Austria 3-4 Netherlands, Let’s Hope This Was a Euro 2008 Preview

Of all the friendlies involving Euro 2008 teams yesterday, you probably wouldn’t have picked this as the thriller. A struggling Austrian team taking on the Netherlands.

But Austria were 1-0 up after six minutes in Vienna, 2-0 afte 18 and 3-0 after 35 minutes with one goal from Andreas Ivanschitz, and two headers Sebastian Prodl.

Then the Netherlands comeback began. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar made it 3-1 just a couple of minutes after Prodl’s second goal. John Heitinga narrowed the gap to 3-2 after Rafael Van der Vaart’s cute backheel in the 67th minute and then Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink – the biggest name in football – emerged from the bench to level things at 3-3 in the 80th minute.

But because nothing seems to go right for Austria, Hesselink set up Klaas-Jan Huntelaar to score the winner on 84 minutes.

Amazing stuff, with Holland coming from three down to claim victory. Not sure whether it’s encouraging for Austria that trhey managaged to go three up, or worrying that they somehow turned that into defeat. Either way, fingers crossed that all the games are even half this dramatic when Austria co-host Euro 2008 in June.