Athletistic/Football. On Monday, confrontations in Group E of the European Championship will begin, which can be considered the weakest in terms of the class of participants. In addition to the teams from Ukraine and Romania, the teams from Belgium and Slovakia will compete here.
Beforehand, the Belgian team is the undisputed favorite of the quartet. But the rest of the group will compete for the second ticket to the playoffs and, probably, the third.
Romania was lucky with the draw not only in the main stage of the Euro, but also in the qualifiers. There, Romanians had to compete for the right to travel to Germany with Switzerland, Israel and Belarus. Without losing a single match, the Romanian team took first place and comfortably won their ticket to the Euro.
There can be no comfort in describing Ukraine’s path to the European Championship. Only the “yellow-blues” were opposed to “monsters” such as England and Italy. The Ukrainians failed to beat these competitors, but the team proved its right to play in Germany in the playoffs. Ukraine first beat Bosnia-Herzegovina, then Iceland. In both matches, the Ukrainians lost, but snatched victory in the final minutes. Despite such a different route to Germany, the bookmakers have chosen the Ukrainians as favorites for the meeting.
In the World Championship qualifying tournament two years ago, the Romanians missed second place and were subsequently eliminated from League B of the Nations League. The team managed to fully reveal itself during the current Euro qualifications. In ten matches in the qualifying phase, Romania won six times and drew four times. The Romanians finished 60% of their qualifying matches with low totals. During the preparatory phase of the Euro, the team did not win a single match, participating in a productive match only once.
The Ukrainian team in 2022 also did not reach the final stage, but in the Nations League it showed itself better than its next opponent. And during the Euro qualifiers, the yellow-blues did not lose face, regaining points from Italy and England once each. The importance of the upcoming meeting is extremely great for both rivals. In this regard, the teams’ entire priority will be to keep their own objective intact.
Meeting Statistics
The national teams of Romania and Ukraine have never faced each other at the official level. But the teams played six friendly matches. The Romanians beat the blues and yellows three times, the Ukrainians won twice and another meeting ended in a draw.
Approximate compositions:
Romania: Moldavian, Raciu, Drégushin, Rus, Bancu, M.Marin, R.Marin, Stanciu, Mann, Miheile, Puskas
Ukraine: Lunin, Hemp, Zabarny, Matvienko, Zinchenko, Stepanenko, Shaparenko, Sudakov, Tsygankov, Mudrik, Dovbik
Forecast: no more than two goals will be scored
Andrey Andreev, Sport.Ru
Source: Sport
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