EURO 2024: Belgium, Ukraine Lose As France Begin Campaign With Victory

Slovakia caused the first upset at Euro 2024 as Ivan Schranz fired the underdogs to a 1-0 win against Belgium.

Francesco Calzona’s side are 45 spots below third-placed Belgium in FIFA’s world rankings, but they made a mockery of the supposed quality gap between the teams with a courageous performance in Frankfurt.

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Romelu Lukaku missed a host of chances for Belgium and had two possible equalisers disallowed by VAR.

Earlier, Romania in another upset had beaten Ukraine 3-0 in Monday’s other match in that pool.

Meanwhile, Maximilian Woeber’s own goal was enough to give France a winning start to their Euro 2024 campaign on Tuesday as they edged Austria 1-0 in their opening game but Kylian Mbappe came off late on with a bloodied nose.

Woeber diverted Mbappe’s cutback into his own net seven minutes before halftime in Duesseldorf to allow the French, one of the leading contenders to win the tournament, to come through a stiff test.

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Austria have been much-improved under Ralf Rangnick and their pressing game often made life uncomfortable for the 2022 World Cup runners-up, who saw Mbappe leave the field near the end after being hurt in a collision.

He had earlier failed to convert a glorious chance that would have allowed France to win by a wider margin.

While Les Bleus were not at their best, they will be relieved to have emerged victorious from the game after a build-up overshadowed by talk of politics rather than football.