MUNICH — The last time the European Championship was held in Germany, an iconic Netherlands team powered its way to the title.
Same again, 36 years later?
Not so fast, not yet, but Ronald Koeman’s Dutch side took its most positive step so far on Tuesday, comfortably outplaying Romania for a 3-0 win in Munich and setting up a quarterfinal against either Austria or Turkey on Saturday (3 p.m. ET on FOX).
Cody Gakpo put Koeman’s men in front after 20 minutes, receiving the ball from Xavi Simons, cutting inside and then curling a fine effort past goalkeeper Florin Nita.
The Dutch didn’t look especially good in placing third in Group D behind Austria and France. Neither does it seem to have the same pop as it did in smoking the United States and taking eventual champ Argentina all the way to a penalty shootout at the World Cup.
But Koeman’s team is the kind of work in progress that makes for a dangerous outlier at a month-long tournament, and it was too good for the Group E winner here.
Koeman was in the Netherlands squad in 1988 that beat the Soviet Union in the final. That team had a dynamic striker that loved scoring goals in Marco Van Basten. The modern version is Gakpo, who thrives at big tournaments and is the joint top scorer of this one, now with three.
Gakpo had another ruled out for offside and Virgil Van Dijk hit the post with a header, as the Netherlands racked up chance after chance from all kind of methods; on the break, with slow build-up, direct.
The second goal came with seven minutes to go when Memphis Depay’s header found Gakpo, and some tricky footwork on the byline allowed him to pull it back for Donyell Malen, who made no mistake.
Gakpo walked straight off after setting it up to be replaced by Wout Weghorst, the lucky charm who so often comes on late when the Netherlands need a goal. This time they didn’t. The job was already done.
Malen added a third in injury-time to complete a fine night’s work. The Dutch are coming, an easy out for no one.
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