Ciaran Bonass talks us through the match highlights from Saturday’s Group B evening kick off which finished Germany 1 Portugal 0.
High expectations are rarely fulfilled in many facets of life but the promise of attacking football when Germany were penned to play Portugal in the opening round of Euro 2012 fixtures was all but assured by those supposedly in the know.
After 45 minutes of this game, however, nobody would have complained if the Paint Drying World Championships had hijacked the planned broadcast such was the entertainment level on show in Lviv. In fairness, the game picked up considerably in the second period, and once Mario Gomez had broken the deadlock with a magnificent header in the 73rd minute that proved to be the decisive moment the game took on a completely different complexion in a frantic close to proceedings, but it was pretty dire stuff for the majority of the occasion.
In practical terms it was easy to see why Portugal were content to stifle their opponents rather then take them on in an open contest
