France v Republic of Ireland, 26 June 2016

Kick-off: 3.00pm local (2.00pm BST) Assistant referees: Elenito Di Liberatore (Italy) Mauro Tonolini (Italy) Fourth official: Aleksei Kulbakov (Belarus) Additional assistant referees: Daniele Orsato (Italy) Antonio Damato (Italy) Reserve assistant referee: Vitali Maliutsin (Belarus) Man of the Match: Antoine Griezmann (France) Playing their first-ever game in the knock-out stages of a European Championship finals, Republic of Ireland got off to a dream start. After Shane Long was felled in the area during their first attack, Robbie Brady converted the penalty with only two minutes on the clock. It became the quickest-ever penalty scored in the history of the Euro finals. The last three goals that France had conceded in European Championship finals had now all come from the penalty spot. More importantly, the hosts were in danger of facing defeat for the first time in their last 16 games in major tournaments on French soil. The contest was developing in to an end to end affair in the heat of a summer Sunday afternoon in Lyon. The game took a dramatic about-turn in the space of five minutes mid-way through the second-half. Antoine Griezmann netted twice in the space of three minutes then, with the Atletico Madrid star bearing down on goal in search of his hat-trick, he was tripped on the edge of the box by defender Shane Duffy who was shown a red card. Although Ireland battled to the end, an equaliser proved to be too much for them as the earlier exertions took their toll. France had now qualified for the quarter-finals in five of the last six Euro finals but, due to yelow cards, would go in to their last eight clash without the services of N'Gole Kante and Adil Rami.