Netherlands national football team

The Netherlands national football team (Dutch: Het Nederlands Elftal) represents the Netherlands in international football. It is controlled by the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB), the governing body for football in the Netherlands.

The team is colloquially referred to as Het Nederlands Elftal (The Dutch Eleven) and Oranje, after the House of Orange-Nassau. Like the country itself, the team is sometimes (also colloquially) referred to as Holland.

The Dutch hold the record for playing the most World Cup finals without ever winning the tournament. They finished second in the 1974, 1978 and 2010 World Cups, losing to West Germany, Argentina and Spain respectively. They won the UEFA European Championship in 1988.

History

The Netherlands played their first international match in Antwerp against Belgium on 30 April 1905. The players were selected by a five-member commission from the Dutch football association. After 90 minutes, the score was 1–1, but because the match was for a trophy (the "Coupe van den Abeele"), the game went into extra time, in which Eddy de Neve scored three times, making the score 4–1 for the Dutch side.

FIFA 16

FIFA 16 is an association football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android and iOS.

The game is the first in the FIFA series to include female players. It is also the first in which the players on the covers were chosen by popular vote, including the first women to appear on the cover. Martin Tyler and Alan Smith are the commentators for the game.

The game received generally positive reviews on its release in September 2015, with writers praising its realism.

Gameplay

FIFA 16 includes female footballers, with 12 women's national teams: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. Notably missing is 2015 World Cup runner-up Japan, whose federation has a partnership with rival video game company Konami (the maker of rival soccer game franchise Pro Evolution Soccer). At the time of initial release, three modes are available for the women's teams - offline friendlies (Match Day), online friendlies and a tournament mode based on the FIFA Women's World Cup.

Sergio Padt

Sergio Padt (born 6 June 1990) is a Dutch footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for FC Groningen in the Dutch Eredivisie. Padt previously played on loan from AFC Ajax for HFC Haarlem in the Eerste Divisie, and later for Go Ahead Eagles and in the Belgian Pro League for AA Gent. He represented the Netherlands U-17 team at the 2007 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship.

Club career

AFC Ajax

Prior to joining Ajax, Padt played for R.K.S.V. Pancratius and SV Hoofddorp. On 28 March 2008, he signed his first contract for Ajax, whereupon Ajax technical director Martin van Geel stated "The strength of Sergio is that he is a complete player. He is tall, can join in playing the ball, is good in one-on-one situations and has everything that I expect as an Ajax-goalkeeper."

HFC Haarlem

In early 2010, Padt was sent out on loan to Eerste Divisie side HFC Haarlem to gain more experience. He made his debut on 22 January 2010 in a 0–3 away loss to SBV Excelsior. It would turn out to be his only match for Haarlem because the club soon afterward went into bankruptcy, meaning he had to return to Ajax for the remainder of the 2009–10 season.

FIFA

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA /ˈfiːfə/; English:International Federation of Association Football) is the governing body of association football, futsal and beach football. FIFA is responsible for the organisation of football's major international tournaments, notably the World Cup which commenced in 1930 and the Women's World Cup which commenced in 1991.

FIFA was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, its membership now comprises 209 national associations. Member countries must each also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: Africa, Asia, Europe, North & Central America and the Caribbean, Oceania and South America.

Although FIFA does not control the rules of football (that being the responsibility of the International Football Association Board), it is responsible for both the organization of a number of tournaments and their promotion, which generate revenue from sponsorship. In 2013 FIFA had revenues of over 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, for a net profit of 72 million, and had cash reserves of over 1.4 billion U.S. dollars.