Posted on 15th July 2009
Fans’ Guide to Amsterdam
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England are due to open their 2009-10 season with a friendly against Holland at the Amsterdam ArenA (that’s not a typo) on Wednesday August 12th 2009. This is the first of two friendlies with the second due to take place at WeMbleY in August 2011.
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The Three Lions last faced Holland in a November 2006 friendly half-way through Steve McClaren’s Euro 2008 qualification bid. Wayne Rooney opened the scoring before Rafael van der Vaart hit a late equaliser which saw the game end 1-1. While Free Lions readers need no reminder of how England didn’t do in Euro 2008, the Dutch weren’t particularly happy with how they did do either.
After being drawn in the tournament’s ‘Group of Death’ (has there ever been an international competition without one?) they were soon the bookies favourites following three mightily impressive results against Italy (3-0), France (4-1) and Romania (2-0).
However, they were dumped out in the quarter-finals when Russia’s Andrei Arshavin produced the performance of Euro 2008 to give his country a 3-1 win. Russia’s tournament was ended in the semis by eventual winners Spain.
August’s game will be followed by a home friendly with Slovenia on Saturday September 5th.
