Euro 2024: Musiala magic sees Germany beat Hungary 2-0 to reach round 16

Jamal Musiala from Germany. Photo: European Championship 2024

Jamal Musiala scored his second goal of the tournament to help Germany beat Hungary 2-0 on Wednesday and book their place in the knockout stages of the European Championship.

Musiala opened the scoring in the 22nd minute with a goal that Hungary protested furiously. Ilkay Gndogan had set that up and the German captain got on the scoresheet himself in the second half.

The 21-year-old Musiala had scored Germany’s second goal in the 5-1 opening win over Scotland on Friday. Hungary lost 3-1 to Switzerland on Saturday and now faces a tough challenge to progress.

Hungary will play Scotland in the final Group A match on Sunday, when Julian Nagelsmann’s side take on Switzerland.

Germany will certainly advance to the next round, at least as the best team in third place. They will be confirmed in the top two if Scotland fail to beat Switzerland later on Wednesday.

Hungary were undefeated in their previous three games against Germany, won the last time the two met, and put up a good fight against the hosts in Stuttgart.

Marco Rossi’s side started aggressively and stunned Germany by almost taking the lead within 20 seconds. Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer had to quickly get off his line to slide towards the ball to stop Roland Sallai.

At the other end, Hungarian goalkeeper Pter Gulcsi made an impressive save for Kai Havertz.

Every time Musiala had the ball the noise level increased and the Stuttgart-born forward opened the scoring in chaotic fashion.

Musiala tried to set up Gndogan, but Hungarian defender Willi Orbn got to the ball first. However, he stumbled when Turkey protested as a push from Gndogan and as Gulcsi tried to help him, Gndogan passed the ball to Musiala, who smashed it into the net with the goalkeeper still on the ground.

Hungary leveled almost immediately, but Neuer did it brilliantly, parrying Dominik Szoboszlai’s free-kick and then preventing a follow-up with his foot. The crowd celebrated the save almost as loudly as the goal.

The vociferous home fans thought Musiala had doubled his tally at the end of the half, but his shot was deflected, hit the side netting and rippled it so that even Nagelsmann seemed to think it had gone in.

In injury time of the first half, Sallai’s header was disallowed for offside.

Germany were seemingly in control in the second half and Gulcsi denied first Gndogan and then Toni Kroos. But the hosts almost gifted Hungary an equalizer when shocking defending allowed Sallai to cross to Barnabas Varga for a free header from six yards out, but it went narrowly over.

Germany doubled their lead in the 68th minute when Maximilian Mittelstdt rolled the ball over from the left and Gndogan drove it into the bottom right corner.

First print: June 20, 2024 | 1:36 am IST