Netherlands tie with Germany

As 7.5 million Dutch fans sat glued to TV screens on Tuesday night, faith in their national soccer team's Euro 2004 success declined despite its thrilling 1-1 draw with arch-rival Germany in its opening match of the European Championship, local Dutch media reported Wednesday.

Prior to the start of the hard-fought match at the Estadio Dragao stadium in the Portuguese city of Porto, 22 percent of the Dutch population thought that the Netherlands would be eliminated after the first round.

But after Tuesday night's match, a survey on behalf of public broadcaster NOS found 26 percent of the people now think the Netherlands will not make it beyond the Pool D matches against Germany, the Czech Republic and Latvia, news agency ANP reported.

Netherlands tie with Germany

Immediately after the match, a local survey of 400 people also found that just seven percent of Dutch fans think the Netherlands will be crowned Euro 2004 champion, compared with 12 percent before the kick-off.

The respondents gave a 5.5 assessment to the Dutch team after the match, slightly less than the 6.2 given to Germany. They said Pierre van Hooijdonk was the best Dutch player of the match instead of Ruud van Nistelrooy.

They also believed that the opening German goal was the fault of goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar.

Local Dutch ratings agency KijkOnderzoek (SKO) said 7.5 million watched the duel on TV, less than the best-watched Netherlands-Germany match of all time, which was played during the European Championship in 1992. Ten million people watched that clash 14 years ago.

The Netherlands now has two matches to make good on its disappointing start to the competition. It will take on the Czech Republic on Saturday and Latvia on Wednesday next week. The Czech Republic leads Pool D after its 2-1 victory over Latvia also on Tuesday.