Arlington (USA). Japan held the Netherlands to a 2-2 draw in the Group F match of the FIFA World Cup 2026, thanks to a brilliant goal scored at the last minute by Daichi Kamada. In this exciting match played on Sunday night at Dallas Stadium, Netherlands had come very close to victory, but in the 89th minute, Kamada scored a goal and gave Japan an important point.
Netherlands dominated for most of the match. The team maintained better control of the ball and created many offensive chances in the first half. Japan’s goalkeeper Jion Suzuki made brilliant saves to keep his team in the contest. In the 51st minute of the second half, Virgil van Dijk gave the Netherlands a 1-0 lead with a brilliant header from Ryan Gravenburch’s accurate pass.
However, Japan did not wait long and in the 57th minute, Keto Nakamura scored from outside the box on an excellent pass from Takefusa Kubo to level the score at 1-1. After this, in the 64th minute, Crescencio Somerville scored a goal to give Netherlands a 2-1 lead again. It seemed that the Dutch team would start their campaign with a win, but Japan did not give up till the end.
In the 89th minute of the match, Daichi Kamada scored the decisive goal to make the score 2-2 and snatch the victory from the hands of Netherlands. With this draw, both the teams had to be satisfied with one point each. This match was also special because the Netherlands had never before lost a match in the World Cup in which it had taken the lead twice. But Japan also broke this record of the Dutch team by sending the ball into Bart Verbruggen’s goal on the last corner kick.
