The Netherlands placed first in Group E of the World Cup 2010 tournament, after winning against Cameroon by 2-1 and having three victories in three group stage matches. Before the game in Cape Town Stadium started, the Netherlands were undefeated in their last 21 official matches, undefeated in every World Cup group stage match since 1994, and undefeated against all African nations.
Despite all these records, Cameroon was the team that started stronger and had a good chance 11 minutes in the game: Landry N’Guémo sent a corner right in the heart of the Dutch defence, but Jean Makoun’s close header barely missed the target. 8 minutes later Robin van Persie missed against goalkeeper Souleymanou Hamidou, but in the next good chance for the Netherlands van Persie beat Hamidou to open the score for his team.
The second half also started with Cameroon having the overall ball possession, and creating chances for goal from every angle inside the penalty area. In 64′ Geremi Njitap took a foul shot that Rafael van der Vaart stopped using his arm, forcing the referee to give a penalty to Cameroon. Samuel Eto’o did not miss the target, putting his national team back in the game. The last goal of the game came after a counter attack from the Netherlands: Arjen Robben fired a powerful shot hitting the post, and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar took the rebound to push the ball in the back of the net. Nothing changed in the game after that second goal for the Netherlands, that successfully made the 3×3 in Group E on the World Cup 2010 in South Africa.
