Two minutes. That is all the time Japan needed to turn a loss into a draw that felt like a win.
The Netherlands drew 2-2 with Japan at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on June 15, 2026, in their Group F opener at the World Cup. Virgil van Dijk and Crysencio Summerville scored for the Dutch, but Keito Nakamura and a stoppage-time header from Daichi Kamada pulled Japan level twice, with the equalizer arriving in the 89th minute.
Final score 2-2. Van Dijk opened the scoring in the 51st minute, Nakamura leveled six minutes later in the 57th, Summerville restored the lead in the 64th, and Kamada’s header completed the comeback in the 89th. Both sides finished close on expected goals, 0.79 for the Netherlands to 0.59 for Japan, in a match that swung four times in the final forty minutes.
The first half offered almost nothing. Donyell Malen tested goalkeeper Zion Suzuki early, and Cody Gakpo fired over before the break, but neither side created a genuine opening worth remembering.
Everything changed after halftime, and it changed fast.
Van Dijk rose unmarked to head home a Ryan Gravenberch cross from a set piece in the 51st minute, his connection clean and his run completely unchallenged by a Japan defense still settling into the second half.
The lead lasted six minutes.
Takefusa Kubo found Nakamura, who drifted outside the box before rifling a low effort that took a deflection off Jan Paul van Hecke and beat Bart Verbruggen at his near post. It was scrappy, and it counted just the same.
Here’s the thing the Dutch had an answer ready almost immediately.
Summerville cut in from the right onto his weaker left foot in the 64th minute, ignored an overlapping Denzel Dumfries, and curled a finish beyond Suzuki and in off the post. It was his first international goal, and it came on the biggest stage international football offers.
Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu responded by throwing on all five of his substitutes, a gamble that pinned the Dutch back for the remainder of the match. Make no mistake, that decision changed everything that followed.
Japan kept the ball more than the Dutch in the second half, 44.7 percent to 30.8, and the pressure finally told in the 89th minute. Junya Ito’s corner found substitute Koki Ogawa, who nodded the ball onto an unmarked Kamada, and his header looped past Verbruggen and in off the crossbar.
Micky van de Ven picked up a yellow card in stoppage time for a tactical foul as the Dutch scrambled to find a winner that never arrived. Teun Koopmeiners headed over in the final minute, and the whistle went moments later.
The Netherlands led this match twice and could not hold either lead. Japan trailed twice and refused to accept either deficit. Both of those things happened in the same eleven minutes, and neither team walks away fully satisfied.