Zurich, June 17:

Italy advanced to the quarter-finals of the European Championship with a 2-0 win over 10-man France today.

Andrea Pirlo put Italy in front with a penalty in the 25th minute after Eric Abidal was sent off for a foul on Luca Toni, and Daniele De Rossi made it 2-0 with a deflected free kick in the 62nd. Italy will next face Group D winners Spain on Sunday in Vienna, although they will be without key midfielders Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso after the pair got their second yellow cards of the tournament.

It was Italy’s first win over France without the help of a penalty shootout in 30 years, the last occasion being a 2-1 win at the 1978 World Cup. Italy beat France in a shootout in the 2006 World Cup final and the teams also met twice in qualifying for Euro 2008. The French won 3-1 in Paris and the teams drew 0-0 in Milan.

But the Italians still needed help from the Netherlands to be sure of their place in the next round, getting it when the Dutch beat Romania 2-0 in the other Group C match. The Netherlands won the group with a maximum nine points and Italy finished second with four. Romania exited with two points and France finished last with just one.

France were always at a disadvantage from the seventh minute when winger Franck Ribery collapsed before being carried off with an injury to his left leg. That robbed France of

perhaps their greatest attacking threat and Italy got the chance to take control when Toni stretched acrobatically to control a long pass from over his head with the tip of his foot, luring Abidal into pulling him down from behind.

Abidal was sent from the field and Pirlo dispatched the kick emphatically. Italy got their next bit of good fortune in the second half when De Rossi’s free kick deflected in off Thierry

Henry, who stuck out his boot from his position at the end of France’s defensive wall.

Perfect Dutch

BERN: Second-choice striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar made sure a makeshift Netherlands sent Romania out of the European Championship on Tuesday with a 2-0 win.

Huntelaar, the replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy, killed off much of the suspense hanging over the game by tapping in a left-field cross from Ibrahim Afellay in the 54th minute. Robin van Persie added the other in the 87th.

A strangely listless Romania, playing their biggest game in eight years, never pushed forward with passion and aggression and depended far too much on a few flashes of brilliance from striker Adrian Mutu.

The Dutch obliged and proved their second-string lineup is sound and solid, if not sparkling and spectacular. Players were always going to be on edge, with Romania looking for an unlikely place in the quarter-finals and the Netherlands fielding a ‘B’ squad with nine replacements.

The famed ‘clockwork orange’ which led to a lopsided 3-0 win over Italy and a 4-1 rout over France was nowhere in sight. The Dutch team, clad all in orange, had little of the magic of their teammates sitting on the bench. They were nervous, and often could not control the simplest play in the first half.

Romania, however, were strangely lackluster with so much at play.

Once they lost possession, they withdrew far into their half as if a draw would suffice to go through.

In the whole match, Maarten Stekelenburg, a replacement for Edwin van der Sar in goal, did not have a decent save to make. In the dying minutes, Romania squandered at least two good chances. Mutu was the only one getting through the Dutch duct-tape defense. With close control he wrestled a ball across the face of goal in the 24th minute. And with a flowing action on the half hour, he left Wilfred Bouma standing but rifled his shot from the edge of the area just wide.

On the stroke of halftime, Mutu was again involved when he broke on the left and passed into the center where Paul Codrea shot just over. The Dutch were not taking it lying down. They had about 20,000 fans at the 30,000-capacity Stade de Suisse to please.

Through Van Persie and Arjen Robben, who came on and scored against the French, they were dangerous on the wings, but Huntelaar was no replacement for Van Nistelrooy.

Results

Italy 2 (Pirlo 25’ (P), De Rossi, 62’) France 0

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Netherlands 1 (Huntelaar 54’, Van Persie 87’) Romania 0