Wales beat Turkey, Russia edge Finland

Russia's Aleksei Miranchuk celebrates scoring against Finland

Aaron Ramsey and Connor Roberts scored as Wales took a huge step towards reaching the last 16 at Euro 2020 with a 2-0 win over Turkey in Baku yesterday.

Turkey are facing an uphill challenge to reach the knockout stages after losing their first two Group A matches without scoring.

Wales, semi-finalists five years ago, should have won more convincingly, but wasted several chances including a second-half penalty which was blazed over by captain Gareth Bale.

Turkey coach Senol Gunes dropped Juventus defender Merih Demiral after he scored an own goal in Friday’s tournament-opening defeat in Italy.

Robert Page kept the same Wales side from Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Switzerland in Baku.

In a very open first half an hour both sides had very good chances to open the scoring including Turkey skipper Burak Yilmaz, whose effort was deflected out for a corner, and Wales’ Ramsey.

With opportunities at both ends as the two teams refused to sit back, the Crescent Stars had two efforts blocked by last-gap defending on the 30-minute mark. With two minutes of the half remaining the vocal home support were stunned into silence by Ramsey’s opener. Bale found Ramsey free in the box and the Juventus man chested the ball down before side-footing coolly past Ugurcan Cakir, making amends for missing two glorious earlier chances.
Earlier, a goal in first-half stoppage time by Aleksei Miranchuk got Russia’s Euro 2020 campaign back on track as they beat Finland 1-0 in Group B yesterday. The Russians, who remain unbeaten against the Finns since their first meeting in 1912, made amends for their opening loss to Belgium as the group remains wide open.
The Finns, 1-0 winners over Denmark in their first game that was marked by Christian Eriksen’s heart attack on the pitch, almost made the perfect start when Joel Pohjanpalo’s third minute header beat the Russian keeper but was ruled offside after a VAR review.