González and Spain's fast start punishes Portugal

The minute's silence was immaculate, poignant, loaded, and ultimately broke into applause.

- Nick Ames

"Rest in piece Diogo Jota," spelled a series of cards held up behind Inês Pereira's goal; the air was thick with emotion in those moments and one of the first things to say is that Portugal's players deserve the highest admiration for turning out to compete. They may not have shared a dressing room with Jota or his equally mourned brother, André Silva, but that cannot minimise the fact two members of their nation's close-knit footballing family had been taken away in devastating circumstances.

It took guts and no little honour to show up and keep running, scrapping, hunting for moments to take pride in while Spain set about reaffirming their status as runaway favourites for this competition. Spain themselves deserve credit for resisting any temptation to go easy, starting at a rattling pace and completing a thoroughly professional job. In their case that often means administering a sound beating and there is no escaping that they delivered one here.

They stopped at five, Esther González contributing two of them while Vicky López, Alexia Putellas and Cristina Martín-Prieto added further gloss. Four of those goals came in the first half, when they made a suitably resounding statement in front of a record crowd for a European Championship group stage game not involving the host country.