Round 16 of Euro 2020 starts today

captain36 (64)memberin World Of Football ⚽ • 3 years ago

source | Lincense details

The group stages of this year’s European championship came to an end on Wednesday. Sixteen teams from the various groups have progressed to the knockout stage of the tournament and are expected to battle for a place in the quarter finals starting from today. There are some interesting fixtures that will take place at this stage of the competition and we’ll discuss them in detail. The fixtures of the round of 16 are as follows:

Round of 16

Matches	Day and time
Wales vrs Denmark	Today, 4:00 pm
Italy vrs Austria	Today, 7:00 pm
Netherlands vrs Czech Republic	Sun, 4:00 pm
Belgium vrs Portugal	Sun, 7:00 pm
Croatia vrs Spain	Mon, 4:00 pm
France vrs Switzerland	Mon, 7:00 pm
England vrs Germany	Tue, 4:00 pm
Sweden vrs Ukraine	Tue, 7:00pm

All the matches look very interesting on paper but there are some that attract the most attention.
Defending champions Portugal coming up against Belgium and the game between Germany and England are the mouthwatering fixtures of this round. We take a look at those matches.

Belgium vrs Portugal

source | lincense details

Portugal and Belgium boast of some of the most talented players in world football currently. Both teams are tipped as one of the favorites to win this year’s European championship but it’s quite unfortunate that they have to meet at a very early stage of this tournament and only one of them will progress with the other going home. Some of the super stars involved in this game are Cristiano Ronaldo, Diogo Jota, Dias, Pepe, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva all from Portugal whilst Belgium can also boast of Real Madrid marksman Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Lukaku, Carrasco among others.

These two teams have played each other four times previously. However this is their first ever meeting in the European championship. Portugal have exhibited their dominance in this fixture by winning three out of the four times they met with one game ending in draw game. This means Belgium are yet to win a single game against Portugal and they’ll look to make this game their first ever victory against Fernando Santos’ side.

Both teams will look to go into the game with their strongest teams. Belgium will hope KDB comes to the party as he is their main man whilst Portugal will also be expecting some magic from Cristiano Ronaldo as usual. Ronaldo’s five goals in this tournament makes him the top scorer of the tournament so far and he’s in pole position to run away with the golden boot award

Possible lineups of both teams are below.

Belgium
Screenshot: sofascore

Portugal
Screenshot: sofascore

England vrs Germany

source | lincense details

The rivalry between England and Germany goes beyond football. This is a meeting between two of the giant nations in Europe and for 90 minutes each and every player will be defending the batch of their respective countries. These two great nations have achieved a lot in football as well.

Germany and England have met on seventeen different occasions in competitive games. As expected it has always been a tough battle for either side. Germany edge it slightly by winning 6 games whilst England also have 4 wins with the rest ending in a draw.

Head-to-Head meetings between the two sides
Screenshot: flashscore

Both Germany and England are blessed with a lot of quality players lately as that has always been the case. England have talented young stars like Phil Foden, Mason Mount, Jadon Sancho and their main man Harry Kane. Surprisingly Kane is yet to score in this tournament and he’ll look to find his scoring boots against Germany as he’s very crucial if England got any chance of qualifying. Germany also have a pool of talents to pick from on Tuesday. They have the likes of Toni Kroos, Gundogan, Werner, Kai Havertz and Thomas Muller.

This expected to be a very difficult game and I can’t pick the winner between these teams. I see this game traveling all the way to penalties and the Germans are known to be brilliant in penalty shootout so they might go through.