Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
Related Articles
The 2016 UEFA European Championships is being played across France from June 10 to July 10 for the first time with 24 nations across 10 venues in nine cities with the French capital Paris being the only city with two venues in the Stade de France and the Park de Prince.
The defending double champions are Spain, who are three time record champions along with Germany.
QUARTERFINAL MATCH #1
POLAND 1-1 (1-1);3-5 PORTUGAL [after penalties]
Goal(s): 1-0 Robert Lewandowski (2′), 1-1 Renato Sanches (33′)
Portugal defeated Poland in the first quarterfinal of Euro 2016 with 5-3 on penalties after the game had ended one-all after 90 and 120 minutes in Marseille.
The game directly came alive as Poland went ahead in the second minute through the tournament’s first goal by Robert Lewandowski as he put away a Kamil Grosicki pass and thereafter Poland had more of the game against a somewhat clueless Portugal, who seemed to be unsure what hit them but after chances for Milik and Lewandowski, Poland also cooled their attacks and Portugal slowly got a grip of the game and it was teenager Renato Sanches who equalised in the 33rd minute with a long range effort which was deflected by Krychowiak into his own net.
Poland thereafter tried to get back into attack, but no chance was created and it went one-all into the break.
After the break Poland continued to have more of the ball with Portugal playing a wait and watch game but chances were few at both ends, be it Lewandowski and Milik for Poland or Cristiano Ronaldo and Cedric for Portugal.
Towards the end of the game Poland fell back and nearly conceded the winner, first Jedrzejczyk nearly cleared the ball into his own net and then in the 86th minute an open Cristiano Ronaldo failed to connect to a perfect chip into the box. The game ended one-all and it went into extra time.
There both teams seemed to be contend with keeping the draw though Portugal had chances through Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani, while Milik once more missed the target for Poland. Thereafter there were no more chances and the match went into penalties where Jakub Blaszczykowski’s shot was saved by Rui Patricio’s outstretched hand and it was again Ricardo Quaresma, who scored the winner like against Croatia only this time from a penalty to give Portugal a place in the semifinals as Poland can only blame themselves for this exit.
An interesting piece of fact is that Portugal has officially so far not won any match at Euro 2016 as matches are counted at the end of regulation time and there Portugal has five draws now to their name – 1:1, 0:0, 3:3, 0:0, and 1:1.
Carlsberg Man of the Match: Renato Sanches (Portugal) #POLPOR
Yesterday against Portugal Lewandowski played very well. Do you know that he scored the second fastest goal in Euro history?