Netherlands v Turkey Preview

Turkey face a mountain to climb as they will take on The Netherlands without the presence of round-of-16 double goal scorer Merhi Demiral who is now serving a two match ban by UEFA for an alleged far-right gesture during his celebrations against Austria.

Turkey defender Merih Demiral has been handed a two-game suspension by UEFA after appearing to make an ultranationalist salute while celebrating his second goal against Austria in Tuesday’s #Euro2024 last-16 match.

More from @alirampling ⬇️https://t.co/YmLyAaDf1W

— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) July 5, 2024

Netherlands are fresh off their best performance of the tournament and will be full of confidence when they play Turkey on Saturday 6th of July. The match will be shown on ITV with kick-off at 20:00 pm BST. The winner will then go on to face either England or Switzerland who play in Saturday’s early time slot of 17:00 pm BST.

Netherlands v Turkey Team News

Netherlands head coach Ronald Koeman once again has his entire squad to choose from with no injury or suspension concerns. We may see a lineup similar to the reshuffled team put out against Romania given that it was their most convincing performance of the Euros and Donyell Malen seems likely to return to the starting eleven after his brace to secure their round-of-16 win.

Donyell Malen has done it again!

The Netherlands are through to the quarter-finals 👏 #BBCEuros #Euro2024 #ROUNED pic.twitter.com/S0tBWYIAlN

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 2, 2024

As mentioned Turkey will be without Demiral as well as Ismail Yuksek and Orkun Kokcu who are also serving suspensions. They will however have their captain Hakan Calhanoglu and defender Samet Akaydin back in the team.

Netherlands v Turkey Predicted Lineups

Netherlands: Verbruggen; Dumfries, de Vrij, van Dijk, Ake; Reijnders, Schouten; Malen, Simons, Gakpo; Depay

Turkey: Gunok; Muldur, Bardakci, Akaydin, Kadioglu; Ayhan, Calhanoglu; Akturkoglu, Guler, Yildiz; Yilmaz

Netherlands v Turkey Head to head

Last time out in the tournament, Netherlands enjoyed a 3-0 victory over Romania behind a dominant Cody Gakpo performance where he picked up a goal and an assist, with Malen adding the other two.

Turkey upset Austria who were favoured to win, knocking them out with a 2-1 victory behind Demiral’s brace.

In the two side’s history, they have faced each other 14 times with The Netherlands winning six, Turkey winning four and the other four matches ending in draws. They last played each other in September of 2021 during World Cup qualifiers where Netherlands won 6-1, Malen found himself on the scoresheet again in that match adding a 90th minute goal to a Memphis Depay hat-trick plus goals from Davy Klaasen and Guus Til.

Netherlands v Turkey Prediction

You know what’s coming here. Yes, I am still without a correct prediction. Last time out I predicted a 3-2 Romania win and as this preview shows, that did not end up happening. Of course I will keep trying until I am correct and this time round I feel fairly confident in a convincing Netherlands win.

Both sides have been strong upfront though so I do expect Turkey to get at least one goal however the lack of Demiral, who also provides a needed defensive presence for his nation, matched with Netherlands depth of talent should prove too much for Turkey to overcome.

Merih Demiral made 1⃣7⃣ clearances against Austria. The most of any player at the European Championships since 2008 😳 pic.twitter.com/dZkN6bXwoT

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) July 2, 2024

I’ll go with a 3-1 scoreline with Gakpo, Depay and Malen all bagging a goal and Calhanoglu scoring a consolation for Turkey in his return, with the Dutch advancing to the final four.