Holland have never beaten Mexico: https://www.flashscore.com/match/MmlJJthm/#h2h;overall Its time for some payback
I think so. In fairness he probably wasn’t going to make it anyway. Hasn’t played for any youth teams besides a few games a number of years ago for u-15. And in the era of De Ligt, Van Dijk, Ake, De Vrij and the numerous other young talents like Sepp, Schuurs, Sandler, Van Drongelen, etc... I don’t think there’s much chance for a 182 cm centerback who isn’t ridiculously talented.
Hansen has really kind of announced himself in this tournament. I think he's been a bit on the periphery because he was used out wide more to accommodate Brobbey before but for my money he's a better striker than Brobbey is; more talented, smarter, and more involved. I think he is going to be a big time player for the Netherlands in the future. Reminds me a little of Bergwijn as a striker.
Great those two, France and Spain, had to kill each other off. Now Mexico or the Netherlands has a chance to get into the final. That was the game plan of the Orange youngsters. Suck in the group and make it barely through to get the most promising track to the Final. Now Mexico has to cooperate in that scheme
I was first somewhat shocked by the scoreline of Spain and France. When I watched the highlights, France's 2nd to 4th goals were just obvious errors of Spain's defence, which was quite unbelievable. Anyway, it will be interesting for the showdown between the hosts and France and believe the final will be between the two of the several best teams of this tournament.
I missed the match. Of the matches I have seen the quality of defending has been quite poor. Teams also tend to give the ball up through mistakes deep in their own half. This is likely a result of youth and inexperience.
I think it will be France vs. Netherlands which is what the u17 Euro final should have been as well. Will make for a great match I think.
Well, don't want to jinx anything, but Holland is a big favorite ahead of upcoming semifinal. Mexico has good team in this age category, as they usually do, but their technical potential and abilities are nowhere near of those that Holland posses, they could have lost to South Korea. But it can become at some point tricky game, because they have very good goalkeeper, while Holland is error-prone in defense, especially without Ki-Jana Hoever, so I can imagine a bad outcome of a match where Netherlands will dictate a tempo, but with neutral/bad score after some mistake in defense. But, let's be honest, against Paraguay, they could have scored 6-7 goals easily, with Taabouni back, and if Unuvar is able to repeat his performance, then they're clearly team to beat in this game. I think it's also important to point out that Holland plays with three under-agers in their regular lineup (Regeer, Rensch and Unuvar) - France has none in their full squad, Brazil - one, Mexico - two, with one in starting lineup. I wonder if we'll see them in second phase of qualies next year in U17 team, and hopefully in main tournament. With Hoogewerf, Simmons, Owusu from Feyenoord, AZ Youth, it can be another decent U17 team. ps No one has mentioned that yet, but Regeer, who scored a hattrick in UYL this season and so far has played Van de Beek-esque type of football in Ajax U19, plays recently as a CB this tournament, that's impressive, but I'm afraid to see Rensch-Regeer duo against French team in potential final.
Pathethic performance by Braaf (he should have scored a hattrick), lack of luck and I think Raatsie mistake (the shot from free kick was far from a post, he should react much better) make a penalty competition from a game Holland easily should have won. No suprise here, lack of talented keepers will be a problem for Dutch football in years to come.
Raatsie keeps the Netherlands alive after 2 (unsurprisingly) terrible penalties from Braaf and Taabouni. How the latter was made captain or even plays for this team I have no idea. He and Braaf would be the two I'd bet to miss penalties out of this group.
And they lost, Taabouni, Braaf and Regeer with awful penalty strikes. The idea of putting Braaf into penalty line after his awful performance was bold, such a disappointment. Yeah, absence of Hoever and Taylor wasn't helpful, but still awful finishing from this team, they are clearly better as a team, but not in todays circumstances.
This team hasn't played well all tourney other than one game against the USA and still should have been in the final. The Mexico team should get beat fairly easily by Brazil or France in my opinion. This team never really came together all tourney. Tbey won on a few solo efforts and struggled to connect three passes in a tow in tight spaces. I absolutely hate how this team is managed. So many over the top balls and so many of them so poor. Right when I saw Taabouni step up I said no chance he scores. Has been absolutely dreadful all tourney and can't understand why he is starting. Braaf had some nice moments this tourney but he was so bad today. This team just lacked the final move. Unuvar was one of the worst players for Netherlands every game. Which is quite surprising. No idea what happened to him these past few weeks. Raatsie is an aggressive goalie but just isn't good enough. And no idea why Bogarde didn't jump on the free kick. Went right over his head
Typical Dutch, going out on penalties in a tournament. Weak kicks by the three who missed. As was pointed out Bogarde just didn't jump on the free kick. The team really missed Taylor today and the cute back passes were a waste of time and effort. I'm not impressed at all with Braaf; he is too selfish with the ball.