Holland 0 Denmark 1

The highly fancied Dutch suffered a potenitally fatal defeat in their opening match against a dogged Denmark in Kharkiv.

Denmark, who had struggled to score goals in qualifying, looked bereft of ideas going forward for long spells, instead relying on set piece delivery for their only real threat. After eighteen minutes they finally unlocked the door as Robben played a clever one-two with Van Persie to get free inside the box. As most waited for the Bayern Munich man to pick his spot he chose, wrongly, to try to square the ball for others. Despite the opportunity being on his unfavoured right foot, you still can't help but wonder whether his disappointment in the Champions League Final last month has affected his confidence in front of goal.

What was starting to look like an exercise in attack against defence, with Sneijder, Robben and Van Persie probing the Danish backline for a way through, was turned completely on its head after a quarter of an hour. Enjoying a rare foray into Dutch territory, Krohn-Dehli reacted fastest to a blocked cross to works his way into a shooting position. His low shot, which went through the legs of Stekelenburg, stunned the Dutch and sparked the Danish support into life. Despite the goal, the remainder of the half followed a similar pattern with Holland keeping the ball and Denmark keeping two well organised banks of four protecting their goal.

For all their pressure, however, on only one occasion did they actually look like scoring. Again it was Robben who picked up the ball from an awful kick out by Andersen, before side footing it against the outside of the post.

The second half saw Holland up the tempo considerably. Inside the first five minutes, Van Persie, Van Bommel, Heitinga and Afellay all had opportunities to score as the pressure built up on the plucky Danes. Eventually, with twenty minutes left, Bert van Marwijk remembered he had a 50 goal striker on the bench and sent Huntelaar on to partner the misfiring Van Persie. His introduction made little difference though as Denmark, marshaled superbly by Agger and Kjaer, held firm to secure a memorable victory and place Dutch qualification under threat. This, after all, was supposed to be their easy match with games against Portugal and rivals Germany still to come. The Group of Death may have found it's victim already.