Flashback: England 4-1 Netherlands at Euro ‘96

August 11th, 2009 | by: Daryl |

Oh, happy days. The is from the Euro ‘96 group game, when England beat a fractured Netherlands team 4-1 at Wembley.

You know things are looking good when Paul Ince pulls something from his probably-not-very-big bag of tricks and wins a penalty. And that Alan Shearer’s strike might be my favourite England goal of all time.

It’s got everything. A quick dribble from Gazza, Sherringham faking to shoot but finding an intelligent pass instead, and the Shearer leathering it into the near upper 90.

All that, plus Kluivert did just enough to stop Scotland joining us in the semis (although I felt bad about that at the time).

Was certainly a lot more enjoyable than the when we played the Dutch in 1993:

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Sol

I remember how harsh the press was in Holland on the Dutch lads after that 4-1 defeat. I didn’t even think they played all that bad, it was just the usual going behind, taking more risks to get back and getting your ass whooped for it. Much like the Holland-Italy and Holland-France games at the
EC 2008.

Well executed by England of course, just as the Dutch did well against France and Italy in similar style. Sometimes scorelines can paint a different picture. It wasn’t really all that one-sided or a whitewash as the scoreline might suggest.

I hope we get no more big players with injuries on either side, sad to see Gerrard isn’t playing tomorrow.
http://epl.theoffside.com Rob

I still own the 4-1 game on VHS somewhere.