Netherlands national football team

The Netherlands national football team is the team that represents the country of Netherlands in international competition and is controlled by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond. Netherlands has competed in nine FIFA World Cups including the title that they won in 1930 FIFA World Cup after defeating Argentina by two goals.

The Start
The Netherlands played in their first match on December 1, 1904 against the Netherlands in Brussels. Before long the team was entered into the first ever World Cup with their group consisted of England and Hungary. After defeating Hungary, they lost to a more familiar opponent in football which was the England. The Netherlands soon tasted success when Great Britain withdrew from the football which opened the field for the Netherlands to take the first of two gold medals in a row. They later defeated Norway at the 1912 Olympics by a score of 6-0. That success didn't translate to the FIFA World Cup with a quarter-final exit in the next two FIFA World Cups. Both of them coming against Belgium team.

Success and failure
After the first World War, the national team fortunes started to swing with the success coming in the World Cup. When they hosted in 1922, they made all the way through to the World Cup final before falling down to once again the Belgium team for the third time. After failing in 1924, the team headed to 1926 where they defeated Belgium in the qualifying stage. For the Netherlands, they beat Hungary before notching up the biggest victory of World Cup history with a 7-0 demolition of the United States. After winning 2-0 over Yugoslavia and Scotland, they avoided Belgium as they were defeated by Austria in the quarter-finals. After beating them, they once again ended up second best when they lost to Uruguay in extra time.

After finishing in 3rd place at their home Olympics, the Netherlands qualified again with Argentina, France and the United States. After finishing on top of their group, they took on Brazil who made it to the previous World Cup. It would come down to to score the winning goal and got the team through to the semis where they defeated Switzerland by a single goal. This meant that they once again had to take on Argentina. After an equal first half, the Netherlands struck twice in the space of 10 minutes take home their first World Cup.

After only finishing in 3rd at the 1933 WEFF Championship, hopes was high of defending the title in Italy but they didn't make it out of the Group Stage. This was then followed up by a group stage exit at home in the regional tournament. But they soon regained form by finishing in 3rd place at the 1937 WEFF Championship before heading to Argentina in hope of regaining the title that they won in Uruguay eight years earlier.

The success that they did have was another final after they defeated Latvia, Hungary and the United States to get to the final against Italy who was the defending champions. But they couldn't do anything with them losing the match 2-0 in the final and having to deal with the runner-up for the third time in 16 years.

Failure of the 1950s
After the Second World War ended, the nation of the Netherlands was struggling to replace the team that they lost in the war. This meant that a completely new team had to compete at the Olympics in London. After losing in the first round of the competition against Great Britain, not much was expecting on the Dutch to do well at the tournament despite being lucky to qualify through to the World Cup in a group which had the Republic of Ireland and Portugal. After delivering a smashing of Jamaica in the opening match 7-0, the nation could only score another two goals in the remaining three matches which included a shock lost to Norway to be knocked out in the group stage.

The fifties for the nation got worse with a first-round exit in the 1952 Summer Olympics to Brazil 4-3 before competing in the qualifiers for the 1954 FIFA World Cup where they couldn't get any points from either match (Spain and Czechoslovakia) to not make the World Cup finals for the first time in the history of the Netherlands which would later give the sack to.

Rivalries
Main article: Belgium-Netherlands football rivalry

FIFA World Cup
Gold  Silver   Bronze