At the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig, the Netherlands and France drew goalless in the much-anticipated Group D fixture. Both teams recorded narrow wins
At the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig, the Netherlands and France drew goalless in the much-anticipated Group D fixture.
Both teams recorded narrow wins in their opening games against Poland and Austria and hence were confident ahead of this huge game.
France is many bookmakers’ favourites and got off to a good start even without the skipper Kylian Mbappe. Le Blues had 58% possession and 6 goal attempts with 2 on target.
Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands without Frankie De Jong has not been bossing games but Shouten and Tijani Reijnders were able to face the French midfield of super Kante, Tchouameni and Griezzman.
Miscommunication between Griezzman and Rabiot prevented the French from taking the lead when the two were all alone with Verbruggen.
Coady Gakpo’s delightful curling was saved by Maignan in the 16th minute. Many chances were created and also squandered as both teams left their scoring boots home.
Xavi Simons’ strike was disallowed after Dumfries was adjudged to have interfered with Simons’ strike.
The game ended goalless with the neutrals feeling disappointed that they didn’t witness a single goal considering the attacking options of both teams.
Earlier on the day, Ukraine defeated Slovakia after going down 1-0 in the 17th minute to Ivan Schranz’s header.
Ukraine needed a response and duly did so. Oleksandr Zinchenko’s perfect pass was calmly finished by Mykola Shaparenko in the 54th minute.
Substitute Roman Yaremchuk channelled his inner Dennis Bergkamp by controlling marvellously a long pass from Shaparenko in the 80th minute and beautifully finishing it to put Ukraine 2-1 ahead. This is the result Ukraine needed because they would have been out had they lost that fixture.
Ralph Rangnick’s Austria won 3-1 against the poor Poland. Trauner scored first for Austria with a fine header with Piątek equalising for Poland to end the first half 1-1.
Baumgartner’s strike and Arnautovic’s penalty ensured an emphatic win for Austria.
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