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The automatic qualifiers are in place for the 2016 European Championships and for the first time in 30 years, the Dutch are not among them.

The Netherlands needed a win in Amsterdam against the Czech Republic and group winners Iceland to defeat Turkey to advance to a playoff with other third place finishers but got neither. The Czechs carved up a shambolic Dutch defense to fly to a three-nil lead despite going down to ten men after center back Marek Suchy was sent off for a last-man foul on Memphis Depay, before two second-half goals from Klass-Jann Huntelaar and Robin van Persie brought them within one.

Petr Cech and the Czech republic, however, held strong to keep out the 2010 World Cup runners up Unusual as the underachieving Oranje are, the story of the Euros are tiny Iceland and Northern Ireland who won their respective groups to reach their first-ever Euro finals.

Joining them as group winners are usual suspects Germany, Belgium, Spain, England and Italy as well as Austria and Portugal. Albania, Croatia, Wales, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Romania, Russia and hosts France.

Playoffs will be contested next month to fill out the final four places between Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Slovenia, Ukraine, Denmark and Bosnia-Herzegovina

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