Euro 2024: Highlights from England's victory over the Netherlands
Ollie Watkins' 90+1 minute goal helped England successfully reverse the score against the Netherlands, thereby making their second consecutive Euro final.
Second consecutive time for England
As usual, coach Gareth Southgate's team was behind in this match. And as usual, the England team had a comeback to get the final victory.
However, in this match, Harry Kane and his teammates only needed 90 minutes to finish off the Dutch team. Ollie Watkins' "golden" goal made all of Xavi Simons' efforts go down the drain.
With this victory, the England team has reached the Euro final for the second consecutive time. Hopefully, this second time, they will change the color of the medal after losing to the Italian team in the Euro 2020 final.
Gareth Southgate makes substitutions like Sir Alex Ferguson
In this tournament, coach Gareth Southgate was criticized a lot for the boring tactics applied to the England team. However, in the last match, the reasonable changes of this 53-year-old coach contributed to helping the Three Lions win.
Coming on in the 81st minute for Phil Foden and Harry Kane, the duo of Cole Palmer and Ollie Watkins were the ones who created the goal that sealed the 2-1 score. This made many fans think of the top substitution ability of coach Alex Ferguson to help Manchester United win in the extra minutes.
With the second consecutive time leading the England team to the Euro final, coach Gareth Southgate is one of the most successful coaches leading the England team. And that is also proof to quell the criticism directed at this 53-year-old coach.
Sorry for Ronald Koeman and his students
Taking an early lead through Xavi Simons, there were more clear chances in the second half, however, a late goal from Ollie Watkins caused the Netherlands to miss out on the Euro final this time.
However, we still have to give praise to coach Ronald Koeman. Because the adjustments of this 61-year-old coach helped the Dutch team have a better position in the second half. The introduction of striker Wout Weghorst created quite a lot of pressure on the England team's defense to create opportunities for his teammates to score. Unfortunately, Van Dijk and Xavi Simons failed to take advantage of the opportunities they had.
With this defeat, the Dutch team could not repeat the achievement they had achieved at Euro 1988. Where they were crowned with the Dutch trio Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard.
Ollie Watkins - "3 years of training in 10 minutes"
Before this semi-final, Ollie Watkins had played 13 matches for England and scored 3 goals. These were mostly qualifying matches or friendlies. This is understandable because England has a very excellent striker in Harry Kane.
The decision to withdraw Harry Kane in the 81st minute was a surprise decision by coach Gareth Southgate. And even more surprising was that the person who was put on the field was Ollie Watkins instead of Ivan Toney. Not letting down his coach, Ollie Watkins shone to seal the score 2-1 in the 90+1 minute. This was also his first goal in major tournaments.
If coach Gareth Southgate's team wins Euro 2024, Ollie Watkins will be one of the heroes of the England team at this tournament./.
