The group stage of Euro 2024 is now history, and boy was it some really interesting history. We saw good goals, great shockers, and history being made right from day one.
The tournament opened with a game between Germany and Scotland, and the hosts ran away as 5-1 winners. That went down in history as the biggest win margin in the opening game of a Euros tournament.
Anyway, Group A went how many predicted. Germany won the group and Switzerland finished second, while Hungary and Scotland crashed out.
In Group B, we saw a couple more records get broken. First of all, Lamine Yamal became the youngest player to both make an appearance and provide an assist at the Euros as Spain dispatched Croatia 3-nil.
Then later that same day, Nedim Bajrami scored for Albania 23 seconds into their game against Italy, and that is the fastest goal that has ever been scored in the history of the Euros.
Later in that group, we saw Luka Modrić become the oldest player to score a goal at the Euros on the same day he and Croatia were knocked out by a late goal from Italy’s Mattia Zaccagni.
Group C was the most boring of the lot. The entire group produced just 7 goals and just one win in 6 games.
But in Group D, we were dealt with a big shocker. Austria finished as top of the group above France and the Netherlands, while Poland were the first team to be knocked out of the tournament.
Group E was interesting as well. All teams finished on 4 points but Romania took top spot by virtue of having scored more goals. Belgium finished second, while Ukraine were unfortunate to have been knocked out with 4 points on the board while there were teams that made it through with just 3 points in other groups.
Anyway, the final group was very interesting, too. Portugal topped this group. Yeah, they were shocked by first timers Georgia in the last game of the group, but they had already secured top spot so it didn’t matter.
It mattered for Georgia, though. This was the national team’s first ever major tournament and that win against Portugal ensured that they advanced to the knockout rounds on their very first try.
Their goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili was one of the standout performers of the group stage, making far more saves than any other goalkeeper in the tournament.
Georgia also surprisingly produced the highest goalscorer of the group stage. Georges Mikautadze scored in each of the three group games and found himself at the top of the log.
Türkiye’s Arda Guler scored a screamer in the opening game of the group against Georgia to become the youngest player to score on his Euros debut, breaking a record previously held by Cristiano Ronaldo.
The top two teams from each of the six groups made it into the next round and the four best third-placed teams made up the remaining spots in the round of 16.
