Copa America and Euro 2024 | Duo reach semi-finals

Micky van de Ven and Rodrigo Bentancur made it to the respective semi-finals of Euro 2024 and the Copa America on Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

Micky was again in action as a second-half substitute as the Netherlands came from a goal down to beat Turkey 2-1, booking their place in the last four of the European Championship.

As has been the case in all but one of the Netherlands’ five games at the tournament so far, Micky replaced Nathan Ake at left-back in the latter stages of the contest.

His arrival in Berlin on Saturday evening came in the 73rd minute, moments after Stefan de Vrij had equalised for the Dutch, cancelling out Samet Akaydin’s first-half opener for Turkey.

And just three minutes later, his side were ahead as Turkey’s Mert Muldur bundled over his own goal-line under pressure.

The result means the Netherlands will now face England – who beat Switzerland on penalties earlier on Saturday – in the semi-finals in Dortmund on Wednesday evening (8pm UK).

Meanwhile, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Rodrigo helped Uruguay defeat Brazil on penalties to reach the semi-finals of the Copa America.

The midfielder came off the bench in the 67th minute of what turned out to be a goalless draw in Las Vegas, Nevada, before scoring Uruguay’s second spot-kick as they won the ensuing shootout 4-2.

Uruguay, who had Nahitan Nandez sent off just over a quarter-of-an-hour from time, will now meet Colombia in Charlotte, North Carolina in the early hours of Thursday morning (11 July, 1am UK) for a chance to reach the final.