kist spot on for dutch against greece published: saturday 4 october 2003, 11.19cet
the tournament underdogs impressed for long periods but it was the dutch who started with a win thanks to kees kist's penalty.
expected to stroll to victory, the netherlands ultimately did just enough to see off greece in their 1980 opener.
greece were the overwhelming underdogs for the tournament as a whole but did not seem prepared to stick to the script against a dutch side who, two years previously, had suffered their second successive fifa world cup final defeat.
as it transpired, it was greece who were often the better-looking team in naples. thomas mavros was a particular handful, forcing piet schrijvers off the pitch after a collision and heading the ball towards georgios kostikos, who just failed to reach it two metres out.
the dutch, though, had a happy knack of doing what was required; second best for much of the match, they still edged to victory. mavros was in the process of dribbling the ball out of his penalty area when the referee spotted a foul by vasilis konstantinou on dick nanninga. kees kist, who had earlier drawn a fine save from the goalkeeper, beat him from the penalty spot and that was that.
