{"id":1104,"date":"2024-07-11T07:14:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T07:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2024-07-11T07:14:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T07:14:17","slug":"england-advances-to-euro-2024-finals-on-thrilling-injury-time-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/?p=1104","title":{"rendered":"England advances to Euro 2024 finals on thrilling injury-time goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Super sub\u00a0Ollie Watkins<\/a>\u00a0sent\u00a0England<\/a>\u00a0into the final of Euro 2024 with a sensational injury-time winner to defeat the\u00a0Netherlands<\/a>\u00a02-1 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Watkins, who had earlier come on for captain\u00a0Harry Kane<\/a>\u00a0and had been used sparingly in the tournament, collected a pass from fellow substitute\u00a0Cole Palmer<\/a>\u00a0and smacked it into the Dutch net.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Ollie<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As a result, England will now face\u00a0Spain<\/a>\u00a0for the title on Sunday, seeking to atone for its defeat on penalties to\u00a0Italy<\/a> three years ago.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Netherlands made its best start of the tournament and surged into an early lead on the back of a blistering strike from\u00a0Xavi Simons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Simons took the ball from\u00a0Declan Rice<\/a>\u00a0after seven minutes and blasted it just beyond\u00a0Jordan Pickford’s<\/a>\u00a0reach and into the top corner.<\/p>\n

England had gone behind in each of its previous knockout round games and managed to find a way back \u2014 and it did so again.<\/p>\n

There was immediately more urgency, but when Kane’s shot flew over the bar, it appeared a solid chance had gone begging. However, a VAR review found Kane had been recklessly challenged by\u00a0Denzel Dumfries<\/a>, and the England captain duly deposited the equalizing spot-kick into\u00a0Bart Verbruggen’s<\/a>\u00a0bottom corner.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Harry<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Gareth Southgate’s men were playing their best soccer of the tournament, with far more direction and energy.\u00a0Phil Foden<\/a>\u00a0was lively and twice went close, first with a tap through Verbruggen’s legs that was cleared off the line by Dumfries, then a signature left-foot curler from outside the area that clipped the outside of the post.<\/p>\n

The Dutch weren’t seeing much of the ball and had\u00a0Memphis Depay<\/a>\u00a0removed through injured, but managed to hit the woodwork themselves, Dumfries \u2014 seemingly involved in everything \u2014 nodding against the post from a corner.<\/p>\n

Both Southgate and Dutch coach Ronald Koeman made changes at the interval.\u00a0Wout Weghorst<\/a>, an extremely popular figure among his team’s fans and famously the scorer of two goals against\u00a0Argentina<\/a>\u00a0at the World Cup, came on for\u00a0Donyell Malen<\/a>. For England,\u00a0Luke Shaw<\/a>\u00a0replaced\u00a0Kieran Trippier<\/a>, presumably due to doubts over how many minutes Shaw could last after returning from injury.<\/p>\n

The second half was less fluid and England in particular seemed to revert to the kind of stagnation that was seen so often earlier in the tournament. Opportunities were few and far between, but Pickford had to be alert to push the ball away after\u00a0Virgil Van Dijk<\/a>\u00a0put it on target from a set piece.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, it needed just one magical touch. The moment belonged to Watkins, the pass from Palmer was as perfect as the strike \u2014 and England, despite so many close shaves, marches on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Super sub\u00a0Ollie Watkins\u00a0sent\u00a0England\u00a0into the final of Euro 2024 with a sensational injury-time winner to defeat the\u00a0Netherlands\u00a02-1 on Wednesday. Watkins, who had earlier come on for captain\u00a0Harry Kane\u00a0and had been used… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,261],"tags":[376,349],"views":106,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}