The opening match of the European Championship in Munich has come to an end football 2024. In the first meeting of the Euro, the hosts of the tournament, the Germans, confidently beat the Scottish team with a crushing score of 5:1. Sports is about the start of a football festival, which over the next month will delight fans of both the Old World and the entire football world.
Euro14 June 2024 • starts at 22:00Finished
GermanyGermany5 : 1
ScotlandScotland
10’ • Florian Wirtz (Joshua Kimmich)
19’ • Jamal Musiala (Kai Havertz)
45’ • Kai Havertz (P)68’ • Niklas Füllkrug90’ • Emre Can (Thomas Müller)
87’ • Antonio Rüdiger (A)
See all goals
What was memorable about the opening ceremony?
- The match took place at a packed Allianz Arena, the home stadium of the country's most decorated club, Bayern;
- The performance was decorated in the colors of the teams participating in the tournament;
- Several hits were played during the show, including tracks by OneRepublic and Meduza;
- Before the teams entered the field, the crowd at the stadium was shown the hero of the occasion, the Euro trophy. It was carried out by former German national team players Jurgen Klinsmann and Bernard Dietz, as well as Heidi Beckenbauer, the widow of the famous Franz Beckenbauer;
- In addition to officials from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), cameras captured legendary coaches Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho in the stands.
Layouts before the meeting All according to the classics: in the first match of the tournament the host plays one of the teams from his quartet A. The Germans came across the Scots — perhaps the weakest team in the group, which also included Hungary and Switzerland. Accordingly, experts did not see any intrigue in the debut match of one of the tournament favorites.
The statistics were also not encouraging for the “Tartan Army”: six wins for Germany and two draws in the last eight matches with Scotland (there were 17 matches in total — 8-4 in favor of the Bundesmannschaft). And if we add to this the Germans’ performance at home and the desire to get even for Euro 2020, which ended for the “German machine” with the earliest breakdown since 2004 (elimination in the 1/8 finals by England), we get a high probability of defeat for the poor guests.< br>
Expected humiliation The Scots were destroyed already in the first half — the second half of the meeting became a formality. In the 10th minute, the first goal of Euro 2024 was scored with a shot off the post by Florian Wirtz — the best Bundesliga footballer of the past season became the youngest goal scorer in the history of the German national team at the European Championships and the youngest scorer of the first goal at the Old World Championship.
Less than nine minutes had passed, and goalkeeper Angus Gunn again took the ball out of the net. Following the Bayer star, Jamal Musiala scored, diving over the goalkeeper after an accurate pass from Kai Havertz. In 19 minutes, two young men from the top 3 most expensive players in the world under 21 (the leader is Englishman Jude Bellingham) made the difference, allowing the Germans to relax and enjoy the start of their home Euro.
In the 45th minute, things started to look really bad for Scotland . Not only did Havertz convert the penalty, but the visitors were left in the minority: defender Ryan Porteous was sent off from the field for a rough tackle on Ilkay Gundogan.
In the second half, the German pressure subsided a little. That didn’t stop striker Niklas Füllkrug from scoring the fourth with a beautiful volley into the far top corner. And then the forward of Borussia Dortmund could have scored a double, but the goal was canceled due to an offside position… True, four goals for the players of Julian Nagelsmann, who became the youngest coach in the history of the European Championship, was not enough — already in In stoppage time, Emre Can accurately struck from inside the penalty area.
How to console the thousands of Scots who filled the streets of Munich and the stadium sector? Good luck, which smiled on the team at the very end. We didn't create a single chance — an own goal came to the rescue! It was Antonio Rüdiger who cut into his own goal in the 87th minute, upsetting Manuel Neuer, who did not enter the game.
Some interesting facts:
- < li class="article__list-item">this victory was the largest in the opening matches of the Euro;
- Germany scored three goals in the first half at the European Championship for the first time in history;
- Never before have the Germans scored five goals in one match at the Euro .
What matches await us this weekend? Today Hungary will meet with Switzerland — the match in Cologne will start at 16:00 Moscow time. Later, the teams from Quartet B, also called the “group of death”, will enter the game: at 19:00 in Berlin the Spaniards will try to defeat Croatia, and at 22:00 the reigning European champion Italy will confidently defeat the Albanians in Dortmund.
Scheduled for Sunday the following matches:
- 16:00 /Hamburg/Poland – Netherlands ;
- 19:00/Stuttgart/Slovenia — Denmark;
- 22:00/Gelsenkirchen/Serbia — England.