Scotland once again showed that they were out of their depth even with one of the best managers in British history, Gus Hiddink also showed he was a magician. Sweden played good football throughout the game, Scotland conceded their second consecutive goal in the first minute. Rosenberg opened the scoring and although they dominated the game, Sweden also left it late to score the winner Rosenberg again with 7 minutes to go struck the ball past Iain Turner and Sweden became the first team to qualify from the group stages.
Sweden 2-0 Scotland
Other Result in Group B Germany 3-0 Ukraine, Ukraine the first of the hosts to be knocked out and Germany qualified.
Rafa vs Spain next as England look for another victory to assure qualification. But it was two former players of Rafa’s that punished England. Xabi Alonso opened the scoring on the 35th minute, Rafa tried to beat his home country in this game, but the Spaniards showed why they were best team in the World. El Nino, Torres scored late to secure the victory for the Spain just after Casillas continued bad discipline record in the Spain camp being the second player to be sent off.
Spain 2-0 England
Other Result in Group D Croatia 1-2 Greece
Next up for Zidane was Turkey, it was surprisingly a tough game for France and Turkey gave a real fight, and look to push for qualification from the group. But the difference was in who could actually take their chances and Menez who was having a fantastic tournament and struck twice to give France the win in the first half. But the most worrying thing for the French is in this game they have three players stretched off, Sakho, Ribery and Toulalan. The former two will struggle to be back in time for the end of the tournament, but France have qualified for the next round.
France 2-0 Turkey
Other result in Group A Switzerland 0-1 Poland
Group C showed that it was the toughest of all the other groups, as we have Paul Jewell meeting Spalletti, one of our sides had to go from this group each not wanting it to be the team to do so. Daniel Pudil scored early to give the Czech’s the lead, bad defending from Ron Vlaar giving the ball away gave Pudil the chance on goal. But after the half hour mark, a flurry of action occurred to get the fans going, first off Huntelaar levelled the scoring to put Holland back into the game only for Grygera two minutes later put the advantage back with Czech Republic. Five minutes after that the Republic were to blame for their own downfall Simunek being to blame for a Huntelaar fall, Man of the Match Van Persie stepped up to slot the ball into the net to end the half and the game 2-2.
Holland 2-2 Czech Republic
Italy got themselves back on track and took advantage of the other game finishing deadlocked. Not an exciting game and infact Italy played like Italy and not the attacking football you may expect from Zola a guy who spent many years playing in an English system. Gilardino scored after 15 minutes getting on the end of a corner to get his first goal of the tournament. But then Rossi who was looking to contend for the golden boot scored just after half an hour to give Italy their first victory.
Serbia 0-2 Italy