Three days after EURO 2024 started, we have the first surprising result – Slovakia managed to ‘surprise‘ Belgium and win the game 1-0. Surprise is a bit of an unfair word, since the Belgians could win the game easily if Romelu Lukaku was up to the task. But the Chelsea striker continued his ‘curse‘ of missing easy chances in crucial matches (Croatia World Cup, Inter Champions League) and had three in this game, only to miss them all. He also had two goals denied, one for offside, the second for Openda‘s handball, and in the end, Belgium is already behind in Group E.The Slovaks had a good tactics, they were up for a ‘fight‘, and they had a number of experienced players in the starting 11: Peter Pekarik (37), Juraj Kucka (37) and Martin Dúbravka (35). All of them had a great display, along with Napoli‘s Lobotka and deserved the first upset of the tournament. On the other side, Belgium missed their chances through Lukaku and Trossard, De Bruyne was not the best on the pitch and Jeremy Doku failed to take advantage of his speed and strenght. The Belgians have a bad habit of not being able to come back after they concede the goal first, and tonight it was the same. Belgium have come back to win just one of their nine European Championship games in which they’ve gone 1-0 down (EURO 2020) and today it was their 10th.The action-packed first half started with colossal chance for Romelu Lukaku, who managed to shoot straight at Dubravka from close range in the thrid minute of the game. The Chelsea striker had another chance, again provided by Jeremy Doku, but again failed to score. And then the Manchester City winger, who caused havoc in Slovakia‘s defence in the first 10 minutes, made a mistake in his own half, allowing Milan Škriniar‘s team to take a surprising lead in the seventh minute. After Lukaku, it was time for Arsenal‘s Leandro Trossard to get embarrassed. In the 21st minute, Dubravka made a mistake and ran out o the goal, but Trossard failed to put the ball into the net. Slovakia managed to get back into the game and even had a great chance five minutes from time, but Koen Casteels‘ save kept Belgium in the game.Lukaku finally found the net in the 56th minute, and this time he just couldn‘t miss a shot from one meter away, but VAR declared an offside. Six minutes later, sub Johan Bakayoko had a sitter from three meters away but wanted to switch his leg to take a better shot and that gave David Hancko time to put himself in position and clear the ball off the line. Youri Tielemans came in to give Belgium another dimension, but his only contribution was a yellow card, after only two minutes of play. On the other hand, Openda came in and created a chance after which Lukaku finally scored. But VAR correctly spotted that the Leipzig striker handballed prior to crossing the ball to Chelsea forward and the goal was denied.EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP – GROUP STAGEMondayRomania – Ukraine 3-0 (1-0)/Stanciu 29, Marin 53, Dragus 57/Belgium – Slovakia 1-0 (1-0)/Schranz 7/22.00: (6.25) Austria (4.20) France (1.53)
