Holland send Romania home

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Second-half strikes from Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Robin van Persie at Bern's Stade de Suisse Wankdorf earned the Oranje - already assured of a quarter-final berth and top spot in Group C - their third win of the tournament.

Defeat for the Dutch would have seen both 2006 World Cup finalists Italy and France eliminated, but even a much-changed Holland line-up were simply too good for Romania.

Van Basten made nine changes from the team which thumped Les Bleus 4-1 last time out, with only Orlando Engelaar and Khalid Boulahrouz retained.

Piturca brought in Sorin Ghionea, Razvan Cocis, Banel Nicolita and Marius Niculae at the expense of Mirel Radoi, Florentin Petre, Dorin Goian and Daniel Niculae.

Marius Niculae came close to justifying his selection as early as the fourth minute when he lashed a well-hit snap-shot across Stekelenburg which went wide, and Adrian Mutu engineered some space for himself inside the area in the 24th minute - but Wilfred Bouma got enough on his left-footed shot on the turn to avert the danger.

At the other end, Arjen Robben latched onto Huntelaar's neat flick and looked to slot his shot into the bottom left corner with the outside of his left boot, but the Real Madrid man saw his strike trickle agonisingly just the wrong side of the post.

Van Persie almost scored a sublime goal within four minutes of the restart when he pulled down a long ball with his left foot, took one more touch to turn and then got a right-footed shot away which Bogdan Lobont got down well to save - however, Van Basten did not have to wait too much longer to see his side deservedly open the scoring.

Ibrahim Afellay played in the cross from the right, Orlando Engelaar's dummy had the Romanian defence all at sea and Huntelaar timed his run to perfection to slot past Lobont in the 55th minute.

Then, in the 88th minute, man of the match Van Persie set Italian hearts at rest by controlling the ball on his chest, shaking off the attentions of Cosmin Contra and blasting a left-footed sizzler past Bogdan Lobont.