France Off To Winning BEGIN IN 'Group of Death'
16 June, 2021
France 1-0 Germany
France came out at the top against Germany with a 1-0 victory in a Euro 2020 Group F heavyweight clash in Munich on Tuesday.
France were showing more of the attacking threat in the opening exchanges and in the 16th minute, Paul Pogba must have at least got his header on target from Antoine Griezmann's corner.
Four minutes later, Le Bleus took the lead. Pogba picked out Lucas Hernandez down the left with a pinpoint diagonal and the Bayern Munich left-back volleyed the ball in to the centre of the box with German centre-back Mats Hummels unable to adjust himself with time, shinning the ball into his own net.
The Mannschaft almost levelled matters immediately when Thomas Muller headed wide from Robin Gosens' delivery, before Gosens delivered once more into the box and Serge Gnabry laid it off to Ilkay Gundogan whose first-time effort went wide of the post just before the break.
The first opportunity of the next half was made by the visitors. Kylian Mbappe played a through-ball down the within left-channel release a Juventus midfielder Adrien Rabiot, who should have squared for Griezmann, but went it alone and hit the upright.
Germany then missed a decent potential for their own. Gosens submitted another terrific cross to choose Gnabry at the far post and the Bayern attacker's effort went in to the ground before bouncing up and agonisingly over the crossbar.
Joachim Loew's side were piling on the pressure but France were looking threatening on the break and had goals disallowed from Mbappe and Karim Benzema because of marginal offsides.
Germany were much improved in the second half and using an impressive intensity but Didier Deschamps' side were able to absorb the pressure and close out a hard-fought and narrow victory.
Hungary 0-3 Portugal
Portugal commenced their European Championship title defence with a 3-0 win over Hungary on Tuesday night.
Bortugal broke quickly and Diogo Jota shrugged off Attila Szalai before swivelling and striking low with Peter Gulacsi making an excellent save and palming it away to safety.
10 minutes later, Pepe found Ronaldo with an outstanding ball outrageous and the Juventus star attemptedto chip the ball over an onrushing Gulacsi, who did well to help make the save shortly before the offside flag went up.
Ronaldo was guilty of missing a complete sitter just before half-time. Jota's cross from the proper found its way to an unmarked Ronaldo at the back post, who unmarked, but he somehow skied his effort over the bar from close-range.
The Selecao eventually found the breakthrough six minutes from time with a slice of luck. Rafa Silva delivered a low cross from the right-hand that fell straight to Raphael Guerreiro, whose shot took a huge deflection off Willi Orban before wrong-footing Gulacsi.
And the lead was doubled only a few minutes afterwards. Orban pulled back Rafa Silva with Ronaldo making no mistake with the spot-kick as he sent Gulacsi the wrong way to become the tournament's all-time leading scorer.
And the four-time Ballon d'Or winner put the overall game beyond bed in stoppage time to score his 106th international goal and 11 in Euros history after rounding the goalkeepeer to fire into a clear net.
Source: www.soccerladuma.co.za