At 0:00 on July 3rd, Romania will face the Netherlands in the round of 16 of the European Championship. Ahead of the match, Liverpool star Cody Gakpo revealed that the Dutch team feels deeply regretful after their last loss, and they have learned from their mistakes. He also reminded his teammates to watch out for Romanian breakthrough specialist Radu.
The Netherlands lost 2-3 to Austria in their last match, finishing as the third-placed team in their group. Following the defeat, the team received a lot of criticism. Gakpo stated: “I know the fans were very disappointed after our game against Austria, just as we were deeply regretful ourselves after the game. But we will start anew tomorrow, and we need the full support of our fans. We will give our all on the pitch and hope we can make our fans proud with a victory. After the loss, we conducted a thorough analysis and identified areas where we need to improve, for example, pressing our opponents. We have done a lot of work on this in training.”
When discussing the upcoming knockout match, Gakpo reminded the Dutch team to be cautious of Romania’s Radu: “He’s a very good player, especially with the ball at his feet. I’ve watched his recent matches, and he is very dangerous in front of goal. He is fantastic at dribbling from midfield and breaking through, his technical skills are great. He is a strong right-back and is also excellent defensively.”
Gakpo has started all three European Championship matches for the Netherlands and has scored goals against Poland and Austria. So far, the Liverpool player has made 27 appearances for the Netherlands, scoring 11 goals and providing 4 assists. His performance in major tournaments is particularly impressive, with 5 goals in 9 appearances in the World Cup and European Championship combined.
However, Gakpo’s praise of La Liga player Radu as a “breakthrough specialist” sparked some controversy on social media, as Radu attempted to dribble 6 times in 3 European Championship matches, with 5 of those attempts being unsuccessful, resulting in a breakthrough success rate of only 17%.
This article is from a user submission and does not represent the views of Soccer News Pick. If you repost it, please indicate the source: https://www.soccernewspick.com/uefa-european-championship/6048.html
