Dutch could pack off Italy, France

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-15  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

UEFA said yesterday there is nothing in the rules to stop the Netherlands from fielding a weakened team against Romania next week and jeopardizing the chances of World Cup finalists Italy and France reaching the quarterfinals at the European Championship.

The Netherlands have beaten Italy 3-0 and France 4-1 to be assured of topping Group C, rendering Tuesday's match in Bern meaningless for the Dutch, while the Romanians can finish runner-up as they have two points, one more than Italy and France.

UEFA director of communications William Gaillard said he had not been contacted by Italy or France over concerns the Dutch will rotate players.

"They themselves in other competitions have found themselves in that kind of a situation, and I think most teams hope that the third game is actually for nothing, and therefore, because they have 23 players, it's a way to rotate the team," he said.

"It's obvious that when a team has already qualified and guaranteed first place in the group, we see it in many tournaments and competitions, that they will field substitutes from the reserve team. You don't risk yellow cards, you rest your best players, you give a chance to the other players to prove themselves. It's not against the rules to do that."

And momentum is something Dutch coach Marco van Basten has by the bucketload at the moment with his Euro 2008 team on a seemingly unstoppable roll.

From the first extraordinary refereeing decision to give the Orange its first goal in a 3-0 opener against world champion Italy to the last goal in Friday's 4-1 destruction of France, when a ball headed for the woodwork ricocheted into the goal and not out, everything is going their way.

Even van Basten admitted, "We were lucky," but only in the sense that only very good teams are lucky. With creative players such as Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben and Ruud van Nistelrooy, luck has the easiest of times to go with the flow.