Netherlands 2-1 Côte d'Ivoire

The Netherlands progressed into the second round after a hard-fought 2-1 win over Côte d'Ivoire with goals from Robin van Persie and Ruud van Nistelrooy. This win puts them alongside Argentina with 6 points while Serbia and Montenegro and Côte d'Ivoire were eliminated.

After Van Persie's 23rd-minute free-kick opener, Van Nistelrooij doubled the Dutch lead four minutes later but the Ivorians hit back through a spectacular Bakary Kone effort and threatened an equaliser on more than one occasion.

Despite conceding two goals, the Ivorians refused to give up. They pushed back the Orange tide with their creative play and shocked them with a goal before half-time. For long periods of the second half, Côte d'Ivoire kept up the pressure on Holland and launched waves of attacks on their goal mouth but they were missing a slight element of luck.

Said Mark van Bommel: "Until leading 2-0 we had played well, then we lost it..... We played badly but...we have to learn from it. Ivory Coast were strong opponents. They were always dangerous. I'm glad we don't have to play them again." A very frank comment on the proceedings of the match.

Soccer Pundit was pleasantly surprised by the fighting spirit and skills of the Ivorians who were not awed by the situation and took the game to the Dutch. This is without doubt one of the more entertaining matches in the World Cup so far, with end-to-end action and the Dutch had to dig deep into their reserves to cope with the high-energy level of the Ivorians.

Soccer Pundit feels that the Ivorians could improve on their finishing though as they needed far too many chances to score and you simply can't have that at the World Cup. But they will be back, i believe, stronger and sharper than before in 4 years time..