Soccer-Skilled Dutch team stronger together, says Gakpo
(Reuters) - While the Dutch squad is brimming with individual talent, the strong camaraderie between the players is what can help them realise their ambitions to secure the European Championship after 36 years, forward Cody Gakpo said.

With a historical reputation for feuding and infighting, divisions in the camp have widely been blamed for the derailment of some of Netherland's previous European Championship campaigns, most notably 1996 and 2012.

Netherlands struggled through the group stage of the 1996 Euros during which midfielder Edgar Davids was dismissed after alleging discrimination within the team. They were eventually eliminated in the quarter-finals by France.

In the 2012 tournament, the Dutch finished at the bottom of their group with winger Arjen Robben attributing their early exit to infighting.

The Dutch, who now have a strong squad featuring the likes of Liverpool's Virgil Van Dijk, Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong and Manchester City's Nathan Ake, are hoping they can repeat their 1988 Euros victory, which was also hosted in Germany.

"I think the expectations are high," Gakpo told ESPN in an interview published on Wednesday. "I think we have on paper a very, very good team, with big names.

"But I think we as a group are tight as well with each other, and I think we expect a lot from each other because we've known each other a long time. We know what the other is capable of, so we have a lot of expectations on ourselves.

"I don't know what the outside world's perceptions are of us, but we want to achieve the highest possible (target) and that's winning the Euros. It's going to be very difficult, but that's what we aim for."

The Dutch host Canada on Thursday and Iceland on Monday in warm-up friendlies before heading to the Euros, where their first Group D game is against Poland in Hamburg on June 16.

(Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
(Reuters) -     While the Dutch squad is brimming with individual talent, the strong camaraderie between the players is what can help them realise their ambitions to secure the European Championship after 36 years, forward Cody Gakpo said.