Arsenal pals in Dutch-England Euro showdown

Zeist : Friends or not, Dutch keeper Sari van Veenendaal will be all business when she faces her on-form Arsenal teammate and England striker Jodie Taylor in the Euro semi-final on Thursday.

Taylor is the tournament’s top scorer with five goals from just three games, after being rested for the final group game against Portugal.

She scored a hat-trick against Scotland and was on the mark against Spain in the group and France in the quarter-final.

“She’s on fire and it’s great for me to see this because of course she’s still my teammate,” the 27-year-old Van Veenendaal said at the Netherlands’ training base in Zeist.

“Every little chance is a goal. She’s a real striker, she’s running, she’s working hard, and she has the luck on her side. She’s a great player.”

“We’re good, we did a lot of extra training last season to prepare us both for the Euros so I guess she knows exactly what kind of goalkeeper I am and I know what kind of striker she is.”

“But for now we have just one job and that’s to win our next game,” added Van Veenendaal, who joined Arsenal in 2015, a year before Taylor.

Van Veenendaal conceded only once at the women’s Euro when she misjudged Belgian Tessa Wullaert’s vicious lob into the top corner, and the Netherlands have a perfect record after winning all group games and their semi-final against Sweden.

But so do England, who breezed through the group stage with ten goals for and one against before edging France 1-0 owing to Taylor’s clinical 60th-minute finish.

“I know what kind of striker she is, I’ve played more than a season with her,” says Van Veenendaal.

“I’m training every day with her so I knew she could play like this. It doesn’t really surprise me, to be honest.”