England’s U21 national team moved into the semi-finals of the European Championship through a 3: 1 (2: 1) victory against Spain. The inferior team struggles with the referee who took a decision back. Neutral spectators also wonder why.
Spain against England – that was the pairing in the final of the European Championship two years ago. In Batumi Georgian, the selection of England won 1-0 through a goal of the Liverpool Curtis Jones.
This time Spain and England met in the quarter -finals. Professionals of the current English master played a role again, an important even. But initially there was a man in the focus in Slovak Trnava, for whom it is always a bad sign when he is in the spotlight.
Referee takes back penalty – reason remains open
Referee Simone Sozza decided on a penalty in the third minute because Charlie Cresswell blocked a shot from Diego Lopez in the penalty area with his arm. Most people who visually followed the game should have thought after the second and third repetitions from different angles that this decision was completely okay.
But the video assistant asked sozza to the monitor after checking the penalty, and the Italian referee actually took his decision back. An explanation of how they are now at other soccer games would have been nice. So it remains a mystery why Spain did not get the opportunity to take the lead with a penalty very early on.
Mannim focus on the monitor: referee Simone Sozza
Mcateee and Elliott meet early for England
However, it came much worse for the selection, which stood in five of the past seven end games and won three of them. The defending champion led 2-0 after a quarter of an hour.
James Mcateee from Manchester City scored the 1-0 (10th minute), Harvey Elliott from FC Liverpool, dusted 2-0 after the Spanish goalkeeper Alejandro Iturbe from Atlético Madrid had a shot of Jarell Quansah, possibly changing from Liverpool to Bayer Leverkusen.
England had only become second in the preliminary round because it lost 1-2 against Germany on the last matchday. Spain became a group winner in front of Italy thanks to the more shot goals, which will meet the selection of the German Football Association on Sunday evening at 9 p.m. in the quarter-finals.
It therefore looked in Trnava that after Portugal (0: 1 against the Netherlands) on Saturday the second group winner would also fail in the round of the best eight teams.
Guerra shortened – by penalty
But there was hope for Spain before the break, because referee Sobäzza decided on a penalty after a foul from Quansah to Alberto Moleiro, and this time he stayed with it.
Javier Guerra took the opportunity and shortened the deficit (39th).
Beadle holds twice strongly against Guerra
More than a half remained to forget the terrible first quarter of an hour for the Spaniards. There were also some good opportunities in the second half, for example for Guerra, who failed twice due to strong English goalkeeper James Beadle (61.).
But even this one goal that would probably have brought the extension failed to materialize. In the afternoon it should be a lot about a decision by Simone Sozza that shouldn’t have understood not only Spaniards.
One last – real – whistle
However, there were no complaints at a whistle in added time. Iturbe had run out of his goal over -motivated and had brought Jonathan Rowe down. Elliot Anderson from notigham Forest converted the penalty.
The first signs of anger with the Spaniards were immediately after the final whistle. Rafa Marin saw the red card after a scramble.