Georgia v Czech Republic LIVE: Result and reaction in thrilling finish at Euro 2024

Here’s the match report from Turkey’s opening game.

You’d be forgiven for having earmarked Turkey vs Georgia as the most low-key fixture of the Euro 2024 group stage. After all, the combined ranking of the teams was the most modest at the tournament so far, and Georgia entered Group F with no European Championship experience to their name. This game, though? It turned into something far beyond a football match.

But when that violence began, as water spilt through the roof of the arena and fans spilt from their seats to attack one another, questions arose. Would the game go ahead, and if it were to, would it even resemble a football match?

To say the tension could be cut with a knife would be to give unnecessary credit to knives. You could have lacerated the tension with a balloon.

It felt as though everything could come crashing down at any moment, courtesy of the slightest move or even thought. It felt as if a foul on the pitch could incite a riot, such was the air of hostility, yet thankfully the violence in the stands did seem to have subsided by kick-off.

Portugal football had been talked about as among the favourites at Euro 2024, but they had to come from behind against Czechia to secure a hard-fought first win in Group F.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s side had dominated in the first half without really putting Czechia on the back foot, but Lukas Provod put his team ahead just after the hour mark completely against the run of play with a powerful strike.

It was only due to a fortunate own goal, which went in off Robin Hranac that Portugal managed to secure an equaliser. But after going level, it was Francisco Conceicao who scored the winner moments after coming on from the bench.

Here are Portugal’s player ratings from the win over the Czechs.

Here’s a reminder of how Portugal’s first game went.

Cristiano Ronaldo spans the generations. He in effect replaced Sergio Conceicao in the Portugal squad two decades ago. Twenty years on, as Ronaldo set his latest record, Sergio’s son Francisco Conceicao proved Portugal’s rescuer, upstaging even the old master, providing the sort of dramatic late winner that has long been the 39-year-old’s trademark.

On, along with Nelson Semedo, came Pedro Neto and Conceicao. The two wingers had barely entered the game when they decided it. Neto’s cross was blocked but not cleared by the luckless Robin Hranac and fell for Conceicao to drive in. If nothing else, it was proof of Portugal’s immense depth of talent.

The match will kick off at 5pm BST on Saturday June 22, 2024, at the BVB Stadion Dortmund.

It will be shown live on ITV and ITVX, with coverage starting from 4:15pm BST. You can find a full list of which channel is showing each match here.

Lothar Matthaus is 63 now. And if that may depress those who remember him in his dominant prime, let alone those who conjure images of him as German football’s wunderkind of the early 1980s, it has an added pertinence. He played in the last European Championship that did not feature Cristiano Ronaldo.

There are other ways of illustrating Ronaldo’s age, of course: Francisco Conceicao, scored of the late winner in the first game of Ronaldo’s sixth such tournament, was one year old when played in his first and is the son of a rival for a berth on the flanks, in Sergio Conceicao. His first goal for his country came in a European Championship. So did Ronaldo’s, but they were separated by two decades.

Longevity can be an achievement in itself. Ronaldo’s feats are measured more in goals but the simple fact that, 20 years on, he is still there is a feat. He has become the great constant of tournament football, up to 11 in a row, with the possibility he may yet make it a dozen in the 2026 World Cup. There is a sense Ronaldo, with his chiselled physique, thinks ageing is for mere mortals.

His next birthday is his 40th and he has scored 50 goals in club football this season; in the Saudi league, admittedly, but factor in his 10 strikes in European Championship qualifying and his appetite remains unsated. If the 2022 World Cup suggested his could be an undignified departure from international football, he has since staged a comeback: a substitute in Qatar has been reinvented as a Portugal starter in Germany.

At some stage, though, Roberto Martinez will face the same dilemma that confronted Fernando Santos: whether Ronaldo retains that status.

Attention now turns to the other game in Group F, as leaders Turkey take on Portugal…

Here’s the lowdown on VAR and the so-called ‘Snicko’ at Euro 2024, after a potentially controversial decision in today’s early game and a controversially ruled out goal for the Netherlands last night.

VAR will be in operation at Euro 2024 in Germany with semi-automated offside technology in use.

Here’s everything we know about the technology being used at Euro 2024.

Georgia’s final group-stage game comes against Portugal on Wednesday, 26 June at 8pm BST in Gelsenkirchen.

The Czech Republic’s game against Turkey takes place at the same time in Hamburg.

That counter is the last action of the game as the referee blows the final whistle!

Another great game, but a point that doesn’t help either side really.

The Czechs will be disappointed to not win it after their dominance, but the Georgians will be disappointed after that final chance!