By Echefu Daniel: Spain and Switzerland reached the last eight of the ongoing Euro 2020 Championship in an unbelievable fashion.
Spain took on Croatia while Switzerland had their hands full against star-studded France.
Playing inside the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, Croatia took an early lead when Spain goalkeeper, Unai Simon failed to clear the back pass from Pedro allowing the ball into the net.
However, Spain responded with goals from Alvaro Morata and Mikel Oyarzabal. As at the 85th minute Spain were leading 3-1 only for the Croats to fight back and drew the encounter 3-3 through goals from Mislav Orisic and Mario Pasalic.
The superiority of the Spaniards manifested during the extra time as they scored two more goals to send the hard fighting Croats packing.
The Le Blues of France took on Switzerland in the second match of the day. France with players like N’golo Kante, Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe, Karim Benzema and Hugo Lloris in goal were expected to run over the Swiss national team.
However, the Swiss proved a hard nut to crack. They took an early lead when Haris Seferovic scored on the 15th minute.
France, who hosted and lost the last edition to Portugal, came into the second half more determined to turn the table and they did. Real Madrid hitman Karim Benzema scored a brace in a space of two minutes to put the Le Blues in front.
Fifteen minutes to the end of the match Manchester United’s Paul Pogba scored what seem to be the icing on the cake.
But, Liverpool’s Xendan Shaqiri and his Swiss teammates had another plan. Haris Seferovic scored his second goal of the night on the 81st minute and Mario Gavranovic scored on the dot of full time to take the match to extra time.
The match went into penalties after both sides could not find the winner during the 30 minutes extra time.
Mbappe in tears after missing his spot kick.
Kylian Mbappe missed his kick to give the Swiss a memorable victory over the World Champions and a ticket to the quarter-finals where they will take on Spain.
