With their 2-0 victory over Hungary in Group A on Wednesday night, Germany advanced to the round of 16 at Euro 2024. The competition is currently on its second matchday of the preliminary round.
In the middle of the first half, Jamal Musiala gave the Germans the lead after Ilkay Gundogan kept the ball alive in Hungary’s penalty area. Musiala’s easy brilliance was so devastating for Scotland on Friday night.
When Germany doubled their lead, it was Gundogan who put the finishing touch on a wonderfully deft and accurate move that saw Maximilian Mittelstadt drag the ball back from the left and the Barcelona midfielder score from eight yards out.
Hungary had opportunities, but Barnabas Varga headed agonisingly over the bar later on, and Roland Sallai was called offside when he lapped up a rebound after a Manuel Neuer save.
After scoring a goal from the penalty spot the previous time out, Kai Havertz put in a lot of effort during his 58 minutes on the pitch, but in the end, he was not rewarded and is still waiting for his first open play goal.
Thus far this summer, Havertz has been preferred to start at the front of the line over outstanding sub Niclas Fullkrug, who came on as a substitute against Scotland and scored a thunderbolt before coming on here, and 21-year-old Maximilian Beier’s youthful energy.
The Arsenal attacker’s skillful movements caused Hungary problems right away. He should have scored within the first five minutes after latching onto Joshua Kimmich’s ball, but instead he shot the rebound straight at Peter Gulacsi. After a few minutes, Havertz had another opportunity, but the goalie denied him because of his violent treatment of Willi Orban.
All in all, he gave Orban a headache multiple times. Havertz had two early shoots and raised a lot of questions with his off-ball play, but he only managed 29 touches overall (ten of which, according to Fotmob, were in the box), lost all eight of his ground and air duels, and completed just 14 passes. Essentially, his accomplishment primarily served to enable others.
The first team to guarantee their spot in the knockout stages of the 2022 World Cup is Germany, who qualified via the group stage. Even while that progression is the bare minimum for us as hosts, it is still a significant step because it was completed with plenty of game left.
Images we don’t want to see.
Kieran Tierney hugged his face, cried and walked dejectedly into the tunnel after a serious injury.
According to confirmation from Scottish National Team coach Steve Clarke, it was “a pretty bad injury” and Tierney no longer had a chance to play in the match against Hungary.
Scotland is currently ranked 3rd in Group A. If they cannot earn 3 points in the final match, the journey at Euro 2024 will end for Tierney.
Get well soon, Kieran!