UEFA Euro 2016 Round of 16 day 2 wrap-up
France 2-1 Ireland
Three favorites were on the pitch to resume action in this Euro 2016. France, the host country, was the first team to play in Stade de Lyon. The Irish would take a quick lead when after just 60 seconds, Brady was fouled in the penalty area by Pogba. Brady converted the opportunity. Ireland led at the break but France made a few tactical changes and came back with better intentions and aggresively attacked the opponent. Once again France scored in the second half (all 6 goals have come in the second half for France in this Euro) and Griezmann saved the French with two goals in just 3 minutes.
Coach Deschamps reacts on moving forward to the quarterfinals:
“I knew it was going to be a difficult match, and when Ireland took the lead it made us a bit more uncomfortable in the first half. They showed a lot of enthusiasm but we had to dig deep, get through the situation and get in front.vIreland were quite deep so we wanted to get Griezmann closer to Giroud, bring on some pace with Coman and use the wings a bit better. But above all, to get more presence up front – the four attacking players all created chances.
In the second half we saw more fluidity. I raised my voice at half-time, but we needed to keep calm and shake things up – wake them up a little bit. The players played their part as well. It’s a very even tournament. This team is giving a lot of emotion to the crowd and making everybody fall in love with them. There’s lots of emotion here in Lyon and we really need this great support from the fans”.
Germany 3-0 Slovakia
The World Champions Germany perfectly negotiated their Round of 16 with an easy 3-0 win. Boateng sent the Germans the right way with an early goal after just 8 minutes. The scoreboard could have been 2-0 just 5 minutes after if Ozil would not have missed his penalty. But right before the break and ten minutes in the second half, the Germans finished the Slovakians who did not have solutions against such a world class armada.
Coach Low is satisfied with the performance and eying Spain or Italy as next opponent:
“Of course, like any other side, we’ve had our problems getting into the tournament because there are a lot of tactics in the group stage as teams can go through with three points. With all due respect to Slovakia, this is no pointer that we are going to dominate this tournament. We are still going to have to improve.
In fact we have to improve if we want to have a say in this tournament. We can’t give our opponents any space in the next game and we have to take our chances as we won’t get as many. Both [Italy and Spain] are among the favourites; Italy are incredibly strong in defense and have a very good attack as we saw in the first two games. The Spanish have the best attacking game we’ve seen over recent years. The two sides differ but they are both real favorites”.
Hungary 0-4 Belgium
The score dos not transpire what happened on the pitch. Indeed Belgium opened the score after just 9 minutes but failed after to add on to the lead which gave plenty of confidence to the Hungarians. Hungary had many chances to level the match but could not find the target. On the contrary, Hungary let much energy fighting back and fell in the last 15 minutes conceding 3 goals.
Coach Wilmots on Hazard and De Bruyne
“I told Eden [Hazard] that I wanted him to score a goal by cutting inside. He hadn’t been getting close enough to the goal and he needs to have fun when he’s out on the pitch. A captain can’t always do his talking with his mouth, sometimes you have to do your talking with your feet and that’s what he did today.
We should have been at least 3-0 up at half-time, we kept the game at 1-0 too long. We scored the second and third goals very quickly but we needed a lot of chances and in big games you don’t get as many chances, you get punished. I told my players to be patient. Often in training we do two-touch passing; in Brazil you asked me why and today you saw why, you can move the ball very quickly”.
