The thrilling victory over Slovakia by a score of 2-1 in extra time in the Euro 2024 last-16 round allowed England to advance to their fourth quarterfinal in a major tournament under the direction of Gareth Southgate.
When Ivan Schranz rightly drove Slovakia into a first-half lead, Southgate’s reign appeared to be ending on a sour note. Subsequent attempts by England to claw their way back into the competition were dismal and pedestrian, and it appeared as though Southgate’s reign was coming to an unsuccessful end.
A goal scored by Phil Foden that was disallowed for offside appeared to make England’s situation even worse. However, during one of the final attacks of normal time, Jude Bellingham delivered a moment of magic with a spectacular bicycle kick that forced England to concede an additional thirty minutes.
The revitalized Three Lions needed only 54 seconds of the extra-time period to turn the tide through a header from Harry Kane. Despite the fact that England reverted to their typical style in the final phases of the match, which was to sit back and invite pressure, their efforts were just about sufficient.
All throughout the country, people let out sighs of relief as they realized that they had a lot of lucky stars to thank for their advancement to the next round of the Euro 2020 competition. The runners-up will now face Switzerland, who defeated Italy in the tournament.
As Francesco Calzona’s team defended for their lives and then some, it seemed as though nothing England could throw at the Falcons’ wall would stick during the almost one hour or so after the first goal of Slovakia.
When a long throw from Kyle Walker in extra time went into the head of Marc Guehi, who then flicked it on for Bellingham, none of England’s attackers were doing themselves justice and appeared to be on their way out of the tournament with a whimper. However, Marc Guehi gave Bellingham a chance to avoid elimination from the competition.
As a result of his exhausted performances in the draws with Denmark and Slovenia, a number of people had speculated that the Real Madrid player might take a rest on Sunday. However, Bellingham saved England’s bacon by performing an incredible bicycle kick. This was the moment when Bellingham plucked the rabbit out of the hat.
Just than seventy seconds had passed in the additional time before a recycled free kick triggered more English chaos. The two big players up top, Ivan Toney and Kane, connected up aerially, and Kane nodded home to complete an unexpected reversal.
An attack on the opposite flank resulted to Slovakia’s first goal in the match that took place in Gelsenkirchen. The initial exchanges of the match were characterized by Slovakia’s wingers driving England’s full-backs ragged. Lukas Haraslin, in particular, did a number on Kyle Walker, who was playing on the right side of the field.
When 37-year-old Juraj Kucka won a header to locate David Strelec, who then fronted up to Stones and waited patiently for Schranz to make the run into the box, neither Guehi nor John Stones bathed themselves in glory. Strelec was the one who found Stones.
Due to the fact that he had previously been cautioned, Guehi, who had suffered a shoulder injury from the aforementioned aerial challenge, was unable to keep up with Schranz and was unable to touch him.
Schranz responded to Jordan Pickford’s run off his line with a toe poke into the far corner, so drawing level with Jamal Musiala and Georges Mikautadze on a tournament-high three goals.
Southgate will be well aware of the reality that England would be cleaning up their lockers in Germany and getting ready for an unpleasant flight back to the United Kingdom if a little boy from Birmingham had not become a world-beating midfielder for both his club and his nation.
Not a single one of the Three Lions’ performances on the group stage offered any significant reason for optimism, and neither did the match that took place on Sunday in the round of sixteen, despite all of the pre-game rhetoric about things being different now that England was back in knockout competition.
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