shaping up to be the best tournament of the millennium," says Simon McMahon. "Todays matches should both be crackers. As you suggest in your preamble the Dutch are certainly one of the enigmas of international football. Some might even say underachievers. I mean, 3 World Cup Finals and a European Championship apart, what have they ever done?"
With all that misfortune the Dutch have suffered down the years, perhaps it's not too surprising that they have won the same number of international tournaments as Denmark. It's the memory of coming off the beach to improbably win Euro 92 that sustains the Danes and they're going to need a similarly unlikely set of circumstances to get out of this group. Even so you can't sniff at their 100% strike-rate in major finals: one victory in one appearance. Ruthless.
This is the fourth Euros in a row in which Holland have been in the Group of Death. In 2008, they were alongside world champions Italy, World Cup finalists, Domenechian shambles France and Romania. They won each game, beating Italy 3-0, France 4-1 and Romania 2-0, before going out in the last eight to an Andrey Arshavin-inspired Russia.
In 2004, they were drawn with the Czech Republic, Germany and, er, Latvia. Again they made it through, although they failed to win their first two games, sneaking a late draw with the Germans before losing perhaps the greatest international match of recent times against the Czechs. They reached the semi-finals but were meek losers to the hosts Portugal.
And in 2000, this time as co-hosts, it was world champions France, the Czechs again and, hey, Denmark! They sneaked past the Czechs rather fortunately thanks to a late and dubious penalty from Frank de Boer (more on him in a bit), beat Denmark 3-0 and then snatched top spot from France with a 3-2 victory in their final game. They then went on to schmice Yugolsavia 6-1 in the quarter-final, before meeting Italy in the last four.
Two years earlier, Frank de Boer had chided his brother Ronald for missing a penalty in the shoot-out in their World Cup semi-final against Brazil two years earlier, brotherly love on a par with Cain and Abel there. Two years later, Holland were hot favourites to beat Italy in Amsterdam, and everything seemed to be going the way of Frank Rijkaard's side when they Gianluca Zambrotta was sent off after 34 minutes. Moments later, they were awarded a penalty and Frank stepped up, ready to show his brother how it was done ... and Francesco Toldo saved. Unbelievably Patrick Kluivert then struck the post with a second penalty in the second half and 10-man Italy held out for a shoot-out. Up stepped Frank De Boer first in the shoot-out, confident he could atone for his earlier miss - and again Toldo out-psyched him, before Jaap Stam's space-bound missile and Paul Bosvelt's miss sent Holland crashing out and Italy into the final. Oh Frank. Poor hubristic Frank. Still, gotta appreciate that irony!
Holland have some making up to do. The last time we saw them in an international tournament, they spent the entire 120 minutes of the World Cup final against Spain not so much tap-dancing but stamping on the grave of Total Football, Nigel de Jong kung-fu kicking Xabi Alonso in the chest, Mark van Bommel kicking anything that moved, Robin van Persie scything into random Spaniards, John Heitinga getting sent off and Joris Mathijsen screaming into the face of poor, confused Howard Webb, later seen huddled in a corner of the stadium, rocking back and forth and quietly weeping. Johan Cruyff called it anti-football. "This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style," he said. "If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they lost." Indeed. It was a sorry way for arguably the coolest, if not the most successful, side in international football to besmirch their good name and they could do with winning back neutral backing this summer.
They certainly have the players to achieve that aim: Wesley Sneijder, Robin van Persie and bottlejobbery's Arjen Robben, assuming the brilliant but brittle winger is over his hilarious performance for Bayern Munich in the Champions League final. Schalke's Klass-Jan Huntelaar may not even get into the side, despite scoring 38 goals for his club this season. Rafael van der Vaart will also be on the bench, along with the hard-working Dirk Kuyt. Purely based on their attacking prowess – on the assumption that they all play nice and get along – the Dutch are obviously serious contenders to win this tournament. But delve deeper, look further back and problems start to surface. In midfield, the Hatchet Twins are still together and their defence doesn't appear to be the most solid, especially now they have a couple of injury concerns.
So this could be an awkward test against a Denmark side regarded as the weakest in a group also containing Germany and Portugal. There's no room for any slip-ups whatsoever. All the pressure is on the Dutch and with that in mind, maybe the Danes can come out swinging, safe in the knowledge that they don't really have anything to lose and anything they do win will be a happy bonus. But underestimate them at your peril. They finished top of their qualifying group, ahead of Portugal, and in Christian Eriksen they possess a gifted youngster who could prove to be one of the break-out stars of the tournament. Taking into account Holland's attacking options, perhaps a draw is the best the Danes can hope for, but then football has rarely made much sense in 2012.
Kick-off: 5pm
Venue: Metalist Stadium, Kharkiv. Read More
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