Winner Joel gets first major strike
FINLAND waited for this moment for so long. They won’t have wanted it to come like this, though.
Their celebrations, however, were rightly muted.
Joel Pohjanpalo scored their first ever goal at a major tournament with what was their first shot in the competition.
It came in the 59th minute against Denmark. A moment they won’t forget for more than one reason.
It was a night when the scoreline didn’t really matter. Only the health of Christian Eriksen really counted for anything.
In the 42nd minute of the opening Group B game in Copenhagen, the scene was very different.
There was no concern about football then.
Eriksen was on the floor being given CPR as his Danish teammates stood arm in arm around the scene as tears flowed in the Parken Stadium.
You feared the worst when he was taken away on a stretcher with white sheets giving him privacy.
The world waited for news that he was OK. It would come that he was awake and breathing later on.
Somehow then within two hours of the Inter Milan midfielder collapsing on the pitch, the game resumed.
Both sets of players wanted to finish the game.
Brave beyond the call of duty. Especially for the Danes who just 100 minutes earlier had circled their team-mate as medics saved his life.
Eriksen had spoken to them from his hospital bed, it was claimed. They went out to play for him.
They had controlled the game for the first 40 minutes.
Understandably, after the restart, they were not the same outfit. How could they be?
Every error was rightly written off. It was hard to motivate yourself to watch the match, never mind play in it.
Nobody is going to criticise Pierre-emile Hojbjerg for missing a penalty. Not after this.
Nor question Kasper Schmeichel when he could have saved Pohjanpalo’s header.
The Leicester keeper had earlier consoled Eriksen’s girlfriend as she stood in tears on the side of the pitch fearing the worst.
Now he was keeping goal in a European Championship game. Both of those things shouldn’t happen on the same day.
Pohjanpalo coasted between two Danish defenders to head home in the 59th minute. It was straight at Schmeichel but it slid through his grasp.
Denmark were given a penalty with 17 minutes to go by English referee Anthony Taylor. Finland defender Paulus Arajuuri slid in on Yussuf Poulsen and he went down. It was soft but if any side deserved some favour it was Denmark.
Hojbjerg stepped up but his timid penalty was easily saved by Lukas Hradecky.
Denmark, quite understandably, looked mentally spent.