Netherlands advance with 2-1 victory over Slovakia

The Netherlands have punched their ticket to the quarterfinals with a 2-1 win over Slovakia.

Arjen Robben, who was making his first start of the World Cup, scored the opening goal of the match, while Wesley Sneijder added the insurance marker with 10 minutes to play.

Slovakian Robert Vittek scored his fourth goal of the tournament on a penalty kick in added time to close the gap.

Oranje will now wait to meet the winner of this afternoon’s Brazil-Chile match.

At the eighteenth minute, Sneijder made a beautiful long pass to Robben, who broke down the wing and cut inside to fool two defenders. The midfielder quickly beat Jan Mucha with a low shot to the keeper’s left.

Slovakia put some pressure on Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg in the second half in an effort to even the score, but the keeper was solid, turning away a great scoring chance by Vittek.

Holland then got a break when Dirk Kuyt rushed in towards the goal and surprised the keeper with a cross to Sneijder who was left with a vacant net to extend the Dutch lead to two.

In added time, Stekelenburg was called for a penalty and Vittek calmly deposited the ball into the net, but Slovakia was out of time to tie the score.

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By: John Matheson
Posted: Jun 28 2010 5:07 pm
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Filed under: 2010 World Cup
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