Belgium fly the flag for Europe

Late winner
All three teams qualified for the event in Beijing via the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, which the Dutch won on home soil. Their hopes of adding Olympic gold to that honour were ended yesterday as they lost 2-1 to Argentina in Shanghai, Angel Di María scoring the winning goal in extra time after Otman Bakkal had cancelled out Lionel Messi's opening goal.

Belgium response
Belgium outperformed Italy in last year's U21 finals and they had enough to oust Pierluigi Casiraghi's charges despite having Thomas Vermaelen sent off in the 17th minute. Giuseppe Rossi converted the resulting penalty – the first of two spot-kicks from the Villarreal CF striker – but the Red Devils responded thanks to two goals from Moussa Dembélé either side of a strike from Kevin Mirallas.

'Fantastic'
Belgium coach Jean- François De Sart, whose side meet Nigeria in the semi-finals on Tuesday, said: "The players were fantastic and did more than could have been expected. Losing one player at the very beginning made life extremely difficult for us, but we fielded our best lineup and we did superbly in attack. We came to China with the ambition of achieving something and are becoming stronger." The other last-four game is a South American affair as Argentina tackle Brazil.