The Netherlands picked up their pieces after a weak group stage at Euro 2024 to claim a 3-0 win against Romania on Tuesday and reach the quarter-finals of the tournament for the first time since 2008.
The 1988 champions were very criticized after the 3-2 defeat to Austria in the last group match, which coach Ronald Koeman called a very bad performance from his side.
They could again meet the Austrians in the quarter-finals, should they defeat Turkey later on Tuesday, but for now goal scorer and Man of the Match Cody Gakpo was happy to "make a statement."
"It (winning) means a lot, it means that we wanted to show a reaction after the last game. We know how good we can be and it's disappointing if you cannot show it," he said in a news conference.
"It was important today to make a small statement. But we're not there yet and this was one game. I hope we can continue like that," he added.
Defender Denzel Dumfries said that the team learned its lessons from the Austria game.
"We had a lot of conversations last week. So we’re very proud because we came back from the Austria game, where we were not happy with our performance, and did very well."
Koeman this time praised his team's performance, saying it was "outstanding."
"That's what we need to have a chance to continue in this tournament. This is the level. If you go below it, you miss the final," he said.
Asked about the difference to the Austria game, the coach said: "Sometimes it's difficult to explain why you play badly and why you reach a high level. Today the start was hard, but we eventually found our game and caused them problems.
"Maybe one critical point was that it took too long to score the second goal. We caused Romania big problems with our attacking," he said.
The Dutch were very wasteful in front of goal and missed several major chances of putting the game to bed earlier. The win was only safe after Donyell Malen scored a late brace.
"We weren’t nervous, because we know our quality and we know that we can score from small situations. We were very focused and we just kept on going until the last minute," Dumfries said.
