Dutch oust Swedes on penalties

The Netherlands broke their shootout jinx to beat Sweden 5-4 on penalties on Saturday and reach a Euro 2004 semi-final against hosts Portugal.

• Images from the match

The teams had drawn 0-0 after 120 minutes played in stifling heat before Arjen Robben, the 20-year-old winger, scored from the spot to spark wild celebrations among the huge contingent of orange-clad fans in the Algarve Stadium.

The Dutch, who will face Portugal on Wednesday, had gone out of the European Championship on penalties in their last three appearances, as well as the World Cup in 1998.

Also Read Robben ends Dutch penalty jinx

Defender Olof Mellberg's penalty was then saved by Edwin van der Sar before Robben's strike brought the Netherlands a change in fortunes they thoroughly deserved.

"It was the moment of my life in such a big tournament but I was very confident and thought I would score," said Robben. "It's over now but it was very exciting and now it's one big party. Finally we won a penalty shootout."

For a battling Sweden side the defeat was hard to take.

"It's terrible to lose on penalties," said substitute Kim Kallstrom, who scored their first spot kick. "We had the chance to win, in the last five minutes we had a shot against the bar and another shot hit the post. It's terrible."

SWELTERING HEAT

The sweltering heat offered no encouragement to go forward with any urgency and the result was a cautious first half.

Robben troubled the Swedish defence a couple of times and the young winger forced a fine fingertip save from Isaksson with a 20 metre drive after 10 minutes.

Sweden's first promising move came just before halftime when Mattias Jonson, at last injecting some pace into their attack, raced clear on the right and pulled the ball back for Andreas Svensson who shot straight at defender Wilfred Bouma.

Van Nistelrooy had his first clear chance straight after the restart when he mistimed his header from Robben's cross.

That was the signal for a much livelier second half, with Sweden in particular pushing forward with more conviction.

With 56 minutes gone, Ibrahimovic had a shot hacked off the line by midfielder Philip Cocu after a piece of sloppy defending from Jaap Stam who missed his clearance and let him in.

Van Nistelrooy came desperately close to the opener in the 62nd minute when he showed great control to chest down a long ball from midfielder Clarence Seedorf and get in a shot that Andreas Isaksson managed to smother.

The Dutch came close to scoring at the start of extra time when Robben forced a clumsy attempt at a save by Isaksson with the ball squirming off the keeper's body on to the post.

Sweden suddenly appeared to be hanging on for dear life as Van Nistelrooy cracked just wide on the volley and Clarence Seedorf had a shot palmed over.

But the Swedes almost sneaked victory when Larsson hit the top of the bar and Ljungberg smacked a shot against the post before the whistle went to signal a penalty shootout.

Teams:

Sweden (4-4-2): 1-Andreas Isaksson; 7-Mikael Nilsson, 15-Andreas Jakobsson, 3-Olof Mellberg, 14-Alexander Ostlund; 18-Mattias Jonson, 8-Anders Svensson, 6-Tobias Linderoth, 9-Fredrik Ljungberg; 10-Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 11-Henrik Larsson

Netherlands (4-3-3): 1-Edwin van der Sar; 2-Michael Reiziger, 15-Frank de Boer, 3-Jaap Stam, 5-Giovanni van Bronckhorst; 20-Clarence Seedorf, 8-Edgar Davids, 6-Philip Cocu; 7-Andy van der Meyde, 10-Ruud van Nistelrooy, 19-Arjen Robben

Referee: Lubos Michel (Slovakia)

Linesmen: Martin Balko (Slovakia), Igor Sramka (Slovakia)