EDEGEM, Yugoslavia, June 22 (Reuters) - Yugoslavia coach Vujadin Boskov upped the ante on Thursday ahead of his side's Euro 2000 Quarter-final by suggesting their Dutch opponents were not as good a team as they were two years ago.

The veteran coach made his remarks after being reminded that Yugoslavia lost 2-1 to the Netherlands the last time they met, at the 1998 World Cup finals in France.

'I think the Dutch national team was better two years ago than it is now,' he said at the squad's base in the Belgian town of Edegem, where the Yugoslavs were trying to put the previous evening's extraordinary 4-3 defeat by Spain behind them.

'They had bigger names and better players,' the 69-year-old former Sampdoria coach said of the Dutch. Boskov's comments may come as something of a surprise to many observers, as the Dutch Euro 2000 side is composed largely of the same players who reached the semifinals in France.

But they could be seen as an unsettling salvo from a wily old campaigner in the psychologocial battle leading up to Sunday's match in Rotterdam.

The much-travelled Boskov has first-hand knowledge of Dutch soccer, having worked as a coach in the Netherlands in the 1970s. He won the Dutch cup with Den Haag and also had a spell in charge of Feyenoord.

'Football's a very popular game in the Netherlands. They start playing at the age of eight,' Boskov reflected. 'We have to show 100 percent respect to this Dutch team.'

Unsurprisingly after such a stunning game, much of the talk at the Yugoslav camp on Thursday was still focused on the match in Bruges, where Boskov's team led three times and lost out to two injury time goals including, a controversial penalty.

In a match that served up just about everything football has to offer, the Yugoslavs also kept up their record of having a player send off in every one of their games so far.

Boskov insisted, however, the Yugoslavs were playing fairly. 'My opinion is that the Yugoslav national team is getting yellow cards more easily than other teams,' he said.

'Other players from other teams are playing a tougher game and not getting any yellow cards,' he added, although he shied away from saying his team was being discriminated against.

The Spain match was the second outstanding game of the tournament involving the Yugoslavs, who came back from 3-0 down with only 10 men to get a draw with Slovenia in their opener.

Their record of seven goals for and seven against makes them both the joint top scorers and the side which has conceded most goals among the teams who have qualified for the knockout stage.

Boskov was unapologetic, however, when one journalist asked if the team was perhaps playing too open a game. 'We're playing a very attacking game in this tournament,' he said. 'We're playing to provide a spectacle for the people in the stadium and those watching on television.'

He also could not resist a swipe at two big footballing nations already out of the tournament when it was suggested the Yugoslavs were taking things too easy in their games and this could be the reason for the high number of goals conceded.

'It's better to play this way than like the Germans or the English,' Boskov responded.