Jérémy Doku burst into life within the first 3 minutes. Marauding forward from the right flank, he teed up Kevin De Bruyne. His Man City colleague’s glancing touch was bundled into the keeper by Romelu Lukaku. A squandered chance.
Doku again provided a creative spark. He played in Lukaku directly this time, who brought the ball past the keeper and onto Leandro Trossard. The Arsenal winger couldn’t quite return the favor and find Lukaku in the box.
A well-worked Slovakian press forced Doku to carelessly lose possession in a vulnerable position. Slovakia quickly fired a shot at Koen Casteels’ net. The Belgian shot-stopper could only parry the ball to the side of the penalty area.
Awaiting opportunistically was Ivan Schranz. He leapt at the chance and gave the underdogs a dream start. That immediately undermined my pre-match prediction that Slovakia would only score “a couple of meaningless goals.”
Martin Dúbravka almost poured cold water on the fiery start from Slovakia. It was his turn to give away the ball dangerously, with Trossard unable to lift the ball into an empty net from a far-out distance.
The game was shaping into an open and expansive match of football. Ironically, it was Belgium, who lacked the precision to find a killer pass. In contrast, Slovakia looked sharper with the ball.
A delicious flick from Juraj Kucka suddenly drew up an ocean of space for Slovakia, He whipped in a delivery which was volleyed definitively by Lukáš Haraslín, to call Casteels into action. At the other end of the pitch, Lukaku wasted a golden chance to draw Belgium level.
Belgium picked up the levels in the second half. Amadou Onana headed the ball across the face of the goal from a cross, and into the path of Lukaku, who simply couldn’t miss. Unfortunately for him and his Belgium side, it was marginally ruled out for offside by VAR.
Belgium went close once more. Johan Bakayoko slotted a shot goalward, with Dúbravka stranded. Body on the line stuff in the most literal of senses from Dávid Hancko, denied the midfielder. As he injured himself in the process of preventing an equaliser on the line.
Slovakia managed to take the sting out the game and succeeded in limiting the amount of time the ball spent in their defensive third of the pitch. The sum total of Belgium’s abundance of flair players amounted to a busted flush.
As Clive Tyldesley talked up the statistical scale of the upset, Lukaku blasted in what he thought was a leveller – but luck was once again not on his side. As a tight handball call in the build-up was harshly adjudicated by a monitor check to be a foul, with a bizarre instrument used to measure the slight brushing touch of a hand to the ball. And Slovakia ruled the day, with a colossal upset!
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