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Netherlands crushes Northern Ireland in last Euro 2012 warmup

03 June 2012 02:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Netherlands had a good last rehearsal for Euro 2012 by beating Northern Ireland 6-0 in Amsterdam on Saturday, APA reports.

The most discussed topic in the Netherlands in the build-up was the choice of the central striker. Van Marwijk has the luxury problem of having the choice between Premier League top scorer Robin van Persie and Bundesliga top scorer Klaas Jan Huntelaar. On Friday he had informed Huntelaar of his choice for Van Persie as first striker.

Behind Van Persie Ibrahim Afellay, Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben formed the other players in front. The 18-year-old Jetro Willems seems to have won the battle for the left back position against Stijn Schaars, while Ron Vlaar played in the center of defense as a replacement for injured Joris Mathijsen.

Northern Ireland gave no resistance and as a result the Dutch team was able to boost its confidence. The one-way traffic towards the Northern-Irish goal resulted in four goals in the first half. Van Persie headed in the first goal and Sneijder scored from a free-kick within the first fifteen minutes.

After a handball by Shane Ferguson Van Persie converted a penalty and Afellay produced the fourth after a Van Persie assist. After half-time the latter also provided the assist for Afellay’ s second goal.

With Rafael van der Vaart, Dirk Kuijt and Huntelaar as new players the Netherlands was looking for more goals. Van der Vaart was close, but he hit the post. After a corner by Afelay Vlaar headed in the sixth and last Dutch goal.

After the final whistle the audience waved the Dutch team goodbye with a standing ovation. On June 9 the Netherlands starts Euro 2012 against Denmark, before taking on Germany and Portugal.