Netherlands hit by travel chaos before England semi-final as Ronald Koeman press conference cancelled

The Netherlands have been hit by travel disruption ahead of their Euro 2024 semi-final showdown with England on Wednesday night.

The Dutch squad were due to travel from their tournament training base in Wolfsburg to Dortmund, where their last-four clash is taking place at Signal Iduna Park, via train before head coach Ronald Koeman was due to hold a pre-match press conference on Tuesday evening.

However, those plans were disrupted by a blockage on the route that caused their service to be cancelled.

Instead it is understood that the Netherlands will now fly to Dortmund later on Tuesday evening, with Koeman’s press conference - scheduled to take place at Signal Iduna Park at 6:45pm BST - also cancelled.

In a statement on Tuesday, Uefa said: "Due to the Netherlands' team travel to Dortmund having been disrupted, their arrival time has been significantly delayed and therefore no (matchday)-1 press conference will take place."

The Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) said in their own statement: "The Dutch team will not arrive in Dortmund until tonight, where the semi-final against England is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) evening.

"Players and staff were scheduled to travel from Wolfsburg to Dortmund by train this afternoon around 4pm. This train service has been cancelled due to a blockage on the route."

Koeman will hope that such unanticipated delays don’t have any impact on his side’s preparations for their first European Championship semi-final appearance since 2004.

England boss Gareth Southgate clearly does not believe the disruption will have any lingering effects on their next opponents.

At his own press conference in Dortmund on Tuesday evening, the Three Lions boss said: "We don’t play until 9pm tomorrow. There’s plenty of time. I’m sure they’ll still get dinner."

In a later interview with Uefa, Koeman also played down any potential negative for his squad.

"It was not a problem, we had a good rest this afternoon, we were on the plane for just 30 minutes, arrived at our hotel and we can have a good rest tonight,” he said.

On the game itself, Koeman, who confirmed his team had no fresh injury worries, added: “We know that there is really not much difference between the two teams, it’s really 50-50 in my opinion.

“But we will need the perfect game to win. We know they have a lot of individual qualities but both teams are really strong and it will be a good fight.

“England had to play extra time in their last game (against Switzerland) so maybe that could be a difference in the latter stages of the match.

“We are sharp, we are focused and we are looking forward to playing a good match against them.”