Netherlands 5-1 Sweden (Brobbey 5′, 17′, Gakpo 47′, 54′, Summerville 89′ | Elanga 59′)
NRG STADIUM – At the last World Cup, Wout Weghorst was the unlikely Dutch hero: a tall, physical, focal point centre-forward who scored twice in a game and catapulted himself into a position of prominence. Roll it back and play it again in the US.
Against Sweden in Houston, Brian Brobbey was a force of nature. He scored the fourth quickest brace in World Cup history. He won headers to create chances and held off defenders to bring the onrushing orange shirts into the move. He wrestled and rustled and hustled and bustled. And he made it all look beautiful.
This seemed unlikely a fortnight ago. Then, Memphis Depay was the centre-forward option because he was the record goalscorer and international managers lust after familiarity. When Ronald Koeman left Depay on the bench against Japan, it was in favour of Donyell Malen as a striker with Crysencio Summerville on the wing.
Had the Dutch won that game, the plan may have stayed the same. But in Houston, the record goalscorer came on for the final 20 minutes to rest the legs of the new contender. On three sides of the NRG Stadium, orange shirts rose to their feet to applaud and cheer. Brobbey turned in a circle as he jogged off, taking it all in.
Brian Brobbey showing why he was picked to start for the Netherlands
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 20, 2026pic.twitter.com/MSUMT89o4d
If the last two weeks have been weird for Brobbey, this all felt like an impossibility two years ago. Brobbey was an Ajax striker going through a terrible goalscoring drought. On Dutch TV, the typically acerbic Marco van Basten was asked to assess Brobbey’s strengths.
“You have all kinds of different types of strikers,” Van Basten said. “You have big, small, fast strikers. But there are basic principles. He doesn’t master the basic things. He just argues with everything and everyone.”
On Saturday in Houston, there were three starting central strikers who call the Premier League home. One of them was signed by Arsenal for £55m and won the title. The other cost £125m and joined the side that had just won it. Viktor Gyokeres missed chances. Alexander Isak created them but made a terrible mistake in the buildup to a Dutch goal.
Brobbey put them both in the shade: the movement, the strength, the timing of the runs, the work and the finishing. It was a complete centre-forward performance and he merits keeping his place throughout this tournament. On this evidence, the Netherlands can still go far.
Brobbey did not cost £55m or £125m. He did not join a recent or future Premier League title winner. When Sunderland approached Ajax last summer as a newly promoted club, they negotiated an up-front fee of £17m and viewed him as competition for places rather than a statement signing.
“I think it was time for a new challenge in my football career,” Brobbey said. “Sunderland was the club who showed the most interest in me.” Brutally honest: sometimes footballers just want to be loved.
Forget starting a first World Cup match – Brobbey didn’t even make his first Sunderland start until December. He had scored four league goals in the previous Eredivisie season and then failed to hit the ground running in England. A career was drifting, no doubt.
Over the course of the following six months, something changed in Brobbey. It helped that Sunderland serviced him impeccably, either asking him to win direct balls in the air or down the channels or making him the final element of a counter-attacking move. In doing so, they reignited a career.
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Ordinarily, elite overperformance at a major tournament might earn a player a transfer. Sunderland would insist that Brobbey already made that move – they were simply 12 months ahead of the power curve. Just another way in which their recruitment last summer was magnificent.
Still, it was fascinating how a career can shift over the course of an hour. A Chelsea supporter I know got chatty in WhatsApp about thinking he could lead the line as a Liam Delap replacement. In a Tottenham Hotspur Reddit channel, users were discussing how effective he would be at bringing the wingers into play.
For now, let’s just let a man enjoy himself and a nation fall in love with another unlikely World Cup icon. Brobbey’s is an extraordinary redemption arc, from struggling to relevance at club level to leading his country in the space of two years. There is no secret, simply hard work, improvement and an ambitious football club who created a perfect environment.
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