Luxembourg-Netherlands matches

Luxembourg-Netherlands matches 1920-2017

Introduction

Although close geographically, and staunchly amateur, Luxembourg were no favourite friendly opponents of the Dutch team in the long period before the introduction of professionalism. Instead, the regional selection from the southern Netherlands played a considerable amount (28) of friendlies against the team from the Grand Duchy between 1921 and 1956 (with Zuid-Nederland enjoying a winning record, but not by much as Luxembourg won nearly a third (8) of those matches).
If the Netherlands have played Luxembourg quite often nevertheless, that is because the two were drawn together in qualifying tournaments rather a lot. Apart from Belgium, no country played more competitive matches against the Netherlands than Luxembourg, 16 in all, and in European Championship qualifying the Grand Duchy are Oranje's unchallenged most frequent opponents with 8 matches. The first two of these constitute the greatest humiliation of Dutch football, already professional for nearly a decade by the time, and the greatest ever success for Luxembourg.

The two met at the round of 16 stage of the 1964 European Nations Cup, after the Netherlands had eliminated Switzerland and Luxembourg had received a bye in the first round. In between eliminating Switzerland and playing Luxembourg, the Netherlands played two friendlies, both won 1-0 – against France and reigning world champions Brazil.
As was usance at the time (also in UEFA club tournaments), Luxembourg waived home advantage and agreed to play both matches in the Netherlands, where crowds would be guaranteed to be much bigger (if only because of the size of the stadiums), and so would be the financial gain. The first match was played in Amsterdam and resulted in a 1-1 draw. The second match was in Rotterdam (Luxembourg's nominal home match), where the supposed minnows had won before (5-4 in the first ever friendly between the two sides in 1940), and they did it again, defeating the Brazil Beaters 2-1 thanks to two goals by Camille Dimmer to qualify for the quarter-finals of the tournament. Once there, they proved they actually had a good side at the time, forcing Denmark to two draws (3-3 in Luxembourg and 2-2 in Denmark), after having led in both matches. The deciding play-off was staged in Amsterdam, but Dutch soil didn't bring Luxembourg any more luck as they lost 0-1 – one goal away from the semi-finals of the prime European tournament! (Denmark instead earned a semi-final appearance by playing Malta, Albania and Luxembourg – surely the luckiest draw ever for semi-finalists of any major tournament, albeit run close by the Olympic semi-final appearances of Finland in 1912, thanks to wins over Italy and Russia, neither then the powers they later became, and Egypt in 1928, after defeating Turkey and Portugal, who both still needed several decades before first emerging as first class opponents.)

Since that win in 1963, Luxembourg went eight matches without scoring against the Netherlands, in spite of actually staging a couple at home, before converting a penalty in 2016. However, three of the four most recent encounters were close affairs, resulting in two meagre 1-0 wins and one 3-1 victory by Oranje.

Official Matches

All matches listed are friendlies unless otherwise stated.

Game Date        Venue         Result                       Remark

  1. 28- 8-1920  Brussel       Netherlands 3-0 Luxembourg   [Olympic Games]
  2. 28-11-1937  Rotterdam     Netherlands 4-0 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]
  3. 31- 3-1940  Rotterdam     Netherlands 4-5 Luxembourg      
  4. 10- 3-1946  Luxembourg    Luxembourg  2-6 Netherlands 
  5. 20- 3-1957  Rotterdam     Netherlands 4-1 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]
  6. 11- 9-1957  Rotterdam     Netherlands 5-2 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]
  7. 11- 9-1963  Amsterdam     Netherlands 1-1 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
  8. 30-10-1963  Rotterdam     Netherlands 1-2 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
  9.  4- 9-1968  Rotterdam     Netherlands 2-0 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]
 10. 26- 3-1969  Rotterdam     Netherlands 4-0 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]
 11. 24- 2-1971  Rotterdam     Netherlands 6-0 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
 12. 17-11-1971  Eindhoven     Netherlands 8-0 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
 13.  7- 9-1994  Luxembourg    Luxembourg  0-4 Netherlands  [European Champ. Qual.]
 14. 14-12-1994  Rotterdam     Netherlands 5-0 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
 15.  2- 9-2006  Luxembourg    Luxembourg  0-1 Netherlands  [European Champ. Qual.]
 16. 17-11-2007  Rotterdam     Netherlands 1-0 Luxembourg   [European Champ. Qual.]
 17. 13-11-2016  Luxembourg    Luxembourg  1-3 Netherlands  [World Cup Qualifier]
 18.  9- 6-2017  Rotterdam     Netherlands 5-0 Luxembourg   [World Cup Qualifier]

Overviews


Total record:

Luxembourg           18  2  1 15  14- 67   5
Netherlands          18 15  1  2  67- 14  31

Some more stats:

                     Pd  L  D  N  LG- NG

In Luxembourg:        4  0  0  4   3- 14
In the Netherlands:  13  2  1 10  11- 50
Elsewhere:            1  0  0  1   0-  3

Luxembourg - List of International Matches
Netherlands - List of International Matches

About this document

Prepared and maintained by Karel Stokkermans for the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation

Author: Karel Stokkermans
Last updated: 26 Sep 2024