In the last match of the opening round of the European Championship, France convincingly beat Italy with 5–1 goals.
France and Italy met on Sunday evening in the final match of the first round of the group stage of the European Football Championship in Rotherham.
Rotherham’s New York Stadium saw a real bust-up as France showed that suspicions of internal conflicts within the team and star striker Grace Geyoron of playing condition may have been unwarranted.
The starting rhythms were struck almost immediately: Geyoro scored 1-0 at the nine minute mark, and in the 12th minute, last season’s goal queen of the French premier league managed to score Marie-Antoinette Katoto.
After the lightning goals, the game calmed down, but more was coming. Delphine Cascarino A hard Long-range shot in the 38th minute of the game irresistibly went past the Italian goalkeeper Laura Giulianiand just over a minute later, Geyoro took advantage of the Italian defense falling asleep.
Geyoro struck the last nail in the match with his third of the night just before the end of the first period. Three goals in six minutes put Italy in a rather difficult position just before halftime.
In ‘s studio, the superiority of Les Bleues was muted. As a counterbalance to the praise of France’s effective attacking play, criticism rained down on Italy’s defense.
– Italy didn’t have any kind of piece in the first half. It was difficult to defend and even a little offensive play stopped towards the end of the period, Urheilu’s expert Marko Saloranta assess Italy’s performance in the first half.
– The boxing defense was also sad. After getting used to the fact that the box is defended well, now balls were donated to France, Saloranta stated.
The Italian captain was already sent off, but the video review saved him
As a result of France’s attacking show, the match was already over before the end of the first half. For the second half, Italy made several substitutions and brought fresh legs to the midfield, but the course of the game did not change too much.
In the 65th minute of the game, Italy’s evening threatened to turn from miserable to catastrophic. Team captain Sara Gama stopped Grace Geyoro with a fierce grip and Gama was already shown a red card, but the card turned yellow as a result of video inspection.
– A red card would not have been the wrong decision, in ‘s studio Marko Saloranta comment.
Also Maija Saari was on the same lines.
– It was still seen as a slowdown that Gama turns the leg ahead of the buttons to the lower abdomen. In this studio, we felt that the first reaction, red, was the right one. For Italy, the change was good. Get to keep their leading figures in the defensive line for the end games.
Despite the hopeless situation, Italy did not give up on their goalscoring dreams. Entered the field from the exchange Martina Piemonte finally scored the team’s opening goal in the 76th minute of the game.
The goal was Italy’s only goal of the second half, so France won 5–1.
The European Championships continue on Monday with the matches Austria-Northern Ireland and England-Norway. The broadcast of the matches starts on TV2 and Areena at 18:30. You can find everything about the competition on the EC competition page here.