The reigning world champions stole the stage at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy when they comfortably brought down Ukraine 2-0 in their first Group C game earlier tonight.
The scoreline may have suggested that Germany dominated most of the game, which is partially true, but Mykhaylo Fomenko’s men nearly pulled off an impressive result over Joachim Loew’s team. However, goals from Shkodran Mustafi and Bastian Schweinsteiger was enough to take the Deutschland-based team ahead of Poland in the group standings.
The Valencia defender scored the first goal on the 19th minute after he headed the ball past Andriy Pyatov after a beautiful delivery from Toni Kroos. Bastian Schweinsteiger capped off a good night for Germany after linking up with Mesut Ozil to score late in the encounter.
The goalscorers won the game for Germany, but three players impressed the most tonight:
Manuel Neuer
The Bayern Munich stopper proved once again why he is the best goalkeeper in the world after producing an impressive string of saves against a desperate Ukrainian outfit. His positioning and reaction have been impeccable since the get go. He was even standing 10 yards away from the halfway line when Shkodran Mustafi scored the opening goal. To date, he has played 66 times for his country so far and managed to gain 30 clean sheets from it.
Toni Kroos
Real Madrid were demanded by Juventus to pay €120m and include Toni Kroos in a deal that would see Paul Pogba join the current UEFA Champions League winners. The Los Blancos must be out of their mind to consider the deal after witnessing their midfield maestro perform tonight. Toni Kroos made 112 passes during the game — highest number of passes in a single game in Euro 2016 so far — and only misplaced less than ten of them. He also assisted Shkodran Mustafi for the first goal and created at least five chances for his team.
Andriy Yarmolenko
The Dynamo Kyiv winger was highly touted to be one of the surprising packages in the European Championship by fans and pundits. He supported their argument after being of the only players for Ukraine to actually cause trouble to the German defensive unit. He was involved in mostly all of their attacks and had a couple of shots of his own but were denied.
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