Roman Yaremchuk, a substitute, was the hero for Ukraine as his goal, scored just 12 minutes after he entered the game, completed a crucial victory over Slovakia in Düsseldorf.
Following Monday’s devastating 3-0 loss to Romania, Serhiy Rebrov made four changes to Ukraine’s starting lineup, the most by any side at Euro 2024 thus far. At 25 years and 259 days, his selection was the youngest to start a match at the tournament thus far. Slovakia’s XI, on the other hand, was matched against the oldest, with an average age of 30 years, 233 days. In the end, youth triumphed because Ukraine’s vigour helped them overcome the more seasoned Slovakians late in the game.
Ivan Schranz scored his first goal for Slovakia in almost three years on Monday when he netted the game’s lone goal in Slovakia’s unexpected victory over Belgium. Four days later, on minute seventeen, he added another, his fifth goal for Slovakia in his career, to give them a well-earned lead.
In Slovakia’s qualification for this competition, 11 different players scored goals. Schranz, who played 373 minutes on the pitch without scoring, was not one of them. He’s actually tried four times as many shots at Euro 2024 as he did in qualification. Not even their own supporters anticipated that Schranz would be Slovakia’s main goal supplier in this tournament.
Schranz has now surpassed Bulgaria’s renowned forward Hristo Stoichkov in 1996 (30 years, 126 days) to become the oldest player to score in his first two competition appearances (30 years, 282 days), having scored a goal in each of Slovakia’s games at Euro 2024.
Ukraine’s first goal of Euro 2024 gave them a 54th-minute lead and a way back into the match.
A nice move by Ukraine was completed by Mykola Shaparenko, who timed his run to meet Oleksandr Zinchenko’s ball into the box and tucked the finish past Martin Dōbravka. It was only Shaparenko’s second goal for his country and his first in almost three years, but it was also his first goal in the Euros since Andriy Shevchenko in 2012.
The game-winning goal was scored ten minutes before the end. Dúbravka was unsure of whether to move after Shaparenko’s over-the-top ball, which gave the Ukrainian substitute Yaremchuk the opportunity to deftly take the ball down and push it into the net. That was his 16th goal for his country, and it put him one goal ahead of current coach Rebrov (15) in the all-time standings. It also made him the highest-scoring player from Ukraine in the history of the European Championship (3).
With 32 games remaining in these championships, Ukraine’s comeback victory was the fourth of its kind at Euro 2024—already equal to the total for all of Euro 2020. Additionally, this victory has given them a chance to recover from their first-round loss to Romania and make it to the round of 16.
Prior to this match, 40.0% of the simulations run by the Opta supercomputer for Euro 2024 predicted that Ukraine will advance from Group E.
That probability has now risen to 59.3%, ahead of tomorrow’s group match between Belgium and Romania, despite the fact that they are still the lowest of all the teams in Group E. If the Belgians win that game against Romania, all four teams in the group will be on three points going into next Wednesday’s final matchday, making for a fascinating evening of competition.
You can get all of the Slovakia vs. Ukraine statistics from their Euro 2024 Group E match at the Düsseldorf Arena by visiting our Opta match site.
Below is the match centre with information on teams, players, passing networks, expected goals, an Opta chalkboard, and more. It provides all the information required for independent match analysis.
The official Opta data for the game are also provided beneath the match centre.
