Football ace Cristiano Ronaldo may not have scored a goal at Euro 2024 yet – but that’s not for lack of trying.
Cristiano Ronaldo had the most shots on goal and hosts Germany made the most of their opportunities in the first round of the European Championship group stage games, while a Romanian striker was the fastest on grass so far.
Ronaldo failed to score all three shots on target in Portugal’s 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic on Tuesday and is one of four players to have five attempts on goal in total, along with Frenchman Marcus Thuram, Georgian Georges Mikautadze and Christian Eriksen from Denmark.
So far it has been a tournament of early and late goals, with six of the 34 scored in the first 15 minutes and 14 in the first half hour. There have already been four goals scored beyond the 90-minute mark.
With a healthy average of 2.84 goals per game, or one every 32 minutes, only five of the 24 teams failed to score in their opening games.
Nedim Bajrami of Albania scored the fastest goal in Euro history after 23 seconds against Italy, although his team lost 2-1.
Portugal led the way in ball possession with 69 percent, while hosts Germany were equally dominant with 68 percent as they defeated Scotland 5-1.
The Germans have the best passing accuracy at 94 percent, led by 21-year-old midfielder Jamal Musiala, who has completed 100 percent of his 33 passes to teammates.
Serbia made the most tackles, with 20, in the 1-0 defeat to England, a number equaled by Turkey in the resounding 3-1 victory over Georgia.
Two players managed two assists in the first round, Romanian striker Dennis Man in the 3-0 win over Ukraine and, perhaps more surprisingly, Dutch defender Nathan Ake in the 2-1 win over Poland.
Turkey had the most shots on goal as a team, with 22, one more than the Netherlands, and also had the highest number of expected goals (xG) – a measure of how promising their chances were – with 2.62.
The most efficient team was Germany, who scored five times from an xG of 2.04, and the most wasted was Croatia, as they were held scoreless by Spain in a 3-0 defeat despite an xG of 2.04. ,27.
Czech goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek was the busiest between the posts, making seven saves, one more than Dutchman Bart Verbruggen.
Four players ran at more than 35 kilometers per hour (21 mph), led by Romanian striker Valentin Mihaila (35.9 km/h, 22.3 mph).
Belgian Jeremy Doku (35.3 km/h, 21.9 mph), Rasmus Hojlund (35.3 km/h) of Denmark and French captain Kylian Mbappe (35.2 km/h, 21.8 mph) were the others.
No player covered more grass than Serbian midfielder Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who ran 13.9 km (8.6 miles) against England.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
