Boulahrouz – Uruguay were tough

Netherlands defender Khalid Boulahrouz admits that last night’s semi-final against Uruguay, was not the most exciting of football encounters.
“I think it was a bit of a crazy game because it went up and down and the score was like one-nil, one- one, two-one, three one then three two,” he told SoccerNews.com.

But Netherlands had by no means expected their South American opponents to be a walk over, he said. “They are not bad. They were tough. We knew from the beginning that it would be tough against them because they play with their hearts, and it’s difficult to beat these kinds of teams, and you know this is the semi-final, and they are looking forward to the final as well.”

Boulahrouz was tight-lipped about how he felt about his inclusion as a replacement for Gregory van der Wiel whose two yellow cards in the tournament made him ineligible for last night’s game.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to think about my personal situation because I’m playing for my country, I’m playing for the finals, so I was all focused on the game and nothing more than that.”

Netherlands would have to work on their confidence ahead of Sunday’s final against the winner of tonight’s semi-final between Germany and Spain, he concluded. “We have to be much more confident. We did a couple of things wrong (against Uruguay) and that’s why they had opportunity to come back into the game. We have to get these things out to be more comfortable in the game.”

[Fatima Asmal for SoccerNews.com]