Own Goal Gives France a Fortunate 3 Points
France luck out as own goal puts them in 2nd place in Group F after their opening match on Tuesday June 15, 2021, at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. France would take the lead early in the 20th minute off of an own goal by German defender Mats Hummels, as he fails to clear an incoming cross and ends up putting it into the upper left-hand side of the goal.
Germany would have their chances to pull one back as, arguably their best chance came early in the second half, when striker Serge Gnabry, from inside the box, fired a volley into the ground which would bounce inches over the crossbar.
Throughout the game, it looked as if France was controlling possession as they would take about 1-2 minutes in Germany’s half before creating each chance to score. Germany, on the other hand, were fast to create their chances, only spending about a minute in France’s half for each attempt, thus making it look like France is controlling the game even though Germany would end the game with 62% possession.
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3 Goals in Final 10 minutes gives Portugal a Needed 3-0 Win Against Hungary
On Tuesday June 15, 2021, in a packed Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary, reigning champs Portugal would start their campaign with a 3-0 win. A game in which it seemed would end in a draw would prove us wrong in the final minutes.
Portuguese defender Raphaël Guerreiro would open the scoring in the 84th minute with the help of a deflection off a Hungarian defender, followed by two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo: a penalty in the 87th minute, and a beautiful goal in the 92nd minute, in which he would avoid the goalie and pass it into the goal before two Hungarian defenders tried to slide in a block him. With these two goals, Ronaldo is now the Euro’s all-time leading goalscorer with 11 goals.
Aside from the final minutes, the game did not produce much. Hungary would only have one real chance in the game, coming from forward Szabolcs Schön, but it was taken back as he was offsides. As for Portugal, they looked lost in the first half as they spent a good chunk of it passing the ball from side to side, have no real attacking presence down the middle. If anything, the first half reminded us of the way Portugal played in the last Euro, in which they would sneak out of their group as a 3rd place team.
Many would consider this a needed win for Portugal, as their next two games can only get harder as they will face France and Germany.
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Here are the Standings after the first round of matches for each group:
| Group A | Pts. | Group B | Pts. | Group C | Pts. |
| Italy | 3 | Belgium | 3 | Austria | 3 |
| Wales | 1 | Finland | 3 | Netherlands | 3 |
| Switzerland | 1 | Denmark | 0 | Ukraine | 0 |
| Turkey | 0 | Russia | 0 | North Macedonia | 0 |
| Group D | Group E | Group F | |||
| Czech Republic | 3 | Slovakia | 3 | Portugal | 3 |
| England | 3 | Spain | 1 | France | 3 |
| Croatia | 0 | Sweden | 1 | Germany | 0 |
| Scotland | 0 | Poland | 0 | Hungary | 0 |
Photo: Cristiano Ronaldo, Wikipedia, Creative Commons
