Here’s what happened tonight in the Euro 2020 qualifiers
It won’t go down as one of international football’s more memorable nights. No shocks, no surprises. Then again, tell it to 18-year-old Moise Kean, who scored on his first competitive start for Italy. Or the irrepressible Sergio Ramos, who dinked home a Panenka to give Spain a winning start. Or Kostas Fortounis, who swept a gorgeous volley into the net for Greece. On second thoughts, it was pretty good after all. Thanks for reading! Nighty night.
It couldn’t be tighter at the top in Group F. Malta, Spain and Sweden all have three points after registering 2-1 victories over the Faroes, Norway and Romania. Meanwhile in Group J, Greece and Italy lead the way, thanks to their 2-0 wins over Liechtenstein and Finland, while Bosnia-Herzegovina are behind in third, the cost of conceding that late penalty.
FULL TIME: Spain 2-1 Norway
And after a lengthy period of injury time in Valencia, the whistle blows and the Spanish are off to a winning start. Spain should have been leading by more than Rodrigo’s early opener when Norway won a penalty and equalised through Joshua King. But the Spanish soon had a spot kick of their own, and Sergio Ramos dinked it home like it was 1976.
FULL TIME: Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-1 Armenia
Told you. Henrikh Mkhitaryan halved Armenia’s deficit in injury time, but Rade Krunic and Deni Milosevic’s goals secured the three points for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
GOAL! Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-1 Armenia (Mkhitaryan 90 pen)
A late consolation from 12 yards for the Armenians in Sarajevo. But it won’t be enough. Too little, too late.
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FULL TIME: Liechtenstein 0-2 Greece
The 2004 champions and 2012 quarter-finalists didn’t make it to the finals last time round. But they’ve started their Euro 2020 campaign in a most acceptable fashion, Kostas Fortounis and Anastasios Donis with their goals.
FULL TIME: Italy 2-0 Finland
A satisfying night’s work for Italy, who score twice for the first time since they beat Saudi Arabia last May. A win to begin their Euro 2020 qualification campaign. And what’s best, the exciting Moise Kean has opened his international account on his first start in royal blue.
The closing minutes in Italy, and very nearly a fistfight. Donnarumma spills a simple save, the ball breaking off his shin and nearly rolling to Arajuuri, free on the right. Donnarumma does well to gather at the Finn’s feet, but he receives an accidental kick for his trouble. He springs up looking for a fight, but everyone around him, from both teams, calm him down. Arajuuri was entitled to go for the loose ball. It all cools down quickly enough, and everybody’s happy.
GOAL! Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 Armenia (Milosevic 80)
Deni Milosevic hits the bar ... then minutes later finishes neatly to seal the deal for the hosts in Sarajevo.
Quagliarella pearls a shot towards the top left. He hits the junction of crossbar and post. The ball pings off the top of the frame and out for a goal kick. So unlucky. Italy’s sub pushing hard for a start against Liechtenstein on Tuesday.
GOAL! Liechtenstein 0-2 Greece (Donis 80)
Anastasios Donis makes sure of the points for the 2004 champions in Vaduz, squeezing in a shot from a not particularly generous angle.
Fabio Quagliarella, not long on the field, plants a header towards the bottom left. It’s turned away wonderfully by Lukas Hradecky. It’s not quite Pele versus Banks, but let’s not set the bar ludicrously high. A stunning save.
Kean, fuelled by excitement and happiness, Garrinchas his way infield from the right wing. He enters the area and makes to diddle his way past Vaisanen. He goes over, the defender refusing to give way, turning and sticking his rear out to shove the attacker off balance. That’s a penalty all day long, but the referee’s not interested. That’s the second time Vaisanen has got away with a dismal challenge in the box. Kean looks nonplussed at the non-decision, and no wonder.
GOAL! Italy 2-0 Finland (Kean 74)
Kean realises all that potential in double-quick time! Immobile cuts in from the right. He then slips a ball forward, down the channel, for Kean, who enters the box, draws Hradecky, and slots into the bottom left! So cool! He was never missing. Despite a couple of wasted opportunities earlier in the half, he hasn’t stopped coming at Finland. And now he’s got his reward. What a talent! That’s his first international goal. And Italy have scored two in a match for the first time in a year.
GOAL! Spain 2-1 Norway (Ramos 71 pen)
Say what you like about Sergio Ramos, he’s one hell of a player. He scores from the spot ... with a Panenka. Cute as you like!
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On another night, Morata could have scored three or four headers. As it stands, he’s got nothing. But hello! Here he comes racing down the left. He’s straining to reach his heavy touch forward. He enters the area ... and is upended by a ludicrous slide from the keeper Jarstein! It’s another penalty!
Now that’s put the cat among the pigeons in Valencia. Spain respond as you’d expect Spain to respond, pouring forward in the hope of instantly reclaiming the lead. A cross from the left finds Morata, who sends a fine header towards the top left. It’s inches wide and high.
GOAL! Spain 1-1 Norway (King 65 pen)
Inigo Martinez wrestles substitute Bjorn Johnsen to the ground, as the pair compete under a high free kick sent in from the left. The referee points immediately to the spot. Joshua King steps up and slots into the bottom right, David de Gea with no chance!
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As Chiellini scraps for the ball on the floor, Lod stands on his leg. It’s totally accidental, but Chiellini’s not happy. A lot of rolling about. The big man will be fine. He’s up soon enough.
For the second time since the restart, Kean has a wonderful chance to harm Finland, romping into acres down the right. For the second time, he turns down the opportunity to shoot, then plays a terrible ball inside. Italy get a corner as a result, it’s true, but it could have been so much better. And the set piece is a total waste of everyone’s time. Still, Kean’s very young; erratic output is a large part of the promising teenage player’s charm.
Real Madrid loanee Martin Odegaard won’t get a chance to wow his paymasters on his return to Spain. He’s just been hooked. Back off to Vitesse in a hot funk.
End-to-end fun in Valencia. Morata scampers down the inside right only to be denied by Jarstein; Joshua King tears down the left but can’t find a fellow Norwegian in the middle. That was a scintillating run by the Bournemouth star; shame there was no end product.
Italy continue to step it up a bit. Jorginho and Immobile play a crisp one-two down the inside-left channel. The striker can’t get a shot away because Hrdecky is quickly off his line to smother. Then Kean zips down the right, in acres, and should do better than simply earning a corner off the first man. The resulting set piece is a waste of time.
The second halves are under way. That looks odd. It doesn’t seem right. We’re off again, let’s put it like that. And it’s a fast start by Italy, who appear to have been given a bollocking by Roberto Mancini. They look a yard faster. The excellent Bernardeschi dribbles down the left and earns himself enough space to hoick a wonderful cross to the far post, where Immobile is only denied by a brave intervention from Vaisanen. A clash of heads, but both men will be OK to continue.
Half-time entertainment. Big Eck, traipsing around the touchline, wearing a massive hairshirt, trying to avoid the brickbats and cabbages flying down from all four stands.
Half-time scores
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 Armenia
Italy 1-0 Finland
Liechtenstein 0-1 Greece
Spain 1-0 Norway
GOAL! Liechtenstein 0-1 Greece (Fortounis 45)
On the stroke of half-time, the 2004 champions take the lead in Vaduz! And it’s a stunner! Dimitris Kourbelis quarterbacks from deep, passing long, the ball dropping over the shoulder of Kostas Fortounis, who sweeps home!
Just before that scramble, Italy had a good shout for a penalty turned down. Bernardeschi dribbled into the area from the right, and had his ankle clipped by the hanging leg of Sauli Vaisanen. Bernardeschi tries to stay up, before finally giving in to gravity. The decision costs him, as the referee assumes he just stumbled a couple of steps later. It should have been a spot kick.
Ciro Immobile powers down the middle in the Nat Lofthouse style. His bargin’ and a-challengin’ panics Finland’s defence; Lukas Hradecky comes through the melee to punch clear. Albeit not with much conviction. The ball drops to Moise Kean, on the edge of the box. He shanks a dismal effort wide left of the unguarded goal.
Spain are playing some lovely one-touch stuff. They ping it around, all flicks and tricks, down the left flank, sending Norway into a flat spin. The ball’s whipped low into the middle, where Jordi Alba rolls home with studied insouciance. Mesmerising. But he’s a yard offside, and the flag goes up.
GOAL! Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 Armenia (Krunic 33)
Rade Krunic opens the scoring in Sarajevo, converting Miralem Pjanic’s corner.
Two headers in a minute for Alvaro Morata! Neither ripple the net, though he’s very unlucky with the first of the two efforts: he plants a header towards the top right, only for Rune Jarstein’s strong arm to shut the gate. That’s some fine keeping.
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An absurd escape for Spain! Markus Henriksen tears down the right, reaches the byline, and fizzes a low cross towards Tarik Elyounoussi. A poke of the toenail will send the ball over the line, but Elyounoussi somehow manages to send the ball in the opposite direction as he slides in. David de Gea breathes a sigh of relief and gathers.
Marco Verratti very nearly releases Moise Kean free on goal. A lovely defence-splitter down the inside-left channel. But Finland keeper Lukas Hradecky has read the play well, racing off his line to claim just in time, on the edge of his area.
Finland are forced back into their final third. The in-form Bernardeschi drops a shoulder and mooches from the centre towards the inside-left channel, before threading a low diagonal shot wide of the right-hand post.
So having said that, the Norwegians start to come back into it in Valencia. They fling a few balls into the Spanish box, from both flanks. Sergio Ramos is required to clank a couple of headers away with white shirts lurking. Then David de Gea is forced into a panicked clearance as Daniel Parejo plays him into trouble with a ludicrous backpass.
Spain continue to dominate against Norway. Rodrigo nearly converts a low Jesus Navas cross from the right with a cute back-flick at the near post. Not quite, but for a nanosecond that looked in.
A little period of possession for Finland in the Italian half. The crowd getting a little antsy. The visitors press Italy back, then Robin Lod wastes all the good work by blootering a dreadful effort miles over the bar, and wide to boot. Finland have never qualified for a major international tournament. With shooting like that etc., and so on, and so forth.
GOAL! Spain 1-0 Norway (Rodrigo 17)
The pressure finally counts! Jordi Alba bursts down the inside-left channel and reaches the byline. He scoops into the centre, where Rodrigo can’t miss: he bashes home from six yards, and the three-time champions have got their bid for a fourth European title underway.
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Meanwhile Spain continue to press Norway back. Jesus Navas dribbles with great purpose down the right and whips a glorious ball, dripping with danger, across the face of goal. At the far post, Morata can’t connect.
Italy look refreshed. Good. International football needs a strong Italy. Without them, there was something strange about that last World Cup, wasn’t there? Good as it was. Just not quite right. Moise Kean skedaddles down the left, reaches the byline, and whips a ball across the face of the Finnish goal. Cristiano Piccini, coming in at the far post, can only volley wide on the stretch.
Finland respond impressively, working their way down the right wing. Some pretty passing. Then the ball’s teed up for Tim Sparv, just to the right of the D. He snatches at his shot, sending it sailing wide of the left-hand post. Gianluigi Donnarumma had it covered all the way.
GOAL! Italy 1-0 Finland (Barella 7)
Nicolo Barella wins a free kick out on the left. The set piece is flung into the mixer. It’s half cleared by the Finns, and drops to the very same Barella, who hits a low first-time screamer from the edge of the box. The ball’s heading towards the bottom left, until it takes a massive deflection and nestles into the bottom right, past a rooted, wrong-footed Lukas Hradecky. Italy have had terrible trouble scoring goals in the last couple of years, so an early one tonight comes as blessed relief! They celebrate accordingly.
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Spain have also come out of the traps with intent to fly. Alvaro Morata, who didn’t have a good game for Atletico Madrid against Juventus the other week, plants a header straight at Norway keeper Rune Jarstein. Plenty of power, but it was such a good chance, he really should have scored.
Italy are very much on the front foot during the early stages of their match with Finland. Federico Bernardeschi, who had such a good game for Juventus against Atletico Madrid the other week, has already got the crowd going with a couple of fine runs down the inside-right channel. But Lukas Hradecky hasn’t had a save to make yet in the Finnish goal.
All of the teams are out, so we’ll be off in a minute. Time for the national anthems, currently being performed concurrently in quadraphonic sound across Europe.
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Young scene. Martin Ødegaard was signed by Real Madrid as a 16-year-old in 2015. He’s currently on loan at Vitesse in the Netherlands, so his first competitive start for Norway in four years is timed perfectly. All of Spain will be watching. Meanwhile Italy have handed the 18-year-old Juve prodigy Moise Kean his first competitive start in the blue shirt of his country. Kean was the first player born in the 2000s to play in Serie A, a stat that makes him sound box-fresh at the moment but will one day make him feel so very old. In about 60 years time, admittedly.
At the Stadio Friuli in Udine ...
Italy: Donnarumma, Piccini, Bonucci, Chiellini, Biraghi, Barella, Jorginho, Verratti, Kean, Immobile, Bernardeschi.
Subs: Sirigu, Mancini, Spinazzola, Pavoletti, Grifo, Romagnoli, Sensi, Politano, Quagliarella, El Shaarawy, Zaniolo, Cragno.
Finland: Hradecky, Granlund, Toivio, Sauli Vaisanen, Arajuuri, Pirinen, Lod, Sparv, Kamara, Hamalainen, Pukki.
Subs: Joronen, Jaakkola, Taylor, Jensen, Schuller, Soiri, Kauko, Leo Vaisanen, Sumusalo, Lam, Karjalainen, Lappalainen.
At the Rheinpark Stadion in Vaduz ...
Liechtenstein: Benjamin Buchel, Wolfinger, Kaufmann, Rechsteiner, Goppel, Hasler, Martin Buchel, Wieser, Polverino, Salanovic, Gubser.
Subs: Hobi, Brandle, Malin, Ospelt, Sele, Kuhne, Meier, Yildiz, Eberle, Frick, Majer.
Greece: Vlachodimos, Bakakis, Siovas, Kourbelis, Koutris, Zeca, Fortounis, Samaris, Masouras, Mitroglou, Bakasetas.
Subs: Paschalakis, Valerianos, Risvanis, Bouchalakis, Siopis, Koulouris, Donis, Kolovos, Mavrias, Papastathopoulos, Kolovetsios, Barkas.
At the Stadion Grbavica in Sarajevo ...
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Sehic, Todorovic, Bicakcic, Zukanovic, Civic, Pjanic, Besic, Krunic, Visca, Dzeko, Zakaric.
Subs: Kjosevski, Kolasinac, Memisevic, Duljevic, Cimirot, Gojak, Sunjic, Koljic, Kodro, Milosevic, Piric.
Armenia: Airapetyan, Hovhannisyan, Haroyan, Calisir, Daghbashyan, Grigoryan, Mkrtchyan, Adamyan, Mkhitaryan, Ghazaryan, Karapetyan.
Subs: Meliksetyan, Khachaturov, Manucharyan, Avetisyan, Babayan, Barseghyan, Briasco, Yedigaryan, Hambardzumyan, Ishkhanyan, Ozbiliz, Avagyan.
At the Camp de Mestalla in Valencia ...
Spain: de Gea, Jesus Navas, Sergio Ramos, Martinez, Jordi Alba, Parejo, Busquets, Ceballos, Rodrigo, Morata, Asensio.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Sergi Gomez, Gaya, Saul, Canales, Hermoso, Bernat, Rodri, Mata, Muniain, Sergi Roberto, Pau Lopez.
Norway: Jarstein, Elabdellaoui, Nordtveit, Ajer, Aleesami, Odegaard, Henriksen, Selnaes, Johansen, King, Tarik Elyounoussi.
Subs: Bratveit, Hovland, Rosted, Sorloth, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Fossum, Daehli, Svensson, Linnes, Johnsen, Kamara, Grytebust.
Elsewhere, in Group D ... Switzerland won 2-0 in Georgia, thanks to second-half strikes by Steven Zuber and Denis Zakaria, while according to our own Barry Glendenning, Mick McCarthy’s Republic of Ireland sent out “a loud message across all of Europe. ‘We are not very good!’ it says.” But a win’s a win. Just ask the Scots.
Final Score. Before we immerse ourselves in this evening’s hot Euro action, let’s find out what’s already happened in Spain and Norway’s Group F.
Malta 2-1 Faroe Islands
Sweden 2-1 Romania
Malta eventually saw off the Faroe Islands thanks to a 13th-minute Kyrian Nwoko goal and Steve Borg’s penalty on 77 minutes. But it wasn’t plain sailing. Malta’s Andrei Agius received his marching orders on 62 minutes for deliberate handball, then Jakup Thomsen notched a consolation for the Faroes in the eighth minute of injury time.
Sweden meanwhile scored twice in seven minutes towards the end of the first half against Romania, through Robin Quaison and Viktor Claesson, then held on after Claudiu Keseru pulled one back just before the hour. So Spain need to win by a two-goal margin tonight if they’re to top the Group F table after the first round of matches. Like that really means anything, we’re just killing time before kick-off.
Preamble
Welcome to our coverage of the Saturday evening kick-offs in the qualifiers for the 2020 European Championship. Here’s the fixture list ...
Bosnia-Herzegovina v Armenia (J)
Italy v Finland (J)
Liechtenstein v Greece (J)
Spain v Norway (F)
We’ll be mainly concentrating on the matches involving the 1968 champions Italy and the 1964, 2008 and 2012 winners Spain. Historically two of the biggest national teams around, they both experienced excruciating pain during the last World Cup, the Azzurri as a result of not qualifying, the Red Fury dealing, not particularly well it has to be said, with the fallout from the Julen Lopetegui affair. Both will be looking to Euro 2020 as a means of righting some wrongs.
Italy are on a run wholly appropriate for the digital age. Here are the results of their last seven matches: 1-1, 1-1, 0-1, 1-1, 0-1, 0-0, 1-0. In their last 17 games, they’ve only scored more than one goal ONCE, when they rattled in a whopping two against Saudi Arabia last May. Roberto Mancini’s side really need to take it up a notch at some point, so will be reasonably pleased to welcome Finland to Udinese’s Stadio Friuli tonight; they’ve seen off the Finns 11 times in 13 matches, scoring at a rate of nearly 2.5 goals per game.
Spain could also do with a little boost. Luis Enrique’s side won their last match, a 1-0 victory over Bosmia-Herzegovina, but before that came back-to-back 3-2 Nations League defeats by England and Croatia. The visiting Norwegians should give them that pick-up, if history is any guide: Spain have played Norway on six occasions, winning four of them.
None of this particularly screams GOALFEST. So hopefully we’ve just tempted fate, and they’ll be flying in from all angles tonight. Kick-off time is 7.45pm. It’s on!
