EURO 2020 had its first upset last night, as the Czech Republic defeated the Netherlands 2-0 in Budapest to progress to the quarter-finals. The Netherlands were the clear favourites for this match, having won all three of their group matches in Group E, while the Czech Republic had come away with a win, a draw and a loss in Group D. Dutch manager Frank de Boer made just one change to the side that beat North Macedonia, with Marten de Roon coming back in midfield, although many observers expected Wout Weghorst to start alongside Memphis Depay, rather than Donyell Malen. For the Czechs, Jaroslav Šilhavý made four changes due to injury and suspension to various players, with this prompting a change of shape to a 4-1-4-1 rather than the 4-2-3-1 they had used so far. The Czech Republic have had a strong record against the Netherlands, having won five of their previous 11 competitive meetings, of which two were at previous European Championships, and they were able to keep the Dutch at bay for large parts of the match. The first half was largely uneventful, save for a few half-chances for the Netherlands, and the game turned on its head in the second half in the space of a couple of minutes. First, Malen wriggled away from two Czech defenders and was one-on-one with the Tomas Vaclik, the goalkeeper, but dithered and tried to take the ball around him rather than hitting a shot, and Vaclik read his intentions to smother the ball and fluff out a huge chance for the Netherlands. Moments later, the ball was at the other end of the pitch, and Patrick Schick, battling with Matthijs de Ligt, forced the Dutch defender to fall, with the 21-year-old batting the ball away with his hand in the process. The referee initially blew for a foul and awarded a yellow card, but was advised to go look at the incident again by VAR, and when he returned, the yellow changed to a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity. The Netherlands were therefore down to ten men, and the Czechs made them pay – first, Tomas Kalas nodded across the goal from an Antonin Barak corner for Tomas Holes to tap into the net, and then as the Dutch poured forward chasing an equaliser, Holes latched onto a poor clearance, surged past two Dutch players and found Schick in the box with a neat pass, and Schick obliged with a sharp finish at the near post to send the fans wild. The Czech Republic therefore advance to the quarter-finals at EURO 2020, where they will face Denmark. Check out our EURO 2020 analytics report of this match for the key statistics, data and visualisations.
