Vivianne Miedema scored twice as Holland claimed their first women’s European title yesterday. She pulled the hosts level at 1-1 after ten minutes and added her second goal two minutes from the end. Lieke Martens and the captain Sherida Spitse scored the other two goals.
Denmark had taken the lead when Nadia Nadim scored from the penalty spot after six minutes after Kika van Es had brought down Sanne Troelsgaard in the box. “It was an open match, both teams played to win of course,” Sarina Wiegman, the Dutch coach, said.
“There were two teams who really wanted to play football. A match with six goals, that’s very important for women’s football as well.”
The Dutch are only the fourth team to lift the trophy after eight-time champions Germany, two-times winners Norway and Sweden, who won the first edition in 1984. “We’ve played six amazing games and today we showed that even if we get behind in the game we can still change the game,” Miedema said, pointing out the champions’ perfect record in the tournament.
“The moment we scored for 3-2, I just thought, it’s not going to go wrong again,” Miedema, 21, a new Arsenal signing from Bayern Munich, added. “We played so much better in the second half and I think we deserved to win.”
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Nils Nielsen, the Denmark coach, accepted that the Dutch team — who beat England in the semi-finals — were the best side in the tournament.
“It’s not easy to play at home, it’s so easy to disappoint everybody, but they didn’t, they performed so well,” Nielsen said. “I am very, very proud of my team, we have had so many problems and they kept fighting right until the end.”