Author: Amrit Santlani
Qualifying for next season’s Euro 2024 continued on Sunday when the Netherlands faced Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Adam Idah scored an early penalty to put the Irish side ahead, but Cody Gakpo scored a penalty to level the game before Wout Weghorst won the match with his second-half goal.
The 2-1 win helped the Netherlands stay in second place behind leaders France, with nine points from four games, while Ireland dropped to fourth and their hopes of qualifying for the European Championship were badly damaged.
Just a minute after kick-off, Ireland squandered a golden opportunity to take the lead. A misplaced pass by Mark Flekken meant that Frenkie de Jong was left without the ball, but Chiedozie Ogbene’s shot was blocked before any damage could be done.
Virgil van Dijk handled the ball at the resulting corner and the Irish team conceded a penalty. Idah took the penalty and the hosts got off to the perfect start. However, the Dutch responded quickly when Gakpo released Denzel Dumfries through on goal, the defender was brought down by Gavin Bazunu, who was shown a yellow card, and Ronald Koeman’s side conceded a penalty. Gakpo scored the penalty and the game was level.
Donyell Malen had two goals disallowed by Bazunu before half-time, and Xavi Simons wasted a glorious opportunity after the restart. Koeman worked his magic by putting Weghorst on the pitch, and the slender striker completed the turnaround with a neat finish. De Jong picked out Dumfries expertly, with a fine flick of the head, and the winger set up Weghorst for the goal.
With three assists in the win over Greece, Dumfries added another to his name on Sunday, and Weghorst also scored his second goal in as many games this international break. Neither team managed to trouble the scorers any further and the game ended 2-1.
Other results:
Group B
- Greece 5-0 Gibraltar
Group E
- Albania 2:0 Poland
- Faroe Islands 0-1 Moldova
Group G
- Montenegro 2-1 Bulgaria
- Lithuania 1-3 Serbia
Group H
- Finland 0:1 Denmark
- Kazakhstan 1-0 Northern Isles
- San Marino 0-4 Slovenia