France's Antoine Griezmann celebrates after scoring their second goal in their Euro 2016 round of 16 win over Republic of Ireland on Sunday. Jason Cairnduff / Reuters / June 26, 2016
Atletico Madrid marksman Antoine Griezmann finally broke through a committed Irish defence on Sunday and then struck the winner all within a three-minute span to fire France into the quarter-finals of Euro 2016.
Norwich City striker Robbie Brady smoothly stroked a spot kick just two minutes into the game to put Republic of Ireland 1-0 ahead. Paul Pogba’s errant crash into Shane Long in the area immediately put the hosts behind, and the Irish dug in for a long defence of their lead.
They went into half-time still 1-0 up, and began the second with spirit. Butthey finally broke down on 58 minutes, Griezmann heading in sharply froma Bacary Sagna cross to level.
Just three minutes later, he took a feed from Olivier Giroud at the top of the area against a backtracking Ireland defence and calmly slotted home with a right-footed shot.
It took just another five minutes for Griezmann to threaten again, this time though with Shane Duffy taking a straight red for his tackle to break up a clear one-on-one opportunity for the Atletico man.
Down to 10 men, Ireland were not able to muster a fightback. France, who for so much of the game looked like they might succumb to an all-time shock result, survived yet another display of shaky form.
More to come