Euro 2000 was probably the Dutch tournament to lose.
As co-hosts with Belgium, the Dutch played all their matches at home and had basically the same squad that reached the World Cup semi-finals two years earlier – eight of whom had also won the Champions League with Ajax in 1995, but were now more experienced and mature.
The Oranje collected maximum points in the group stage and finished ahead of reigning world champions and eventual winners France, before advancing to Yugoslavia 6-1 in the quarter-finals. For the semifinals in an electric Amsterdam, they were favorites against Italy.
The Italians, who had also had a perfect record in the group stage, had other ideas and lost the hosts – even if they sometimes traveled in turn.
Italy played most of the semifinals and overtime with only 10 players / Shaun Botterill / Getty Images
The Netherlands started strong and Phillip Cocu had the first good chance before Dennis Bergkamp later hit the post. Italy then got a mountain to climb when Gianluca Zambrotta was sent off after picking up a second yellow card in just 34 minutes.
Shortly afterwards, Alessandro Nesta was penalized for holding on to Patrick Kluivert, the Dutch dangerman who had scored five goals in his previous four matches in the tournament. But Frank de Boer got up and saw his effort from 12 yards saved by Francesco Toldo.
Despite being 28 at the time and one of Serie A’s best goalkeepers with a strong Fiorentina side, Toldo had only played eight times for Italy when he was named to the Euro 2000 squad. He was previously a back-up at the 1998 World Cup but had hardly been called up since and made his first international appearance in almost two years in a warm-up game in April 2000.
Had Parma’s young star and Italy’s regular number one Gianluigi Buffon not had a broken hand in the last warm-up friendship just before the tournament, Toldo would not have played.
Francesco Toldo was the hero of Italy but played only due to an injury to Gianluigi Buffon / Graham Chadwick / Getty Images
The Netherlands won another penalty when Edgar Davids was fouled by Mark Iuliano. This time, Kluivert got up to take it. But despite Toldo expressing it beyond Toldo, as De Boer had failed to do, the Barcelona striker saw his attempt to beat the woodwork instead.
By the end of the 90-minute ordinance, Italy had played for almost an hour with 10 men. When the overtime was over, they had actually played a completely normal game with one player less. Still, it was the Azzurri who came closest to winning in overtime, where Edwin van der Sar denied Marco Delvecchio what would have been a sudden Golden Goal goal when he saved with his feet.
Both teams had left the World Cup two years earlier because they lost tense penalties. On this occasion, Italy fell in the quarterfinals against France, while the Netherlands were denied a place in the final by Brazil. One of them won this time and a place in the final was at stake.
Luigi Di Biagio, whose miss in 1998 had handed over the victory to France, was first on his way to the penalty spot for Italy, scoring goals and expelling his personal demons. Frank de Boer tried to match it. But after Toldo had already been denied once, he sent his effort too close to the goalkeeper.
Francesco Totti scored a Panenka penalty in the shootout / Claudio Villa / Getty Images
Gianluca Pessotto then scored for Italy, before Jaap Stam sent a rocket of a penalty against the sky.
Francesco Totti drove it to 3-0 in Italy’s advantage with an icy Panenka chip beyond a diving Van der Sar. Kluivert compensated for his miss during the game itself to reduce the deficit slightly, but the damage was already done.
Although Paolo Maldini wasted an opportunity to end it immediately when his penalty was saved by Van der Sar, Toldo emerged as the hero as he dived low to the right to hold out Paul Bosvelt and place Italy in the Euro 2000 final.
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