Finland lose to Russia in Euro 2020

After winning the first ever match in the Euro championship against Denmark, Finland were held by host Russia in their second match in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday afternoon.

An extra time goal by Aleksey Miranchuk in the first half forced Finland to leave the ground with the 0-1 loss against Russia.

Finland started lively into their second game and created a moment in the second minute when the newcomers thought they had taken the lead after Joel Pohjanpalo hurled himself full length to head Jukka Raitala's cross into the Russian goal, but the forward was fractionally offside and the goal was ruled out.

After a short while Russia came back to the game and created pressure on the Finns as a result Miranchuk scored at the second minutes of the extra time of first half.

Miranchuk, who benefitted on Artyom Dzyuba good build-up work before curling the ball past hapless Finland goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky into the top left corner.

Finland also created some sporadic attacks and got few opportunities but lack of smooth finishing by the strikers failed to level the score.

"We defended well and going forward we improved on our display against Denmark. We didn't manage to score but we had good situations: some shots that went narrowly wide, others were blocked. It was a really close game," said Finland head coach Markku Kanerva, reported Xinhua.

With the result, Belgium (three points) continue atop the standings in Group B followed by Finland (three points) Russia (three points) and Denmark (0 points).

Finland will face Belgium in their last Group B match on June 21.