Underdogs

LONDON — Greece beat England for the first time as striker Vangelis Pavlidis earned the visitors a richly-deserved 2-1 victory to put them in control of Nations League Group B2 at Wembley on Thursday.

While Pavlidis's winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time sparked wild celebrations among the Greek fans, England stand-in manager Lee Carsley got a sobering reality check.

Two victories since Gareth Southgate stood down had raised Carsley's stock as a likely full-time option, but after a ragged defeat at the hands of Greece, his hopes may have dwindled.

San Marino won their first ever competitive match by beating Liechtenstein 1-0 in the Nations League on Thursday, 20 years since their only other victory, also against Liechtenstein.

The Nations League D game was hardly a clash of the titans, with San Marino bottom of FIFA's rankings at 210th and Liechtenstein 199th, but Nicko Sensoli's goal in the 53rd minute will make him a national hero.

San Marino's only other success came in their 69th game, a 1-0 win over Liechtenstein in a 2004 friendly.

PARIS — Brazil reached the Olympic women's football final as they claimed a stunning 4-2 win over world champions Spain in Marseille on Tuesday and will face the United States for the gold medal.

Playing their sixth Olympic semi, Brazil capitalized on a number of Spanish defensive mistakes to reach Saturday's final at Parc des Princes where they will seek a maiden title against four-time champions USA.

England defeated Switzerland on penalties (5-3) after a 1-1 stalemate to book a place in the Euro semifinals on Saturday. A Xherdan Shaqiri Olimpico effort nearly sunk England in extra time.

While Saturday’s result will be remembered for England’s brilliance from the penalty spot, we wanted to highlight how close Shaqiri was to scoring the goal of the tournament and arguably the goal of his career.

BERLIN — A pair of superb strikes from Remo Freuler and Ruben Vargas for Switzerland sent defending champions Italy crashing out of the European soccer championship in the round of 16 after a sloppy, rudderless display by Luciano Spalletti's side.

Though the Swiss defended well, the Italians made their job all the easier with bad passing and poor-decision-making, giving the ball away cheaply in central positions and failing to press with any vigor as they headed for the exit.

Italy vs Switzerland highlights

GELSENKIRCHEN — Georgia stunned Portugal to reach the knockouts at Euro 2024 - their first ever major tournament - with a 2-0 win over the former European champions on Wednesday, settled by an early Khvicha Kvaratskhelia strike and a Georges Mikautadze penalty.

The win, albeit against a largely second-string Portugal who had already made it into the next round, represented the greatest result for Georgia since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

LOS ANGELES — Brazil missed a string of chances and were left to rue a lack of quality in the final third after they were held 0-0 by Costa Rica in their Copa America Group D opener in Los Angeles on Monday.

Brazil, who came into the Copa America on the back of a run of poor results in recent months, dominated possession but lacked precision in front of goal with just three of their 19 shots on target.

These Euro 2024 games have been absolute cinema and provided fans with another classic on Wednesday as Croatia and Albania drew 2-2. 

Albanian substitute Klaus Gjasula had the wildest game as he scored an own goal and his side’s massive equalizer in the final minutes.

In the 72nd minute Albania led 1-0 and Gjasula was brought on to add some more security to his side’s one-goal lead. Two minutes later Croatia would equalize to make it 1-1.

GOAAAALL CROATIA!!!

Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal survived a massive scare from Czechia with a 2-1 victory in their Euro 2024 opener. With all the star power on the field for Portugal, their winning goal came from the unlikeliest of sources as Francisco Conceicao scored his first international goal.

Fans believed that Portugal securing three points from their opener was a given and a look at the stats would back that theory. The Euro favorites had 19 shots to Czechia’s five, 13 corners to Czechia’s zero and 74 PERCENT POSSESSION.

Saturday’s festivities began with a viral video of an Albania fan breaking spaghetti in front of Italy fans. That was a declaration of war.

The video spread like wildfire across the internet as the precious pasta of Italia was destroyed for all to see.

Albania fan breaking spaghetti

Tw: Italianophobia

Albanian fans snapped spaghetti in front of Italian fans ahead of the Italy-Albania Euro 2024 match. pic.twitter.com/7c3c5rByOI