France Thrash Iceland In Euro 2016 Quartefinal

France swept emphatically into the Euro 2016 semi-finals and brought Iceland's fairytale run to a crushing halt as Olivier Giroud scored twice in a 5-2 win.

The victory this morning sets up a mouth-watering last-four clash with Germany in Marseille on Friday.

Paul Pogba, Dimitri Payet and Antoine Griezmann were also on target for the hosts in a romp at the Stade de France that proved a nightmare end to Iceland's improbable dreams of success.

Having fairly comfortably eased past England into the quarter-finals, Iceland, the smallest nation to have qualified for the European Championship, with a population of 330,000, were 4-0 down inside the first half.

They tried to rally after the break with a goal from Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, and added a late consolation through Birkir Bjarnason, but the damage had already been done.

France, who had not been past the quarter-finals since they won the tournament in 2000, eased off and cruised home.

Coming into the game, Iceland were praised for a rigidly well-organised defence while France had found first-half goals hard to come by, with their previous six coming after the break.

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