Frank De Boer got the reprieve he was looking for, as his Dutch side beat Ukraine in their opening Euro 2020 match. The Netherlands won the match 3-2 thanks to a late goal by Denzel Dumfries, despite blowing a two-goal lead in four minutes initially.
Frank De Boer’s side attacked with gusto, nearly opening the scoring within the first two minutes. However, Andriy Shevchenko’s team went toe-to-toe with the Oranje, despite the considerable gap in the quality of the personnel, and threatened the Dutch goal on plenty of occasions in the first half. Despite the attacking football at the display, both teams went into the break goalless.
The Netherlands scored the opening goal of the match in the 52nd minute; Ukraine’s Heorhiy Bushchan did well to get down and stop a cross, but ended up diverting it into the path of Georginio Wijnaldum, who smashed it home from the edge of the box. De Boer’s team doubled their lead six minutes later through Wout Weghorst. The towering forward found himself in the right place at the right time to smash the ball in after a deflection had laid it into his path.
Ukraine refused to give up and were rewarded for their persistence when Andriy Yarmolenko scored, perhaps, the goal of the tournament so far. The West Ham United forward played a neat one-two with Roman Yaremchuk outside the box before curling the ball past Maarten Stekelenburg in the Dutch goal.
Minutes later, Yaremchuk himself got on the scoresheet as he flicked a Ruslan Malinovskiy set-piece past the veteran goalie. Alas, Ukraine’s fightback proved to be pointless in the end, as the Netherlands grabbed the winner in the 85th minute. Right wing-back Denzel Dumfries towered above his man to head a Nathan Ake cross past Bushchan, sinking Ukraine.
The Netherlands joined Austria on top of their group after the latter recorded a 3-1 win over debutantes North Macedonia in the early match.
