Paris: France took sweet revenge of the World Cup defeat against Italy on Thursday when they defeated the World Champions 3-1 in a rematch of the World Cup final in Paris on Wednesday.
In a recap of the European Championship qualifiers, France completely outplayed Italy to win the Group D match.
Fifty-nine days after losing out on penalties to the Azzurri in Berlin, Raymond Domenech's men secured the impressive win through goals from Sidney Govou (2) and Thierry Henry.
The win puts France at joint-top of Group B for Uefa Euro 2008 with Scotland after two successive wins. As for Italy, the loss leaves them second bottom of the section with one point, which was gained from last weekend's home draw with Lithuania.
Govou, one of the two players in Les Bleus' starting XI who had not featured in the World Cup final, made his mark within two minutes of start, with a fine far-post volley off a William Gallas cross. The ball flew past Gianluigi Buffon.
France doubled their lead in the 18th minute with a Henry rocketfire. Buffon has blocked a Florent Malouda shot which Henry turned in from a tight angle via a deflection off Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro.
The Azzurri reduced the deficit within two minutes, when Alberto Gilardino headed past Coupet from Andrea Pirlo's free-kick into the box. France struck a decisive third goal to seal the match on the 55th minute when Govou nodded past Buffon from a Willy Sagnol centre.
The Italians make several forays into the French defence in the second half but France goalie Coupet denied them a second opportunity.
In other matches of the day, Germany put a record-breaking beating on San Marino, 13-0. German striker Lukas Podolski scored four in the Group D match; getting a hat-trick in the first half alone.
The Czech Republic also came away with a shut-out win over Slovakia, 3-0.
Ireland Online says the Czechs comfortably controlled the match and had several more scoring opportunities. Koller made it 3-1 for the 2004 Euro semi-finalists in the 57th minute, driving home Sionko's low pass from close range after Tomas Rosicky's clever low free kick through the Slovak defense.
Comments
0 comment