PORTUGAL TOO STRONG
first caps in Denzel Dumfries, Steven Bergwijn (both PSV Eindhoven) and Arnaut Danjuma Groeneveld (Club Brugge).
Ajax’s Frenckie de Jong, at 21, is the new face in midfield, while club teammate Matthijs de Ligt, at 19, is a bright defensive prospect.
All these players will be stronger in a few years to provide optimism of “a good future for the Dutch national team,” Koeman said.
In attack, Memphis Depay, now at Olympique Lyon after an indifferent spell at Manchester United, was a handful for the German defence. “Perhaps in 10 years this game will turn out to be the game that initiated the turning point,” the Dutch online site voetbalprimeur.nl said. The Dutch squad now travels to Brussels for a friendly against Belgium today. Their next Nations League match is against France on Nov 16 at the Feyenoord stadium in Rotterdam. – dpa
PORTUGAL forward Eder scored his first international goal since the Euro 2016 final against France to complete a 3-1 friendly win over Scotland in Glasgow yesterday. Debutant Helder Costa opened the scoring on his international debut for an experimental Portugal who made 10 changes from the team which started the 3-2 Nations League win in Poland on Thursday. Bruma added a third and Steven Naismith scored a consolation for the hosts. Scotland, beaten 2-1 win in Israel in the Nations League in their last outing, managed to hold their own until Bruma freed Kevin Rodrigues and his low cross was turned in by Costa in the 44th minute. The European champions went further ahead in the 73rd minute when Renato Sanches floated a cross into the area and Eder outjumped his marker to head in. Bruma, always dangerous, latched on to a through pass, cut inside his marker and fired past Craig Gordon to add a third goal with six minutes left. Naismith made the scoreline more respectable in stoppage time, clipping the ball past Beto after being set up by Gary Mackay-Steven’s clever backheel. “I thought it was a good performance. I didn’t believe at all that we deserved to be 3-0 down,” said Scotland manager Alex McLeish, who has lost six of his eight games.”We lost stupid goals again. The lads wanted to see the video. We showed them and they owned up to some individual errors. Individual errors at this level can be devastating.”