Striker Abel Ruiz scored the fastest goal in the history of the European Under-21 Championship on Saturday to give Spain a 1-0 victory over Croatia and progress to the tournament’s quarter-finals.
The 23-year-old Braga player scored in Bucharest in the 20th second and broke the record of the German Florian Wirtz, who scored a goal for the Netherlands after 29 seconds in the semifinals of the previous year’s championship (2:1).
The Spaniards have two wins in Group B and a certain quarter-final, just like Ukraine, which also defeated the co-organizer Romania 1:0 with an own goal in the end.
The championship record was also set in the match of the other host country, Georgia, against Belgium (2:2), which was watched by 41,887 spectators at the Boris Paichadze National Stadium in Tbilisi. The favorites were leading by two goals at halftime, but the Georgians equalized after a reversal, the equalizing goal cheered up the stadium in the 87th minute.
The home team leads the group A table with four points after the previous unexpected win over Portugal (2:0), the Portuguese silver medalists are on the tail with a single point on the brink of elimination.
The Czechs are playing against Germany
Today, the Czech under-21 football team will face the reigning champions from Germany in the second match at the Euro.
Coach Jan Suchopárek’s men entered the tournament with a 0:2 defeat against England on Thursday, the Germans defended their gold with a surprising 1:1 draw with Israel.
The “lion cubs” will avert the threat of elimination, a second defeat would mean the end of the championship for them after only two of the three rounds of Group C. The match in the Georgian city of Batumi kicks off at 18:00 CET.
The Czech youngsters kept pace with favored England in the opening half, but failed to convert several promising chances. Jacob Ramsey opened the scoring shortly after the change of sides and substitute Emile Smith Rowe added the insurance in the set-up. “The championship is certainly not over for us and I believe that we will score goals in the next matches,” said Suchopárek.
“Lion cubs” will close the group with a duel with Israel in Kutaisi on Wednesday. The first two teams from each of the four groups advance to the elimination phase.
