Slovakia started strong and Marek Hamšík narrowly missed the possible lead in the third minute. The game tipped seven minutes later when Gareth Bale put Wales in front with a directly converted but not untenable free kick. What followed was a game of both teams that was mainly concentrated in midfield; the Slovaks clearly lacked the necessary offensive ideas. They were also lucky in the 32nd minute, as Wales were denied a penalty after Martin Škrtel fouled Jonny Williams. In the second half little changed in the actual course of the game: Wales acted aggressively and the Slovaks looked perplexed. Ondrej Duda brought an upswing into the game, he scored, on substitute a minute earlier, in the 61st minute from nowhere to equalize and opened a phase in which Slovakia at least temporarily got more play and could put pressure on Wales. Only Hal Robson-Kanus's hit nine minutes before the end of the game and a little later just hit the post by Adam Nemec sealed the Welsh opening win.
Right from the start, the game showed in which direction it was going to develop. The English, playing in a very offensive 4-1-2-3 formation, gave up half a dozen chances to take the lead in the first ten minutes, while the Russians tried to withstand this onslaught. This pattern of total English superiority and Russian opposition was repeated over much of the first half. The best English attempts were made by Adam Lallana in the 22nd minute and Wayne Rooney in the 35th minute, when Igor Akinfejew was just able to parry his full cocked shot from the edge of the penalty area. Coming from the break, the Russians came to play more, but remained altogether too harmless; a shot by Smolow in the 63rd minute, which went just short of the English goal, was the first Russian chance of the second half. In the 73rd minute, Eric Dier rewarded his team with a directly converted free kick, but the "imagined" victory failed to materialize , because in stoppage time Berezuzki scored the equalizer with a headed arc lamp. The draw was overshadowed by rampaging supporters of both teams, who first fought in the stadium and later in the streets of Marseille.
The game, which was already a “small final” for Russia, began with a low defensive formation, showed resistance after a first shot by the Slovak Hamšík in the 10th minute through attempts by Dsjuba and Smolow and then opened up a bit. But Slovakia played smarter and Vladimír Weiss scored the opening goal after a good pass from Hamšík and a great individual action. Hamšík rewarded his energetic demeanor shortly before half-time when his shot bounced off the inside post and found its way into the Russian goal. Although the first minutes of the second round belonged to the Slovaks, the Russians put pressure on them and came to a few deals, which were mostly too imprecise to be dangerous. It wasn't until ten minutes before the final whistle that Denis Gluschakow managed to hit the goal after a header, which initiated a hectic final phase, which Slovakia was able to downplay and thus bring the lead over time.
England had a chance to take the lead through Sterling in the 7th minute, but after a cross from Lallana he put the ball well over the goal. The following, equally weak game, which offered no significant opportunities for both teams and played rather weak, was interrupted in the 32nd minute by a handball by Ben Davies in the penalty area, which referee Felix Brych assessed as unintentional. It was Wales, after all, who set up a 35-yard free kick from Gareth Bale just before the break that made England goalkeeper Joe Hart look old. The second 45 minutes then belonged to the English, who, offensively strengthened by substitutes for Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge, did everything in their power to equalize. Vardy actually managed to do so after only having to dust the ball after a defensive error by Wales captain Williams. Despite Wales' declining performance but considerable defensive efforts, they failed to save the draw: Sturridge hit the ball into the Welsh goal after a pass from Dele Alli and gave England three lucky points.
Wales
England
Slovakia
Russia
1-0 Bale (10th) 
Hrošovský (31st), Mak (78th), Weiss (80th), Kucka (83th), Škrtel (90th + 2 ′)
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