The Netherlands suffered a shock 0-2 defeat at the hands of the Czech Republic in their UEFA Euro 2020, round of 16 match in Budapest, Hungary on Sunday.
Playing the last 30 minutes with ten men after the sending off of defender Matthijs de Ligt for a handball after losing a duel with Patrik Schick, the Dutch conceded two goals in the 68th and 80th minutes.
The Netherlands, ranked 24 places above the Czechs, started the knock-out match at the Puskas Arena strongly, creating chances early on. But the scores remain 0-0 in the first half, despite both the teams having their shares of chances.
But a fraught moment in the 55th minute gave Czech the advantage with Russian referee Sergei Karasev consulting VAR to rescind his initial yellow card for de Ligt and convert it to a red for deliberately handling the ball while taking a fall. The Juventus defender was holding the last line of defence against a marauding Schick, who would later score the second goal.
The first goal also came from an error, this time with goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg failing to hold onto a relatively simple cross, thus conceding a corner. From the following play, Tomas Holes headed home the opener after Tomas Kalas relayed it across the goalmouth.
Match facts and key stats
Netherlands are the first side to win 100% of their group stage games (3/3) before losing in 90 minutes in the first knockout round at a European Championships tournament.
Czech Republic have won five of their last seven games against the Netherlands, including both of their meetings in this run that came at the European Championships (3-2 at Euro 2004 and 2-0).
Netherlands suffered their first defeat at a major tournament since their final group stage game of Euro 2012 (1-2 vs Portugal), ending a run of 10 games between the World Cup and European Championships without losing.
Czech Republic won their first game in the knockout stages of a major competition since Euro 2004, when they won 3-0 against Denmark in the quarter-final.
Tomas Holes became the first Czech player to both score and assist in a single match at the European Championships since both Jan Koller and Milan Baros also did so against the Netherlands at Euro 2004.
Patrik Schick scored his fourth goal in four games at Euro 2020, with only Milan Baros (5) now having scored more major tournament goals than Schick for the Czech Republic.
Matthijs de Ligt was the first player to be sent off at the European Championships for the Netherlands since John Heitinga in 2004 (also versus Czech Republic), while de Ligt (21y 319d) is now the fourth-youngest player to receive a red card in the tournament.
Netherlands have now been shown more red cards than any other team in European Championships history (4) – two of those came against Czechoslovakia (both in 1976), while the other two came against the Czech Republic, at Euro 2004 and 2020.
