Euro 2024: Van Dijk, Coach Koeman Faults Officiating In Netherlands’ Defeat To England

The captain of the Netherlands, Virgil van Dijk, and the head coach of the team, Ronald Koeman have agreed that the officiating in their Euro 2024 loss was questionable.

On Wednesday night, England and the Netherlands met at the Signal Iduna Park for the second Euro 2024 semi-final clash. The Dutch team took the lead as early as the 7th minute. 11 minutes later, England equalized via a penalty kick.

Initially, German referee, Felix Zwayer overlooked Denzel Dumfries’ block which stopped Harry Kane’s attack. The Video Assistant Referee called the centre referee to review the incident via a pitchside monitor. After his review, he pointed to the penalty spot.

As expected, Harry Kane converted the kick and gave England the momentum to win the game with a 2-1 scoreline following Ollie Watkins’ late-minute winner.

“In my opinion, it should not have been a penalty,” the Netherlands head coach, Ronald Koeman said in the post-game interview.

“He kicked the ball, and the boots touched. I think that we cannot play proper football and this is due to VAR. It really breaks football.”

Van Dijk also shared the same sentiment over the penalty incident and the overall performance of the referee during the Euro 2024 semi-final clash.

The Liverpool captain noted that the referee couldn’t wait for a handshake after the game because of his performance during the match.

“I don’t know what to say, I don’t know if I should say something about this”, Van Dijk told beIN Sports when asked about the performance of the referee.

“But I think it says it all that the referee went in quite quickly after the game and had no time to shake his hand.”