For the first three days of Euro 2024, all went swimmingly for the countries considered potential champions.
Germany and Spain won impressively, England earned a hard-fought victory and, although they suffered a scare along the way, Italy overcame Albania.
But on day four that all changed.
It began with a relatively minor upset — Romania beating Ukraine 3-0 — and continued with a remarkable result, Slovakia stunning a Belgium team ranked 45 places above them to win 1-0.
Then, in the day’s late game, France suffered their own worrying setback. That did not come in the shape of the result — they were made to work hard but beat Austria 1-0. The issue, though, is that star striker and captain Kylian Mbappe suffered a nasty-looking nose injury and had to be replaced late on.
Our writers walk you through the key moments from day four.
One of the biggest upsets in Euros history
Romelu Lukaku is Belgium’s record goalscorer (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
If you take FIFA’s rankings as an accurate reflection of team quality, Slovakia’s win over Belgium was the greatest upset in European Championship history.
Belgium, ranked the third-best team in the world by football’s global governing body, were beaten 1-0 in Frankfurt in their opening Group E fixture by an unfancied Slovakia team, who languish 45 places below them in the standings. It was also the first time at this tournament that one of the favourites had been beaten, after opening wins for Germany, Spain, England, Italy and the Netherlands.
The defeated head coach Domenico Tedesco convened his squad in a huddle after the final whistle. While the victors celebrated at the other end of the ground, he impressed upon his players that they can recover from this setback. But, after the team’s toils at the last World Cup, when they were eliminated at the group stage, this was a traumatic start to this latest campaign.
Few had seen it coming. Belgium may be moving on from their golden generation of players, blooding younger talents as they build for the future, but they had still arrived at the tournament unbeaten in 15 matches stretching back to November 2022 and that elimination in Qatar.
But, after presenting Ivan Schranz with an early goal in an evenly-matched first half, familiar failings kicked in.
Tedesco’s side were profligate, with Romelu Lukaku missing a succession of chances. When the striker did find the back of the net, he was twice denied by VAR — once for a marginal offside and then, in the last few minutes, by Lois Openda’s faint handball in the build-up.
Even with Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne in their ranks, Belgium could not force parity. They have now failed to convert any of their past 47 shots in major tournaments. “We can harness this disappointment and make use of this defeat,” said Tedesco. But it was hard to spy too many positives in such a humbling loss.
Dominic Fifield
France begin with a win — but at what cost?
France opened their Euro 2024 campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Austria, but at what cost? The most enduring image of the night in Dusseldorf was that of Kylian Mbappe trudging off in the final minutes with what looked like a broken nose.
It was an innocuous-looking incident in the closing stages, with Mbappe challenging Kevin Danso for an aerial ball and somehow connecting with the Austria defender’s shoulder. Television images showed the Real Madrid forward’s nose swelling immediately and bent out of shape by the clash.
Mbappe’s nose is BUSTED 😳 pic.twitter.com/2fTFjpofLQ
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) June 17, 2024
“Apparently the nose is not good at all,” France coach Didier Deschamps said. “So we’ll see. It’s obviously the negative point of the evening. Even if it’s just his nose, it’s annoying for us.”
Widely regarded as favourites to win the tournament, France had an uncomfortable evening against a highly-spirited and energetic Austria team. Like Gareth Southgate after England’s nervy 1-0 win over Serbia 24 hours earlier, Deschamps will take the positives and note the room for improvement in certain aspects of his team’s performance.
N’Golo Kante won the official man-of-the-match award, rolling back the years with a non-stop performance as some of his younger team-mates tired in the second half, but Mbappe was always at the heart of an action. He squandered two clear goalscoring opportunities but played a significant part in the game’s opening goal on 38 minutes, skinning his opponent on the right-hand side before a pull-back that was unwittingly diverted into his own net by Austria defender Maximilian Wober.
A welcome victory for France, then, but their supporters will anxiously await news of Mbappe’s injury. There are masks that players can use to protect their faces after that type of injury, but it looked quite a mess.
Oliver Kay
Romania roll back the years
Andrei Ratiu’s reaction summed it up best, hands clasped over his shock of blue hair, the right-back not quite believing what he had just witnessed from team-mate Nicolae Stanciu.
Romania enthralled a generation during their international football heyday during the 1990s and in that regard, Stanciu’s wonderful, curving strike was not only a contender for goal of the tournament, but throwback of the tournament, too.
Romania won a European Championship game for only the second time (Florencia Tan Jun/UEFA via Getty Images)
Edi Iordanescu’s side — unbeaten and miserly in qualifying — generally lack the individual brilliance of their forebears, but Stanciu sprinkled some magic over a display of controlled, disciplined aggression and clinical counter-attacking.
Three unanswered goals swept their more technically gifted opponents aside, who are playing at a tournament for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The result provided us with the first proper shock of the tournament, even if it was soon overshadowed by Slovakia’s exploits against Belgium.
If Romania were more than the sum of their parts, Ukraine were less than theirs. A talented attack enjoyed a lot of the ball but failed to do much with it.
Perhaps the only comfort for Ukraine will be that they came up against one of the most quietly impressive team performances we have seen so far. Romania should not be underestimated and that could be bad news for Belgium.
Mark Critchley
‘Snickometer’ plays a major role for the first time
For a fleeting moment as the clock ticked towards 90 minutes in the Belgium game, Lukaku appeared to have salvaged a point for his team. But then came a VAR intervention and a moment of tournament history.
Turkish referee Halil Umut Meler went to the pitchside monitor to review a handball from Openda in the build-up, and was shown footage using UEFA’s new ‘snickometer’ technology, to ascertain whether the RB Leipzig forward had illegally made contact with the ball. The footage showed he had, and what would have been the equalising goal was duly ruled out.
UEFA has been keen to improve the decision-making progress at games, with Roberto Rosetti, their managing director of referees, flagging the rollout of the new technology in a pre-tournament briefing in Munich.
Rosetti explained that the balls used at this tournament would contain microchips that allow precise tracking of contact, essential to the semi-automated offside technology used, but will also allow officials to detect whether, in certain situations, contact has been made at all.
Rather like the technology employed in cricket, the ‘snickometer’ offers a way of detecting whether a player has touched the ball, perhaps with a hand, or whether a player in an offside position has made contact.
This was its first major usage, and came during a key moment in the game.
Patrick Boyland
Stat of the day
Romania had only 29 per cent of possession in their resounding victory over Ukraine. That is the lowest figure recorded by a winning team in a European Championship match since records began (1980).
What’s next?
There are two games to come on Tuesday.
- Turkey vs Georgia (5pm BST/12pm ET)
- Portugal vs Czech Republic (8pm BST/3pm ET)
(Top photo: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
