England 1-0 Ukraine
Roy Hodgson welcomed Wayne Rooney back into the English side after he served his two-match suspension, and he made his way straight back into the first-team. Hodgson dropped Andy Carroll on the bench and paired Rooney with his Manchester United team-mate
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Danny-Welbeck-c10233.
Ukraine’s captain http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Andriy-Shevchenko-c6014 had a race against time to prove his fitness for the game against England, but he was not cleared fit to start the match against the Three Lions.
The match started in a very dull manner, with Ukraine being proactive of the two sides. Rooney could not impose his presence on the match proceedings in the first forty-five minutes, and both sides failed to score in the opening half.
The second-half proved to be far easier on the eye and England came with a renewed vigour, but Ukraine stepped up a gear themselves. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ukraine-c3032 goalkeeper missed the ball before it was
headed into the goal by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Wayne-Rooney-c36736. This was Rooney’s 29th goal in the England shirt.
However, Ukraine played with increased vigour after the goal and after the sixty minute mark they thought they had equalised through http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Marko-Devic-c24168, and even though the ball had crossed the line, the referees waved play on, without awarding the goal to the
co-hosts.
However, there was some impressive defending on http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Joleon-Lescott-c18941 making vital clearances and last minute tackles.
Oleg Blokhin introduced Andriy Shevchenko, but the former Milan man could not inspire his team to a victory in his final match for the Ukraine national team.
Sweden 2-0 France
A win by the same margin as the English victory over the co-hosts was needed by the French to be the group winners, but Laurent Blanc’s outfit failed to do so.
The score line ended 2-0, with a spectacular opener from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sebastian-Larsson-c32733.
The French team seemed on the back foot from the word go, and had a couple of speculative shots from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Hatem-Ben-Arfa-c15884, but Franck Ribery came close to scoring after a defensive slip in the Swedish ranks. Ibrahimovic showed his physical presence and muscled
his way past the French side and created chances in the opening exchanges of the game.
The game remained goalless at the half time mark, but nine minutes into the second half, the Swedish captain produced a moment of brilliance and volleyed Larsson’s cross into the bottom right corner.
Larsson sealed the victory for the Swedes with a 90th minute strike, to ensure that the they broke their 12 match run without a victory. The Swedish victory ended http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/France-c2899’s 23 match unbeaten run as well.
France will play http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Italy-c2926 in the quarter-finals of the European Championships.
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