By Samuel Peters
While their cricketers had an excellent showing at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean, the Scottish footballers did not fare so well against hosts Germany in the opening match of the UEFA Euros on Friday when they were outplayed in a five one loss.
Scoring for Germany was Florian Wirtz (10th), Jamal Musiala (19th), Kai Havertz (45+1(P), Niklas Fullkrug (68th) and Emre Can (90+3’).
An own goal was scored by Antonio Rudiger in the 87th to help Scotland somewhat.
Three matches were played on Saturday, with Switzerland beating Hungary 3-1, Spain defeating Croatia 3-0 and Italy coming from behind to beat Albania 2-1 after Nedim Bajrami scored the fastest goal after kickoff at the Euros in the first 23 seconds of the match.
On Sunday, Netherlands were victorious over Poland also coming from behind with 2-1 victory as Cody Gakpo (29th) and Wout Weghorst (83rd) were on target for the Dutch.
It was a strike from Adam Buksa in the 16th minute that put Poland ahead but it was the only goal that they scored in the match.
Another encounter between Denmark and Slovenia saw a one all stalemate as Christian Eriksen of Denmark (17th) and Erik Janza of Slovenia (77th) were the only goal scorers from both sides.
Title holders France will play their first match on Monday against Austria, Ukraine will meet Romania while Belgium will take on Slovakia.