Ruud strike saves Dutch

Yesterday, I mentioned how Dutch soccer star Ruud van Nistelrooy had said that Germany’s occupation of Holland during World War II would motivate his side in its big European championship competition match against the Germans. Today, van Nistlerooy’s late goal salvaged a 1-1 draw. Here is an account of the match. The result leaves both teams in decent shape to advance from their preliminary group, but they will face competition from the Czechs, who defeated Latvia 2-1. Only two teams of the four advance.
I’m not saying that soccer fans in Europe take this stuff seriously, but the Holland-Germany-Czech-Latvia cluster is known as “the group of death,” since three of the four teams are among Europe’s very best.