By: Maggie Z
On June 15, the first match of the 2024 European Cup tournament between Scotland and host country Germany kickstarted what reporters hope will be an exciting month of dark horse victories and tight losses. Scotland’s Tartan army saw a hopeful start, but the mood was quickly extinguished.
Scotland started with a good strike but a weaker defense. In the first minute, Scotland’s goalie Angus Gunn blocked a shot from Germany’s midfielder Florian Wirtz from inside the penalty box. Wirtz pressed on, scoring the first goal in the first ten minutes of the match and bringing Germany up 1-0. Ten minutes later, Jamal Musiala scored another point for Germany. Soon after, Scotland’s Ryan Porteous was given a red card because he executed a potentially-injuring tackle. Germany was awarded a penalty, which was taken and scored by Kai Havertz. Germany left the pitch for halftime with big grins.
In the 67th minute, Niclas Fullkrug scored, extending Germany’s lead to 4-0. Twenty minutes later, Scotland’s Scott McKenna’s free-kick rebounded off German defender Antonio Rudiger’s head and into the net for a self-goal for a possible table-turning event. Scotland’s slight victory was short-lived, as Germany’s Emre Can scored the final goal in the 92th minute, giving Germany a 5-1 win.
Germany left the pitch with high spirits (the Scottish team, less so) and will move on to play Hungary in the second matchweek, which, according to Wiktionary, the “week in which a sporting event takes place.”
The tournament’s structure is a first round-robin within six groups of four teams. The top two teams from each group will move on to the ‘last sixteen,’ where four third-ranked teams will join the twelve with the highest points. Scotland will go on to face Switzerland, but they now need to win both of their upcoming matches to stay in for the last sixteen. If they lose or draw against Switzerland, they may need to win and score big in their match against Hungary to finish second in the group. Germany will play Hungary and then Switzerland, but after the first game, Germany is already in the lead.