Euro 2020: Alaba falls with Austria as De Bruyne propels Belgium into round of 16

David Alaba and his Austrian teammates were condemned to their first defeat at Euro 2020 on Thursday as they were beaten 2-0 by the Dutch national team

Alaba let his team down when he conceded a penalty 10 minutes into the match with a dangerous tackle on Denzel Dumfries.

After a VAR check, Memphis Depay tucked in the penalty kick while Alaba was booked for the rough challenge.

Despite the early goal, Austria stayed in the game though they did not create gilt-edged scori chances but they were breached in the 67th minute when Denzel Dumfries made it 2-0 for the Oranje and effectively sealed the victory.

2 – Denzel Dumfries is the second player ever to score in his first two European Championship games for the Netherlands, after Ruud van Nistelrooy. Delighted. pic.twitter.com/t5WLEvEfZZ

— OptaJohan (@OptaJohan) June 17, 2021

The Netherlands with the win became the third team to seal their place in the Round of 16. It is the first time they are progressing to the knockout phase since 2008.

In the other Group C tie played earlier in the day, Ukraine bounced back from their opening defeat at Euro 2020 to record a 2-1 win over tournament debutants, North Macedonia.

The Ukrainians who were beaten 3-2 in a five-goal thriller against the Netherlands on Sunday knew they needed maximum points from Thursday’s outing to stay in contention.

Andriy Shevchenko’s side did the needful, ending a run of six successive European Championship defeats to remain in contention in Group C.

Captain Andriy Yarmolenko and Roman Yaremchuk gave Ukraine a two-goal lead from the first half.

However, North Macedonia had a second-half lifeline when Ezgjan Alioski followed up his own saved penalty to reduce the deficit to 2-1

Unfortunately, they could not find an equaliser despite goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski saving Ruslan Malinovskiy’s penalty in the closing stages.

Group B
In Group B, second half substitute Kevin de Bruyne scored a goal and provided an assist as Belgium secured a 2-1 comeback win against Denmark on Thursday at the ongoing Euro 2020 tournament.

Yussuf Poulsen gave the Danish team a dream start scoring just one minute and 39 seconds into the game.

Poulsen benefitted from an error in the Belgium defence to give Denmark the lead.

While Denmark did well enough to keep their lead until the end of the first half, the introduction of De Bruyne at the start of the second half changed Belgium‘s fortunes.

First, the Manchester City midfielder played a huge part in the equaliser, receiving a pass from Romelu Lukaku inside the box before superbly finding Thorgan Hazard, who fired home the equaliser.

Then De Bruyne drove in the winner with 20 minutes remaining after a brilliant move started by Lukaku.

Barcelona’s Martin Braithwaite went close to a late equaliser for Denmark but his header skimmed the top of the bar.

Belgium’s second victory on the bounce means they are top of Group B with six points from two games while Denmark are bottom of the standings with zero points.