🇪🇺 England beat stubborn Bosnia as Germany draw; Scotland win | OneFootball

Just 48 hours after the domestic season drew to a close with the Champions League final, international football got underway as countries geared up for EURO 2024 on an evening that saw Scotland, England and Germany all in action.

Here’s how it all unfolded.

England stroll past Bosnia

Scorers: Palmer 59′, Alexander-Arnold 85′, Kane 89′

The game took a clear tone from the off, with Bosnia sitting back in a 5-4-1 formation and inviting a much-changed England to try and break them down.

Southgate’s side struggled, with only Eberechi Eze having any real impact on the game with some excellent driving runs on his Three Lions debut, but the sides went into the break level.

The home side improved at the beginning of the second half, but still failed to really test Nikola Vasilj in the Bosnia goal.

That was until VAR intervened to award the Three Lions a penalty after a foul on Ezri Konsa, which allowed Cole Palmer to step up and fire in his first goal in England colours on his full debut.

Changes followed immediately, with Palmer among those taken off as debuts were handed out to Adam Wharton and Jarrad Branthwaite, with the former in particular looking impressive in the England engine room.

England pressed on, and as Bosnia visibly tired they struck twice in quick succession. First, Alexander-Arnold volleyed home to put the game to bed before Harry Kane poked home after Ezri Konsa had initially blocked Jarrod Bowen’s effort to add some perhaps undeserved gloss to the scoreline.

Germany share goalless draw Ukraine

Tournament hosts Germany got their preparations underway with a friendly against Ukraine, but will be hoping for better performances in 10 days time.

Julian Nagelsmann’s side dominated the ball against the eastern European side, but could not test Andriy Lunin with any regularity, managing just a sole effort on target in the first 45 minutes courtesy of İlkay Gündoğan.

The second half followed the same pattern for the most part too, albeit becoming increasingly disjointed as the game wore on and the substitutes benches emptied on both sides. Though the Germans kept Ukraine quiet, they could do little in terms of finding an end product of their own, and were noticably missing the focal point of Niklas Füllkrug, who will join the squad after the game.

As both sides searched for a spark, neither side will be too happy with the result, but will be grateful their players avoided injury on the eve of a major tournament.

Scotland beat Gibraltar

Scorers: Christie 58′, Adams 85′

Steve Clarke’s side picked up a nervy win over minnows Gibraltar as they warmed up for EURO 2024, but may have suffered an injury concern in the process.

The Scots dominated the ball from the off, but despite having plenty of efforts Clarke’s side struggled to find the target in the first half. They created chance after chance but only tested the Gibraltar shot stopper on two occasions, with Grant Hanley and Kenny McClean particularly wasteful.

Clearly the better side, it still took them almost an hour to break the deadlock as Ryan Christie showed the rest of his side how it was done. Bringing down an excellent pass from Andy Robertson, the Bournemouth man shifted the ball onto his left foot before thundering home from close range to put his side into the lead.

But after surviving an injury scare with Kieran Tierney, who went down moments after coming on, they have been left sweating on Liam Cooper. The centre-back came off the substitutes bench just after half time, but went down after 77 minutes and had to be taken off, and is now likely to face a race to be fit for the EURO2024 opener.

The evening ended on a sweet note though, as Che Adams doubled his side’s lead with five minutes to go after John McGinn pounced on some sloppy play from the hosts. It added gloss to what threatened to be a nervy evening for the Scots despite their dominance, and handed them a morale-boosting win ahead of what could be a historic tournament for the Tartan Army, though they will have to be much improved.