Euro 2024: Host Germany thrashes Scotland for dream start to tournament

Germany's collection of emerging stars gave their country a dream start to Euro 2024, with Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz spearheading a 5-1 demolition of Scotland in the tournament opener in Munich.

Despite mixed performances over the past year, the host nation sent out a clear warning to their rivals, surging into an early lead and never looking back to move immediately into the top spot in Group A.

Wirtz, the German Bundesliga player of the year thanks to his magnificent season for undefeated champion Bayer Leverkusen, kept a cool head to deliver the first after only 10 minutes.

Collecting the ball on the edge of the area, Wirtz fired hard and low, and goalkeeper Angus Gunn could only parry in onto the post and in.

Musiala, also just 21 and coming off a big season for Bayern Munich, lashed home the second on 19 minutes. Kai Havertz selflessly slid the ball into his path, Musiala took two neat touches to freeze his defender, and easily beat Gunn.

Scotland's already difficult plight became essentially impossible before halftime. Ryan Porteous's crude two-footed challenge connected above Ilkay Gundogan's ankle and video referral resulted in both a red card and a penalty, which was comfortably slotted home by Havertz.

After the break, Scotland mostly went into damage control mode, hoping to avoid an even more lopsided scoreline going into games against Switzerland and Hungary next week.

Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann had the luxury of resting some key players and made use of his bench. As Musiala came off, having engineered so much of Germany's attacking threat throughout, teammate Antonio Rudiger walked over and raised the youngster's hands in appreciation.

One of the subs was Niclas Fullkrug, and he made a quick