Thursday , March 28 2024

Euro 2016 – Group A: France & Switzerland ends goalless, Albania score historic win!

UEFA EURO 2016The 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.

GROUP – Matchday 3

Switzerland 0-0 France

Hosts France were held to a goalless draw by Switzerland in Lille in their final Group A match to allow both the teams to progress into the pre-quarterfinals after a rather uneventful encounter.

Switzerland had the first chance of the match through Johan Djourou after a corner in the 8th minute, but thereafter it was mainly France in the first session and it was mainly Paul Pogba who took attempts on goal but Yann Sommer in the Swiss goal played another great game and denied Pogba in the 12th and 13th minute before a Pogba’s shot hit the crossbar on 17 minutes. Thereafter things cooled off again and it stayed goalless at the break.

After the break France continued to have more of the ball, but Sommer denied Andre-Pierre Gicnac and Antoine Griezmann before substitute and new France hero Dimitri Payet banged the ball onto the crossbar but it remained goalless at the end.

Carlsberg Man of the Match: Yann Sommer (Switzerland) #SUIFRA

Romania 0-1 (0-1) Albania

Albania scored a historic first goal through Armando Sadiku to also secure their first-ever points at the finals of a UEFA Euro tournament after a 1-0 win over Romania to stay in the hunt for a spot in the Round of 16 as one of the four best third placed teams.

Romania had the better start against a nervous Albania, but chances for Bogdan Stancu, Ovidiu Hoban and Denis Alibec in the first quarter were wasted. Albania needed a while to settle down and a chance for Ermir Lenjani in the 23rd minute was the start of a better game from the Albanians, but they wasted chances through Ledian Memushaj and Migjen Basha before Armando Sadiku beat Ciprian Tatarusanu in the Romanian goal with the Albanians and their fans bursting into celebrations.

The match was now tense with no chances at both ends before Memushaj was denied by a once again unsure Tatarusanu. Romania were then denied the equaliser as referee Pavel Kralovec and his assistant called wrongly an offside on Florin Andone in the 72nd minute before Andone hit the woodwork in the 76th minute. That was it for Romanian attempts to equalise as Roshi wasted a couple of chances to seal Albania’s win, which did come at full-time.

Now Albania will have to wait and see, if there are two teams worse than them in third position in the other five groups for them to move into the pre-quarterfinals.

Carlsberg Man of the Match: Arlind Ajeti (Albania) #ROUALB

About Arunava Chaudhuri

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