Netherlands knock England out of Euro 2017 in semi-finals

ENGLAND suffered semi-final heartbreak for the second consecutive major tournament as they were beaten 3-0 by Euro 2017 hosts the Netherlands.
The defeat will represent devastating failure for the Lionesses, who had targeted a first major trophy as their sole aim from the tournament.
Having lost their 2015 World Cup semi-final to Japan thanks to an injury-time own goal, individual errors again proved decisive.
The Dutch had already taken a 1-0 lead thanks to Vivianne Miedema’s first-half header when Fara Williams’s poor header was seized on by Danielle van de Donk.
And another stoppage-time own goal sealed England’s fate when Mille Bright turned in Lieke Martens’ shot.
Jade Moore hit the post and England wasted several good second-half chances, but they could not pierce the hosts’ defence.
Although reaching the last four may be deemed as a relative success in some eyes, and despite becoming the first England manager since Sir Alf Ramsey to reach two consecutive major tournament semi-finals, Mark Sampson and his players felt they could win the competition.
After finishing as the top European team in the World Cup, and being the highest ranked team left at Euro 2017, they seemed well set to take another step on the road to their ambition of becoming the “world’s number one team”.
But they were well beaten by a Dutch team which were technically superior, led by Van de Donk, and roared on by a record crowd of 27,093 for a women’s football match in the Netherlands.
The Dutch will now be favourites to beat Denmark in their first European Championship final, while England will have to regroup for the 2019 World Cup in France, perhaps having wasted their best chance of silverware with this group of players.