Euro 2020: Scotland cage England while Croatia stay alive

England’s match-winning run was halted at seven by a sturdy Scotland team on Friday at Wembley Stadium.

The Three Lions started Euro 2020 with a win over Croatia and Gareth.

Southgate’s men needed another win in the 115th derby to secure early qualification for the Round of 16 but they were denied.

Despite enjoying the majority of the chances and ball possession, England were below par and failed to get the desired goal at Wembley on Friday night.

The closest they went was John Stones’ header that crashed against the post in the first half.

As for the Scots, they needed to avoid defeat in Friday‘s tie at all cost in order to stay in contention and that was what they did and they could have won it with half chances from Che Adams and Stephen O’Donnel.

In the other Group D tie played earlier in the day, the Czech Republic boosted their qualification hopes with a 1-1 draw against Croatia.

Patrik Schick, who scored the two goals in his country’s opening game, got the opening goal again after VAR checks decided Schick had been fouled by Dejan Lovren.

With blood streaming down his nose, Schick took and scored the penalty to make it three goals in two matches.

Lovren complained loudly to the Spanish referee, Carlos Del Cerro that he had been harshly penalised for jumping, even though his elbow was raised too high.

However, the spot-kick was not enough to claim a second successive victory for Jaroslav Silhavy’s team as Inter Milan star Ivan Perisic levelled just after half-time for the 2018 World Cup runners-up.

The Czechs now have one foot in the second round but Croatia must beat Scotland on Tuesday to stand any chance of progressing.

Elsewhere, Sweden also closed in on reaching the European Championship knockout stages for the first time since 2004 with a hard-earned 1-0 victory over Slovakia.

Emil Forsberg’s 77th-minute penalty proved to be enough as Jan Andersson’s side increased their points tally to four ahead of the last set of games.

On their part, Slovakia’s defeat puts them in a tight position which means Stefan Tarkovic’s team needs to get a good result in their last group match against Spain to progress.