English VAR rules out Xavi Simons goal for dubious offside as Netherlands and France share spoils (2024)

Another big performance from Kanté 👊@Vivo_GLOBAL | #EUROPOTM pic.twitter.com/aQ3zz7bwSn

— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) June 21, 2024

The first goalless draw of the tournament and a point each eliminates Poland. The draw is a fair result but Netherlands should still have won it but for a VAR error. France missed three good chances, two for Griezmann, one for Rabiot but that was there own fault. Netherlands losing their ‘goal’ was not their fault.

The Dutch are in the left corner, trying to both hog possession and work an opening but then miscalculate and poke the ball out for a goal-kick.

Settling for a point now, writes he, trying to tempt fate.

Weghorst may not have had much to do in his primary role but makes an excellent, brave block. Five minutes of stoppage time to come.

Rabiot recovers to skip down the left beyond Reijnders and Veerman and has Coman free at the back post but it’s a rotten cross, bent ahead of his team-mate and Ake shoos it away.

Rabiot is hurt, dead legged as Dumfries fell on top of him.

France are knocking the ball around, probing and then Hernandez pulls the trigger, chipping it into the box for Giroud’s right to left run. The veteran centre-forward, back to goal, tries to nod it back for Griezmann but Veerman has tracked the France forward and boots it away on the volley.

Nothing doing so far in finding Weghorst with crosses as both sides get tied up in midfield.

Hernandez backpedals to head Depay’s floated free-kick behind for a corner. Just before the Dutch ‘goal’ Dembele had cut in off the right and leathered a rising shot that whistled over the bar. Deschamps was livid, cursing his luck with a stamp of the feet.

Shock, the longest VAR is Stuart Atwell 😭😭😭😭😭😭

— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) June 21, 2024

Thats a disgrace.... #EURo2024

— Robbie Fowler (@Robbie9Fowler) June 21, 2024

And typically the English officials make the wrong call.

Take an age to sort out the VAR decision.

VAR check for a Simons goal to put Netherlands 1-0 up. Dumfries was offside but wasn’t blocking the keeper, it seems to me. Or in his eyeline.

France are turning the screw, injecting some urgency into their passing and a driving run from Thuram and Dembele’s combination play gives Kante the opportunity to play the perfect ‘assist’ pass to Griezman, eight yards out on the right of the box. But his touch is heavy and he overbalances as he shoots, still directing it goalwards but without the power. Verbruggen makes a good save.

Tchouameni tracks Simons and seems to barge him over, catching him with his studs as both fell over. Oddly France get the free-kick.France go down the right and Kounde crosses to a packed box. Tchouameni leaps to meet it under challenge from De Vrij and steers it over from 15 yards. Good connection, poor direction.

Thuram wriggles through a gap and ends up by the right of the D but rakes his shot wide of the left post.

Kante makes another deep run, this one up the left and is found parallel with the 18-yard line. He turns away from goal and rolls it back to Tchouameni who shoots and makes a total horse of it, slicing it wildly out for a throw via a deflection.

France spray the ball out to Kante who goes beetling off down the right and crosses. Rabiot steps in off the left and tries to half-volley a shot on goal with his swinger but slices his right-foot shot.

First signs of Dutch incisiveness, at least with their passing, in balls out to Gakpo and Frimpong. But there’s no one in the box. Depay may have scored 45 international goals but he is playing his own game out there. Team headband.

Best moment of a poor start to the second half comes with Saliba’s diagonal pass to beat the Dutch press, Kounde takes the ball on down the right but his low cross is hooked out by Dutch defender and Dembele picks it up on the right, cuts inside and lumps hois shot straight into the pair of orange-socked shins of Van Dijk.

Frimpong is late into the tackle on Hernandez and boots him across the ball of his left ankle.

Dembele flies down the right and gives Ake a fright but the last tap of his dribble is leaden and the ball skips away and out for a goal-kick before he can get to the byline.

No half-time changes. The camera lingers on Mbappé but cannot magic him on to the pitch.

Just the minute of stoppage time has been signalled after Ake falls on the ball and handles it. Nothing comes from the free-kick.

The wall stands tall and Reijnders heads Griezmann’s shot over the bar. Griezmann is pelted by Dutch projectiles as he prepares to take the corner. When he kicks the four pint pots out of the road and crosses, Gakpo heads it away.

Van Dijk catches Dembele 19 yards out, right of centre. Griezmann and Dembele stand over the free-kick.

Simons wins the ball off Dembele and dribbles up the inside left then seems to be hit by a kind of panic as he snatches at his shot too early when he had another couple of yards to go in front of Upamecano. And he scuffs it straight at Maignan who falls forward to smother it.

Gakpo misses a routine interception and the ball runs through to Dembele 25 yards out. He takes it on his left and dips his shoudler but Van Dijk reads what he’s trying to do and whips it off him.

And another as Schouten and Griezmann race through the centre-circle, Schouten keeping pace with his runner who falls and the Dutchman is booked and France given a free-kick. Again, very little contact. Griezmann may be rolling back the years but he doesn’t have the acceleration of 10 years ago.

Griezmann given a free-kick on reputation when he miscontrols and Dunmfries snaps in to take it away. He barely touched him, if at all.

The Dutch, who are playing a counter-attacking style, break with Gakpo receiving a pass from De Vrij and haring off down the left. He knocks it inside to Simons and gets it back 20 yards from goal. He does that short-stepping, stutter run thing which seems to presage a shot but then tries to bend it to the right of the box for Depay and gets the pass all wrong, Kante having covered the easier passing lane.

Kante and Rabiot stop a Reijnders thrust up the middle and the Dutch are penalised harshly by the referee Anthony Taylor when trying to win it back.

Rabiot overhits a cross from the left after more good work from Griezmann whose movement as a No10, rather than in the No8 role he’s been consigned to in recent years, has been impressive tonight. He’s rolling back the years.

Terrific save from Maignan low to his left to turn away Gakpo’s blistering daisycutter from 20 yards, fooling almost everyone by taking the shot on early. Great movement from Gakpo to step in off the left and impart such power with his instep.

Griezmann spends 10 seconds with his head in his hands but gets up and jogs back onside just as Thuram weaves through on the left. Griezmann feints to go to the ball then steps back to receive the pass to the left of the spot and he pirouettes to shoot with his left … just wide.

Oh my word!. Rabiot with the goal at his mercy after slipping between De Vrij and Ake down the inside right channel, spinning on to Thuram’s pass to give himself half an empty goal to shoot at. But he draws the keeper and then squares it to Griezmann who wasn’t expecting it and didn’t wants it. He slips as he tries to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear.

What happened there?

Anybody?#NEDFRApic.twitter.com/YVmLsd61NI

— 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐀 🧊 (@CRICFOOTHAROON) June 21, 2024

Excellent, tracking defensive run from Reijnders to get to Kounde’s cross in the nick of time to take it off Griezmann who was flexing his neck 15 yards out.

Dumfries is the beneficiary of a triangular passing move that earns him some space down the right but his cross is too deep for Depay and Kounde backpedals to head it over Gakpo as he ran in from the opposite wing.

France’s full-backs are pushed high and both Tchouameni and Kante are dropping off to receive the ball from the centre-backs. Schouten’s pass allows Depay to turn it round the corner 20 yards out with his back to goal. Simons picks it up and tries to find Depay’s feet again after the centre-forward ran into the box. Depay leans into Saliba, looking to roll him and shoot but Saliba won’t let him move his hips to pivot and both lose their balance. Depay wants a penalty but it never was.

The Dutch defend the corner competently, Van Dijk winning the header and then Upamecano knocks the ball forward and Van Dijk wins another header.

France are playing 4-4-1-1 with Rabiot on the left wing and his lack of pace, compared with a winger, is evident when Thuram slips the ball down the inside left for him. Too many get back to cover so he lays it off to Griezmann instead of shooting himself and Griezmann’s 20-yard, dipping effort from the left is clawed over the bar by Verbruggen.

Gerhard Aigner, who died yesterday at the age of 80.

France are in their away kit, paying tribute to Dominique Rocheteau et al from the 1978 side.

La Marseillaise trumps almost everything. Het Wilhelmus is no match at all, though it is more lustily sung by the Dutch fans who outnumber the French by about four to one it seems.

Much prefer when they follow Roderick Spode and don the black shorts. Most prefer white.

France have white tracksuit tops but underneath are in their home kit of blue, white and red. Holland are in oranje.

He gets a lot of stick for his retirement physique and accent from the unkind and pompous but listen to what he actually says and he is a very good pundit.

On y va.
Oranje zee rolt stadion in Leipzig binnen, en daar zullen we ook de spelers hebben.#NEDFRA #Oranje pic.twitter.com/0cpD4SpXan

— simon zwartkruis (@simonzwartkruis) June 21, 2024

No cape but his game mask is in his locker…

Mbappe doesn’t start. One change: Tchouameni in for Mbappe and Griezmann moves up front.

Le 1⃣1⃣ tricolore pour affronter les Pays-Bas ⚔️

🇳🇱🇫🇷 | #PBSFRA | #FiersdetreBleus pic.twitter.com/owsFvtt023

— Equipe de France ⭐⭐ (@equipedefrance) June 21, 2024

One change: Frimpong for Veerman.

Representing 𝗢𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗝𝗘! 🦁🔥#NothingLikeOranje #NEDFRA pic.twitter.com/2oTtVmQn4Z

— OnsOranje (@OnsOranje) June 21, 2024

𝗟𝗘𝗜𝗣𝗭𝗜𝗚 = 𝗢𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗝𝗘! 🧡#NothingLikeOranje #CreateHistory pic.twitter.com/bg2exR18QE

— OnsOranje (@OnsOranje) June 21, 2024