The last time the European Championships were held in France was 1984, which coincidentally was also the last time the Netherlands failed to qualify. Back then, only eight teams made it through to the finals, and only the winners of each qualification group were deemed good enough, so it was a pretty tough selection process.
On that occasion the Dutch were battling Spain for the only place in their group, and the two sides went into their respective last games, both against Malta, level on points. It was a straight shoot-out to decide the qualification place -- whoever beat Malta by more goals would go through.