Stade Pierre-Mauroy, Villeneuve-d’Ascq
Germany 3-0 Slovakia
Jerome Boateng (8′)
Mario Gómez (43′)
Julian Draxler (63′)
The defending FIFA World Cup champions made their mark in the knockout stage of the 2016 European Championship, by getting a healthy win over Slovakia.
Germany were favorites to win this match. In this competition, favorites sometimes suffer to get the win we expect from them. Germany made it an easy night and are moving on to the quarterfinals, where their opponent will be Italy or Spain.
Jerome Boateng opened the scoring in the 8th minute for the Germans. The ball found Boateng outside the penalty box, and he had enough time to get his shot in on goal. Germany could have doubled their lead, had Mesut Ozil converted the penalty kick in the 13th minute.
A couple of freekicks could have gotten Slovakia back into the game, but the quality wasn’t enough to beat the German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.
Julian Draxler’s cross was poked into the net by Mario Gomez to double the lead for Germany in 43rd minute.
That's Draxler's first competitive goal for #GER – and he made it look easy. ? #GERSVK #EURO2016 pic.twitter.com/EqnoDapR7A
— UEFA EURO 2016 (@UEFAEURO) June 26, 2016
Draxler got a goal of his own in the 63rd minute when Matt Hummels head a corner kick to him. Draxler was unmarked and placed the ball in the top corner of the net. There was nothing Slovakia’s goalkeeper could do about that.
It was a well-deserved victory for Germany. Unfortunately for Slovakia, conceding that early goal meant that they had to play with a purpose of scoring. And that was always going to be difficult against a side like Germany.
Germany is yet to concede a goal in this tournament.
