SPAIN 1-1 BULGARIA GERMANY 2-0 CZECH REPUBLIC DENMARK 1-1 PORTUGAL

STORY OF THE DAY Groups B, C and D get underway with games that are intermittently intriguing rather than endlessly enthralling.

At Elland Road, Bulgaria and Spain trade goals and red cards as a cagey game bursts into life for the final half-hour. Sendings-off for both Petar Hubchev and Juan Antonio Pizzi mean that each side are reduced to 10 men soon after finding the net from set-pieces.

At Old Trafford, the Germans, after coming third at Euro 88 and then second at Euro 92, set about their task of going one better by cruising past the Czech Republic despite the loss of two Jurgen Ks: suspended frontman Klinsmann and injured centre-back Kohler.

Finally, Hillsborough watches stodgy holders Denmark being pegged back by a thrusting young Portuguese side: Rui Costa is 24, Paulo Sousa 25, Luis Figo 23, all in baggy shirts with outsized numbers, and all playing the sort of liquid one-touch football that the Danes had displayed at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. THE GOOD Well before saturation coverage of foreign leagues, armchair viewers can enjoy the chance to see Hristo Stoichkov stomping around the pitch like a storm about to break. The brilliant Bulgaria forward, on his way back to Barcelona following a season at Parma, has a gorgeous volleyed goal wrongly disallowed for offside – you can imagine his face – before he scores from the spot to send his country into a 65th-minute lead against the eternally under-achieving Spaniards. When will they ever come good, eh?

THE BAD ‘They’re here, they’re there, they’re every-blinkin’-where – empty seats, empty...’ The English FA had fought for three decades to host another tournament, and grounds had been Taylor-made for this new era. But only 24,000 spectators come to 40,000-seat Elland Road with swathes of blue seats all too visible in the lower tiers, including behind each goal. A 55,000-capacity Old Trafford welcomes just over 37,000 fans and 40,000-seat Hillsborough hosts a cosier 34,000. Football may be coming home, but a lot of supporters are staying there. THEY SAID WHAT?! “Where’s the beach?” – Portugal fans at an FSA embassy. In Sheffield. THE MEDIA The Independent’s Guy Hodgson pens a piece on ‘The quest to fill the boots of Cantona’ and asks if France may have made a mistake in dropping the Manchester United enigma and calling up Zinedine Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff for the tournament instead. “Unless France win Euro 96, there will always be speculation what they might have done had Cantona played,” writes Hodgson.

IN OTHER NEWS... Yevgeny Kafelnikov wins a first Grand Slam tennis title, beating Michael Stich 7-6, 7-5, 7-6 in the French Open final.