BERLIN: France blew the chance to finish first in their group despite Kylian Mbappe scoring his maiden European Championship goal in a 1-1 draw with Poland on Tuesday, as Austria won a thriller against the Netherlands to snatch top spot.

Didier Deschamps’ France failed to top their group at a major tournament for the first time since Euro 2012 after being made to pay for a series of missed chances.

“We’ve achieved our first objective,” said Deschamps. “Even if we don’t have the spot we were aiming for because we are second. A new competition is about to start.”

Austria, who lost their opening game to France, grabbed a 3-2 victory over the Dutch to wrap up a last-16 berth and relegate their already-qualified opponents to third place in Group ‘D’.

France dominated for long periods against Poland but have still only scored twice in Germany — an own goal by Austria’s Maximilian Woeber and Mbappe’s penalty.

Les Bleus will face the runners-up from Group ‘E’, in which Belgium, Ukraine, Romania and Slovakia all have three points, in the last 16.

Poland goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski, playing in place of Wojciech Szczesny, made two fine stops to deny Mbappe — playing in a mask after breaking his nose against Austria — in the opening period.

Mbappe finally broke his Euros duck in the 56th minute, though, as he slotted in a penalty after Ousmane Dembele was felled by an ill-advised challenge from Jakub Kiwior just inside the box.

But Poland were awarded a spot-kick themselves with 13 minutes remaining for a foul on Karol Swiderski.

Robert Lewandowski’s weak initial effort was comfortably saved by Mike Maignan, but the France goalkeeper had strayed off his line and the Poland talisman dispatched his second attempt.

Dutch fans turned Berlin orange as they continued to light up the tournament, but it was the Austrians in full voice early on as their team were rewarded for an enterprising start when Donyell Malen inadvertently fired into his own net.

Malen’s day took another turn for the worse when he dragged a poor shot wide when clean through on goal inside the area.

But the Netherlands drew level less than two minutes after the restart, as Austria midfielder Florian Grillitsch lost the ball in midfield before Cody Gakpo cut inside and finished off a rapid counter-attack.

Just as the Oranje started to get on top, Austria reclaimed the lead as Romano Schmid’s header found the net via a deflection off Stefan de Vrij on the line.

Memphis Depay struck with an excellent touch and volley to equalise again after a good header down by substitute Wout Weghorst.

But one of the games of the tournament was not done yet and Marcel Sabitzer hammered home to put Austria in front for the third time in the 81st minute.

Ralf Rangnick’s men now have a match against either Turkey, the Czech Republic or Georgia to look forward to as they bid to reach the quarter-finals for the first time.

The Netherlands will play the winners of either Groups ‘B’, ‘C’ or ‘E’.

Last-gasp Zaccagni saves Italy

On Monday, Mattia Zaccagni kept Italy’s title defence alive with an incredible late equaliser in the holders’ thrilling 1-1 draw with Croatia, as Spain completed a perfect group stage and showed Albania the door.

Italy are in the last 16 of Euro 2024 after forward Zaccagni struck a superb equaliser with almost the last kick of the game in Leipzig, sparking an explosion of joy among the Italian fans and even a sprint up the line from 65-year-old coach Luciano Spalletti.

The Azzurri will play Switzerland in the next round thanks to Zaccagni, who came on with nine minutes remaining and curled in his leveller in the eighth minute of stoppage time following a brilliant burst and pass from defender Riccardo Calafiori.

“Nobody believed any more, but the players did,” Spalletti told Sky Sport in Italy, before raging at critics in the Italian press pack.

In a furious press conference, Spalletti said “I inject myself with this venom” which he said was coming “from all sides” and blasted unnamed people within Italy’s camp for potentially leaking his team’s formation to the media.

Spalletti’s team finished Group ‘B’ in second place on four points, five behind winners Spain who beat Albania 1-0 thanks to a neat Ferran Torres finish in the 13th minute in Dusseldorf.

Albania’s Euros adventure is over while Croatia are all-but out due to Zaccagni’s late equaliser just as it looked as if Luka Modric was once again going to be the hero for his country.

Modric defied his advancing years by firing Croatia into the lead nine minutes after the break and becoming the oldest goalscorer in Euros history.

At 38 years and 289 days old, Modric broke the record set by Austrian Ivica Vastic in 2008, pouncing on a rebound after Gianluigi Donnarumma made an incredible save from Ante Budimir’s point-blank range header.

Modric made up for Donnarumma pushing away his penalty just moments before, but his goal wasn’t enough and on two points, Croatia’s hopes of finishing as one of the four best third-placed teams are hanging by a thread.

“It’s hard when you lose like this to find the words to describe how you feel,” said Modric.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2024