Netherlands loses 3-2 to Czech Republic, misses Euro 2016

Meanwhile, Muller’s Bayern teammate Robert Lewandowski equalled former Northern Ireland striker David Healy’s 13-goal record for a single European Championship qualifying campaign as Poland claimed second place in Group D.

Now, they won’t even be contenders in Europe for the first time since 1984. Their clash would go down as a European epic.

The national team need to concentrate on the activity at hand. I do not think you have to make a change because there are a lot of young players.

This is not a vintage Czech Republic side.

Louis van Gaal left to manage Manchester United, which everyone knew going into the World Cup. Sneidjer, Blind, De Pay will play the creative provider role but the dutch as a whole have struggled during this qualifying campaign and hence the reason they are likely to miss out.

Selcuk Inan, with a penalty, and Hakan Calhanoglu netted Turkey’s goals in the final half-hour as the Czechs suffered their first home loss in qualifying.

83′ GOAL! Van Persie redeems himself a little with that nudge on.

The match kicks off at 9:45 p.m. Turkish time and will be officiated by British referee Martin Atkinson and assisted by Michael Mullarkey and Stephen Youngster.

A nervy start in front of an orange-ridden (but not sold out) Amsterdam crowd was made worse when Czech Republic (and Hoffenheim) defender Pavel Kaderabek curled in a well-taken opener inside the box. The Dutch took the lead in the fourth minute.

Minutes later it was 2-0, the Czechs appearing rattled in the face of the Dutch onslaught.

We won’t be seeing the Dutch at next year’s tournament.

Netherlands’ lack of ingenuity proved costly in the 66th minute as the Van Persie headed a Skalak free-kick into his own goal to compound the hosts’ misery.

Had the ball been played to him by Davids he would have been flagged in a straightforward offside decision. They felt a sense of injustice over this second goal, although it was of course a perfectly legitimate strike, but rapidly regrouped and took the game to the Dutch from the restart.

To their delight that is how the night played out. “I won only one match (out of four since taking over)”. It was a decision he would later regret. It was now a case of clinging on.

Eleven minutes later they scored again courtesy of more woeful Dutch defensive work.

But his save was only parried and Poborsky was first to the rebound, who calmly squared it for Vladimir Smicer to score a tap in and steal all three points.

The win for the Turks did more than just eliminate the Netherlands, though.

In Group A, 2014 World Cup semi-finalists the Netherlands remain on a knife-edge as far as their hopes are concerned.

They recovered with a thumping 6-0 home win against Latvia, but then lost momentum when they drew against Turkey in their next competitive match.

During Saturday’s match in Prague, Turkey players wore black armbands to protest the twin bombings in Turkish capital Ankara that killed 95 people on Saturday.