. By

Eniola Olatunji

The German Machine on Friday night emerged the first European country and host to be knocked out in the quarterfinal of the Championship in a 2-1 win by Spain at the MHP Arena, Stuttgart.

It was a highly physical and tactical game that English world cup star Referee, Anthony Tailor commanded gleefully in the 39 foul calls of 17 to Spain and 22 to Germany but with the 14 yellow cards flashed of which 6 was for Spain and 8 for Germany it was Defender, Carvajal of Spain who saw Red in 120+5th minute from a deliberate holding after his initial yellow card.

Germany had the night under grips with 23-18 shots at goal of which she got 5-6 on target as Spain was defensive and struggled to share honors with Germany in the midfield where ball possession was 48-52% in favor of Germany and corner kicks were 1-5 still in favor of Germany.

26 year old RB Leipzig Forward, Dani Olmo collected a nice pass from Lamina Yamal and shot into the far corner in the 52nd minute for the first goal. The equalizer came from Bayern Munich player Florian Wirtz who impressed from a Kimminich pass in 89th minute forcing the match to go into extra time. 

In the night that Olmo was as dangerous as a Rattle Snake, the German Defence momentarily took eyes of him as he quickly connected Real Sociedad player, Mikel Merino who made the whole of Germany sad with the winner in the 120th minute of play.     

From 2000 and 2003 Spain and Germany played two friendly matches. Germany won 4-1 in 2000 and Spain won 3-1 in 2003. At the Euro final in 2008 Spain won 1-0 with the lone goal scored by Torres in the 38th minute at Vienna before a crowd of 51,428 in that match handled by Roberto Rosetti of Italy. In the semifinal of the 2010 world cup Spain spanked Germany by a lone goal.

The last time Germany beat Spain was in a friendly match played ten years ago, 2014 when Germany won away by a lone goal but in another friendly encounter of 2018, they played 1-1 draw. At the UEFA league group 4 of 2020 they both played 1-1 in Germany and Spain was ruthless with a 6-0 win in the second leg. In the Euro world cup qualifiers Group E, both played 1-1. 

Both Spain and Germany hold highest record at UEFA with three titles each. Spain won in 1964; 2008 and 2012 and was runners-up in 1984. Germany won in 1972; 1980 and 1996. Germany lost in the semifinal in 1988; were Runners-up in 1992 when the team lost 0-2 to Italy. Defeated Czech 2-1 to win in 1996 but in 2012 when Spain won, Germany lost in the semifinal and also lost at that stage in 2016.

Apart from the three times Spain won the title, she was Runners-up in 1984 when she lost 0-2 to France; in 2012 when she won her 3rd title she defeated Italy 4-0 and was a semifinalist in 2020.

To get to this stage, Germany won Group A with 7 points scoring 5 goals and conceding 2 when she beat Scotland 5-1; caused Hungary to be hungry in a 2-0 beating at Stuttgart where they played Spain today and played 1-1 with Switzerland while she sent home Denmark 2-0 at Dortmund in the Round of 16.

Spain also won group B with 9 fantastic points winning all her matches not conceding a single goal but scored just 5 goals. Croatia was tamed like a Croc with 3-0; piped Italy 1-0 and beat Albania 1-0. Spain pounded elastic Giant killers of a Debutante Georgia 4-1 in the Round of 16.

Spain will meet the winner of the Portugal versus France coming up shortly on Tuesday, 9th July in Munich. Please not that EUFA cancelled 3rd place matches.

This is the 17th edition of the European Championship that has now seen 100 goals scored with 2,273,933 as at the end of the Round of 16 matches with four joint top scorers in Georges Mikautadze of Georgia; Jamal Musiala of Germany, Cody Gako of Netherlands and Ivan Schranz of Slovakia all having three goals each.