Turkish Football And The Dawn of a New Era
With all of the end of season excitement going on currently, the...
Gómez had been subbed off 15 minutes before the end of regular time as he had picked up what seemed to be a muscle injury. However, the injury now seems to not have been very serious and the substitution might have been just a precaution as the Germans were 1-0 up at the time.
Mesut Özil had put the Germans 1-0 up almost 10 minutes prior to Gómez’s substituion, after a briliant pas from Gómez had found Hector in the box, who’s cross took a deflection and reached Özil. Mario Gómez almost doubled the score a few minutes later but a miraculous save by Gianluigi Buffon kept het Italians in the match. Germany had the match in hand but Jerome Boateng gave away a very dumb penalty ten minutes before fulltime which gave the Italians a lifeline, Leonardo Bonucci converted the spotkick.
The extra time did not deliver any more goals so the match headed to penalties, after 7 misses the match was finally decided as Hector’s penalty went just under the body of Buffon sending World Champions Germany to the semi-finals of the European championship in which they’ll play either Iceland or hosts France.