Yesterday’s Euro 2024 action saw three Arsenal players featuring for their respective nations with the action starting with Oleksandr Zinchenko and Ukraine taking on Romania. With Vitaly Mykolenko failing to recover on time from the knock he suffered in their pre-Euro friendlies, Zinchenko started as a left back. There was so much hype around Artem Dovbyk and his goalscoring exploits in La Liga, with the watchful eye of the football world hopeful he can replicate that form on the world stage.
However, the first goal of the day came from a gaffe by Ukraine’s goalie, Andriy Lunin, after a very poor clearance from a routine pass, Romania launched an attack that saw Nicolae Stanciu take the ball on his stride before blasting a brilliant shot past Lunin. Lunin was almost embarrassed when a corner was almost swung into the net, as his positioning was off.
A bad day for Lunin got worse when Razvan Marin blasted the ball in from quite some distance with the Real Madrid goalie slightly unsighted, but a keeper of his caliber should have done better. Two goals became three when Denis Dragus was unmarked in the danger area area and side-footed the ball home from point-blank range.
This defeat puts Ukraine in a difficult position, bearing in mind that they take on a Slovakia side fresh from quite a lucky victory over group favorites, Belgium.
Speaking of Belgium, Trossard was in the starting lineup for his nation, cutting in from the left flank and occasionally swapping with Jeremy Doku when Belgium took on Slovakia. The Slovaks took the lead against the run of play when Ivan Schranz tucked in a neat rebound and from that moment on, it was a Belgian onslaught.
Romelu Lukaku was at his terrible best, spurning chance after chance, but he managed to get the back into the back of the net on two occasions, which were ruled out by the match officials. The first was due to Lukaku himself failing to stay onside and the second, a rather harsh inadvertent handball call on Lois Openda in the build up to the goal. Trossard got yanked off in the 74th minute for Youri Tielemans. Belgium had 15 goal attempts with a xG of 1.97, but they failed to get the ball at the back of the net.
Finally, we saw Didier Deschamps take a U-turn on his decision to start William Saliba for France, especially after his scathing comments of the Arsenal defender during the last international window in March 2024. With Raphael Varane retired from international duty, the expected defensive pairing for France was Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahima Konate, but it was rather surprising to see Saliba get the nod ahead of Konate last night against Austria.
The only goal of the night arrived when France captain, Kylian Mbappe, mesmerized his markers on the byline and executed a cut back that was diverted into his own goal by Max Wober. Mbappe had a glorious one on one chance to make it two after he used his after burners to leave his marker in the dust and go clear on goal, but his curled effort went off the mark.
Saliba’s performance, in all honesty, wasn’t as good as we have come to expect from him, especially when he misjudged a cross that allowed Marcel Sabitzer tee up Christoph Baumgartner for a one on one opportunity, but Mike Maignan raced off his line to make a wonderful save. Saliba was also caught out in a transition play that almost exposed his team, but he had the industrious N’Golo Kante to thank for sparing his blushes.
With France taking on the Netherlands next, it will be interesting to see if he retains his place.
The official Premier League fixtures come out today and I’d say a thing or two about that in tomorrow’s post.
Till then, Sayonara.
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