France v Germany Summary – June 15th
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In what was billed as the tie of the opening set of matches at EURO 2020, it was world champions France who emerged victorious as they edged out Germany by a solitary goal.
The game was high on quality and neither team could be disheartened by their performance levels with both of these teams highly likely to be competing at the business end of this competition.
With little separating the two teams, the crucial moment came in the 20th minute of the game when Paul Pogba played a glorious ball with the outside of his right foot to Lucas Hernández down the left and the left-back’s dangerous cross was inadvertently turned into his own net by Mats Hummels.
That turned out to be the only goal of the game but there was plenty of quality on show and this was a fascinating encounter between two of the heavyweights of world football.
Joachim Löw’s men enjoyed 59% of the possession and constantly probed but they lacked the incisiveness that the French clearly possessed with the outstanding Kylian Mbappé. Ultimately the French defence held up well and Hugo Lloris had very little to do over the course of the game.
While the Germans had plenty of the ball, it was France who continued to look menacing on the counter-attack with the pace and quality of their front three.
In the second half, Didier Deschamps’ side had two goals ruled out for offside as first Kylian Mbappé’s super solo strike was ruled out and then what would have been Karim Benzema’s first goal since 2015 for France was also annulled.
Despite not managing to grab a vital second, France were able to hold on to claim all three points and put them in a strong position in the group of death.
France now move on to face Hungary in Group F where they will be favoured to help themselves to plenty of goals in what will surely be a comfortable victory. While Germany’s task does not get any easier as they face a Portugal team inspired by the in-form Cristiano Ronaldo on Saturday.
