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Amidst a sea of yellow in Frankfurt, Romania’s players heeded the pre-game rally of manager Edward Iordănescu and completed what he described as “a historic moment” by progressing beyond the group stage of a European Championship for the first time since 2000. Iordănescu angrily fended off claims that their 1-1 draw with Slovakia was manipulated to ensure the progression of both teams, with the intensity of the fight and total shot count of 22 suggesting it was anything but.

Courtesy of taking points from two of their three group stage outings (W1, D1, L1), all of which they played as the underdogs, Romania have earned themselves a date with the Netherlands - Europe’s fifth-best team according to FIFA rankings. Iordănescu’s men will certainly be hoping to leave a better impression than they did when losing 2-0 to Belgium in the group stage, which was their sixth consecutive defeat against any of FIFA’s current top-ten nations.

That includes their most recent meeting with Round of 16 opponents, who finished with the same points tally (four) as Romania but had to qualify as the best third-placed team of the six groups. Their most recent outing saw them lose as marginal favourites to Ralf Rangnick’s Austria (L 3-2), ending their five-game unbeaten run (W4, D1) in competitive football.

An angry head coach Ronald Koeman slammed their performance as “appalling” and “awful”, language which suggests he’ll be going to great lengths to prevent a repeat performance. And you only have to go back to the previous Euros to be reminded that the Dutch are by no means certainties to get through to the quarter-finals, as they fell to a shock Round of 16 loss to Czech Republic in 2021, so there should be no complacency in the Dutch camp for this potentially slippery fixture.

Players to watch: Romanian midfielder Răzvan Marin rediscovered a taste for scoring at this tournament, striking in two separate group stage matches. Dutch forward Memphis Depay equalised against Austria and will be hoping to repeat his feats of the previous H2H in 2017, in which his opening goal against Romania followed another goalscoring appearance five days earlier.

Hot streak: The Netherlands won each of the last four H2Hs by a 2+ goal margin.
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