France will play tonight in the quarter-finals of the European Championship. Switzerland, Germany, England and Spain have already made their way to the top eight.
European Football Championships on channels 14.6.–14.7. Go to the competition website from this link.
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France will look to avoid disaster tonight as the quarter-finals of the European Football Championship continue with two matches.
France’s opposition is basically from the most difficult end of this stage, as it faces Belgium. It is the only meeting between the bigger countries in the quarter-finals, and France’s performance in the tournament has been criticized.
– Encounter of the Giants. All the pressure is on France as they have a history of prestigious tournaments in recent years. Everyone expects to see them in the finals, even as champions. Belgium, on the other hand, has had challenges, and the expectations were not that high, Urheilu’s expert Heidi Kivelä says on Monday morning’s 11 friends podcast.
– Neither of them have started their machines, but I don’t know if the French machines will ever start and still they can win the championship.
France messed up the playoff schedule by losing their group win at the last minute. One of the big advance favorites of the tournament has scored only two goals in his three matches. The first was the captain Kylian Mbappé a pass that bounced off a defending player into his own goal, the other, on the other hand, was a penalty kick completed by Mbappé.
Mbappé’s tournament has been disrupted by a facial injury. His nose was broken in a hard collision with an opponent in the very first match. The star who moved to Real Madrid revealed on Sunday that he was afraid that his games had been played.
– At first I didn’t feel like my nose was broken. I realized something was wrong more by looking at the opponent’s goalkeeper. It was a bit scary in the dressing room and I thought I had to go home. I looked at my reflection, it wasn’t a good idea. I’m happy to be here now.
– There was a lot of information and there were a lot of meetings. I didn’t sleep for almost two days. I couldn’t play against Holland and it was hard to sit on the bench when I couldn’t help.
Mbappé was able to participate in the Poland match that ended the group stage with a specially made protective mask.
Similar solutions have been seen in football before, but according to the Frenchman, adapting has been a pain.
– Playing with a mask is absolutely terrible. I changed the mask to another one because certain things were wrong. It limits the field of vision. Sweat gets stuck inside the mask and you have to remove the mask to get it moving. It felt like I was an invited guest at the games with 3D glasses. I saw all the people, but it didn’t feel like I was playing, Mbappé updated.
– I will give up the mask as soon as it is possible. Now there are no options as I can’t play without it which is really annoying.
Portugal and Slovakia will play in the last quarter-final of the evening. Like France, Portugal missed out on a group win in their last match, losing to Georgia.
Spain and England recovered from the shock
The first two quarter-final pairings of European Championship football were revealed on Sunday. Pre-favorites England and Spain made their way to the top eight by winning their respective matches after being in a surprising losing position.
Spain beat Georgia 4-1 and England beat Slovakia 2-1 in a prolonged battle for the follow-up match, where Jude Bellingham dazzled with a scissor kick.
Slovakia led the match for a long time and Bellingham equalized 1-1 in the fifth minute of overtime. Harry Kane scored the winning goal in the first minute of the overtime match.
– Knowing the lineup, England have been disappointing when playing with the handbrake on. Slovakia challenged well and even had a bigger goal expected. So the game is still not quite there. Still, they were able to turn the match around and take strength from it. We’ve been living in a bubble for a few weeks now, so maybe this kind of success brings peace, Urheilu’s expert Pekka Lagerblom says.
Spain will face Germany, the host country of the tournament, in the quarter-finals. England’s next opponent is Switzerland. The winners of tonight’s matches will face each other.
The semifinals will be played on Friday and Saturday.
At 18:30 EM studio TV2 and Areena
19:00 France-Belgium
At 22:00 Portugal–Slovenia
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