Here’s Amy Lawrence’s match report from Nice:
Full-time! Spain 3-0 Turkey
That’s yer lot. Six points from six for Spain, they are through to the last 16 before facing their toughest group opponent, Croatia, on Tuesday. That was very easy for the reigning champions, giving by far the best performance we have seen at the tournament so far. Never threatened in defence, they dominated in all areas and, crucially, Morata got a pair of goal after severe criticism for failing to leave a mark on their opener against Czech Republic on Monday. Most worryingly for the other sides with title ambitions, it also looks like Spain have much more to give. Thanks for reading. We will be back tomorrow for the final three games from the second set of fixtures. Until then, bonne nuit.
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90 min +2: Turan tries a one-two with Yilmaz but it fails to come off and De Gea collects possession. Seconds to go now …
90 min +1: Turan is almost in defence with the ball he is so deep – maybe an attempt to stay away from the Turkey fans having a pop at him, eh?
90 min: There will be two minutes added on. Thankfully, for Turkey.
Well this is intriguing. Name and shame, I say
There's this guy I know who thinks Iniesta is overrated
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) June 17, 2016
88 min: A chance for Turkey. Sahan reaches what new Fancy Dan coaches call the POMO (position of maximum opportunity) but shoots wide on his weaker foot. Poor.
An appeal
The Guardian’s former chief football correspondent Kevin McCarra has gone missing in Avignon, France, while visiting the country to watch games at the Euros
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84 min: The jeers of Turkey supporters are spreading to other players now. I am not ignoring the game, in case you were wondering. It’s just become similar to a kickabout between two clubs in mid-July – with nothing but lengthy uninteresting passages of midfield passing.
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81 min: The final Spain swap sees Chelsea’s Cesar Azpilicueta come on for Alba.
79 min: Malli charges forward but his pass to Sahan is misplaced. As impressive as Spain have been, where does Turkey’s showing so far rank? Down with Ukraine near the bottom?
77 min: Turan, to boos, squares to Malli from the left but his cross (or maybe it’s a shot?) bounces in no-man’s land and goes out for a goal-kick.
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76 min: This is, by a long shot and not just because of the scoreline, the best performance we have witnessed so far in the tournament. And, worryingly for their stuttering competition, Spain give the sense that they have so much more to give than what they have given so far.
74 min: Spain are now treating this like a training game. Both full-backs are in the box, while the midfielders sit back. This is silly. Brilliant, but silly.
71 min: Turan watch: boos continue from Turkey fans, while bizarrely, some Spain supporters are chanting his name.
70 min: Turkey’s final change: Yunus Malli replaces Selcuk. And Spain’s second swap: Koke is on for Fabregas, who was quite good this evening, albeit up against limited opponents.
69 min: Already the match is petering out, you feel. Spain pass it about under no pressure. Eventually Soriano has a punt from range. Babacan turns it around his left-hand post for a corner. It’s taken short to Iniesta, he then crosses towards Pique at the back stick. There is a half-hearted claim of handball towards a Turkey player but it goes unpunished.
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67 min: Turan, obviously, is a gifted player. But this really hasn’t been a good few days for him. With each touch, the jeers from his own supporters are growing louder.
66 min: Meow. Turkey fans have a go at their captain, Turan, who responds by giving them a sarcastic thumbs up.
65 min: Play restarts with a long range free-kick for Spain. Ramos takes, walloping the ball off the wall. That will have hurt, I think, Sahin, who has not done much since trotting on at the restart.
64 min: And now Spain’s first change. Silva strolls off, a fine evening of work complete, to be replaced by Bruno Soriano, of Villarreal.
62 min: Turkey’s second substitution sees Olcay Sahan replace Ozyakup.
61 min: … until now, where Silva shoots narrowly wide twice in quick succession. The first is deflected away for a corner.
60 min: Tony Pulis has just given a minute-long description of why Premier League clubs go with zonal marking for wide free-kicks and man-to-man for narrow deliveries. On the pitch, not much is happening.
56 min: Iniesta, I am sorry to say, has just given the ball away. A long pass to Nolito fails to find the target. “It’ll be another 15 weeks before he gives it away again,” Clive Tyldesley says on ITV.
55 min: Selcuk sends a deep free kick from the left towards the penalty spot. Pique heads it away. Turkey’s response to going 3-0 down is what the response to going 1-0 behind should have been.
54 min: Spain have had 12 attempts (two blocked, six off target, four on target, three goals). Turkey have had four attempts (all off target).
52 min: Yilmaz turns Pique impressively but, inexplicably from a lovely position, he shoots high and wide on his left. After doing all the hard work to get into the position, that is a massive disappointment from the striker.
50 min: Now Morata almost heads a diagonal pass from about 15 yards into the right corner. It goes just wide. This is some reponse to those who were criticising him after the Czech Republic win.
49 min: Iniesta splits the defence with a trademark through ball to Alba. No Turkish player is tracking the wing back, who squares to a similarly unmarked Morata from six yards out. He taps home. This, you suspect, is about to get ugly. Replays show that Alba is a bit offside from Iniesta’s pass, but still desperate from Turkey, who were unaware of his positioning rather than setting a clever trap.
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GOAL! Spain 3-0 Turkey (Morata)
48 min: There you go: 21 games in, a team finally scores three. And it may become many more.
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47 min: Turkey enjoy a spell of possession down the left channel but Erkin sends a cross in eventually. Alba heads away at the back post under little pressure.
Peep
46 min: Turkey get us going again, showing one change. Nuri Sahin (remember him?!) is on for Calhanoglu.
Half-time! Spain 2-0 Turkey
That was pretty dominant. Morata’s tidy header gave Spain the lead on 34 minutes and since then Turkey have fallen apart. Nolito added a second three minutes after the deadlock was broken and it appears quite straightforward – at the moment.
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45 min: There will be one minute added on. Ramos is in the left corner sending a cross in.
45 min: Formations? What formations? Pique is in the middle and waiting for a Morata cross from the right flank! Yes, really. Balta kicks the ball out for another corner. Nolito tries to find Morata with it and Turkey clear. Sort of. Because Spain come straight back on the attack …
44 min: Silva, Nolito and Fabregas toy with Turkey, who cannot get a sniff of the ball now, but the move ends when Pique “John Smiths” a shot from range. Ave it!
41 min: Turkey had started the game relatively well but since conceding the first they have fallen apart big time. This could get ugly. Are we going to witness the first battering of the tournament?
40 min: Iniesta is dragged and pulled at the edge of the box on the left by Tufan, who is now booked. Silva looks to be sending the free-kick in from a tight angle.
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38 min: Morata holds the ball up well, lays it off to Fabregas. He lofts a splendid pass goalwards and Topal somehow misjudges it terribly. His backwards header – it should be going in the opposite direction – allows Nolito straight through, and he bundles low past Babacan.
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GOAL! Spain 2-0 Turkey (Nolito)
37 min: That is an awful goal for Turkey to concede.
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35 min: Nolito’s cross from the left is just too high for the leap of Topal. Morata, who was criticised so much for his performance against Czech Republic, rises perfectly and guides a glancing header past Babacan. Naturally, Tony Pulis in the ITV studio is purring at such a goal.
GOAL! Spain 1-0 Turkey (Morata)
34 min: It’s a beautiful header from the striker.
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33 min: A punt into the air sees Pique and Busquets leap for the same ball. They bang heads and require attention but I suspect both will be given a nod to continue without any issue.
31 min: Juanfran sets up Nolito right in front of goal with a testing low cross but the winger cannot connect cleanly and Turkey breath a big sigh of relief.
30 min: Ramos mis-interprets a long ball forward and almost allows Yilmaz in. De Gea is alert to it and rushes off his line to kick away. Ramos has had more convincing starts to games.
29 min: Busquets fires a pass at Nolito, who cuts in from his left wing and on to his favoured right foot. From 25 yards, the Celta Vigo player (but for how much longer?) curls a yard or so wide.
27 min: Calhanoglu beats the wall but cannot get the strike to dip enough, it sails narrowly over De Gea’s top right corner.
26 min: Juanfran takes down Turan from about 30 yards in what must be considered Calhanoglu territory. He is right over to grab the ball, and place it, and line it up. De Gea sets his wall. What can Calhanoglu do with it?
26 min: That was a joke. The possession is creeping more and more in Spain’s favour: now 61%-39%
25 min: Juanfran and Alba are really trying to rip off Walker and Rose here, aren’t they?
24 min: A potshot from Turkey, Calhanoglu shooting high and wide from range. Poor and wasteful.
23 min: Pique picks out a very advanced Juanfran on the right wing. He is just offside and that is a major let off for Turkey, who would have left the Atlético winger-turned-defender straight through on goal.
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21 min: Iniesta is down clutching his achilles following a terrible challenge from Tufan near halfway. Bizarrely considering the soft fouls that resulted in early bookings, Tufan gets away with just a foul here. Odd.
19 min: Spain have not quite enjoyed the domination they are used to here. Uefa’s official stats page tells us they have had 58% to Turkey’s 42%. Del Bosque’s team have, however, had the only real chances.
17 min: Nolito does his best Harry Kane impression by walloping the corner 10 yards too far, allowing Turkey to break down the left. Ozyakup runs into a dead end, though, and sensibly moves the ball backwards to retain possession.
16 min: Another corner for Spain, conceded by Topal under severe pressure from Morata. The Turkey defender wants a free kick. There was a nudge, but not enough for the referee to whistle.
15 min: Lovely stuff from Spain. Juanfran and Silva are involved in the buildup before Silva jigs along the edge of the box before laying off to Iniesta. His stinging shot is blocked by Balta.
13 min: Even at this early stage Babacan is eager to kill seconds with a goal-kick. Wolf whistles galore from the Spain fans, of which there are quite a few. They certainly outnumber the Turkey fans, though I can see plenty of empty seats too.
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11 min: Fabregas trundles into the box but has the ball nicked off his foot by Calhanoglu. Then Alba sends another low cross in from the left, towards Morata. Gonul gets in front of the striker to put it out for a corner. Nolito’s delivery is somewhat better to the previous, giving Pique a free header. But the match winner against Czech Republic cannot direct his effort on target, heading downwards. The ball bounces over the bar. Goal-kick.
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9 min: Oh Busquets. What a nonsense. He is held off by Yilmaz and hits the deck as if he was indeed decked. That earns the Turkish player a yellow card. Also, like Ramos, harsh and troublingly early.
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9 min: Pass, pass, pass. Then Alba sends a low cross from the left towards the penalty spot. Topal, looking fit again, hooks away.
8 min: Nolito’s corner is poor and Turkey clear.
7 min: Morata gets his first sight of goal, a right footer from just outside the box that bounces and heads towards the bottom left corner. Babacan is down to parry away for a corner. Topal, meanwhile, appears to have injured himself from that marauding run forward.
6 min: Topal flies down the right but is dispossessed by Ramos, who is dragged to the ground. The Serbian referee plays an advantage but Spain concede possession cheaply and allow Turkey to attack again. It breaks down.
3 min: Spain win a corner. Nolito takes it short to Silva. He crosses from the right but it’s headed away by a Turkish defender … to Alba, who can recycle play.
1 min: And 50 seconds in Sergio Ramos is booked for a shoulder charge on Yilmaz. That is harsh – and maybe a recipe for disaster for the red card friendly Spain captain. The free-kick, on the right, is harmlessly overhit and David de Gea will take a goal-kick.
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Peep!
1 min: We are underway. Spain, unchanged and in red, get us going from left to right as we watch. Turkey, with one change as Burak Yilmaz comes in, are wearing a dreadful mishmash of white/blue/black/red/grey
The teams are out. The anthems are being belted out. Predictions, folks? I’m going to put my neck on the line and say: Spain 2-0 Turkey
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Again, a game has been ruined by supporters behaving like animals. The tournament is really suffering for all of this. While the causes for various pieces of unrest may be unrelated, for all incidents the same questions must be asked of the security provisions in place at the stadiums.
Here is the latest on a portion of Croatia fans ruining their team’s game and maybe even costing them two points.
Have you seen our smashing interactive with a profile of every single player in the tournament yet? I’m sure there are some on show tonight that we don’t know much about …
Kiera Healy, via email, is quick to mention the state of Spain’s official song for the tournament, which, if you have not yet seen, is worth enduring.
Kiera writes: “After watching the official Spanish Euro 2016 song, I’m grateful the national anthem has no words. Sergio Ramos’ solo must be seen to be believed … and begs the question, just how badly do the other 21 sing, if he got the nod?!”
This is what Uefa’s teamsheet looks like for Match 21
The teams
Spain: De Gea; Juanfran, Pique, Ramos, Alba; Busquets; Silva, Fabregas, Iniesta, Nolito; Morata.
Turkey: Babacan; Gonul, Topal, Balta, Erkin; Tufan, Inan, Ozyakup; Calhanoglu, Yilmaz, Turan.
Referee: Milorad Mazi (Ser).
Here we are, 21 games in to the European Championship and still we wait patiently for a team to make us sit up, take notice and shout ‘Wow’ at the television. There have been some lovely goals, a couple of surprises and plenty of tasty tussles but no team has yet blown us away – perhaps, if we are to be positive, that is above everything a nod to the tournament’s expansion not diluting the quality of the tournament. Many of you feared a pile of whippings. What has transpired is more than a week of tight games. Can Spain be the ones to score more than two goals and Make A Statement?
To do so, they will need an improvement on that scraping 1-0 win over Czech Republic on Monday. Álvaro Morata struggled, no doubt, but it should be noted that chance creation was not an issue. They had 17 attempts and were utterly dominant. They just missed the final piece. Can it be fitted tonight?
Turkey, after losing to Croatia and with the third-placed bar rising, could do with getting a point here. They laboured in that opener – outplayed by Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic, outfought by Vedran Corluka. Arda Turan was so rusty he apologised for his performance and while a glimmer of hope shone from substitute Emre Mor, collectively a sizable improvement is required if they are to irritate la furia roja.
Team news will follow imminently. Kick-off is 9pm in Nice, 9pm in Madrid, 10pm in Istanbul and 8pm where I am watching it, in London.
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