Romania delivered a top-class performance to win their first European Championship match in 24 years with an emphatic 3-0 victory over Ukraine in their first Euro 2024 Group E football match.
Stunning long-range goals in each half, one from captain and man of the match Nicolae Stanciu and the other from midfielder Razvan Marin, shocked Serhiy Rebrov’s Ukraine, who had dominated the first 20 minutes of the match on Monday.
Stanciu’s cannon shot into the top right corner gives Ukrainian goalkeeper Andriy Lunin little chance. But Lunin should have done better on the second, which slipped under him as he dived.
Rebrov’s team paid dearly for their inability to turn early possession into scoring chances, while Romania absorbed the pressure and then scored on the counterattack after dispossessing Ukraine in their own half.
Before the match, Romania coach Edward Iordanescu said his players would fight for every meter on the pitch. They did just that, throwing themselves into tackles and running all over the pitch to defend and launch counterattacks as their raucous fans cheered them on.
The result was all but confirmed just before the hour mark when influential striker Dennis Man burst into the area from a corner and placed the ball into the goal for Denis Dragus to intercept.
Romania’s tight-knit defense prevented Ukraine from getting anywhere near goal, helping to secure Romania’s second win in 17 matches at the European Championships, the first being a 3-2 win over England at Euro 2000.
For Iordanescu, whose father Anghel coached Romania three times and took them to the quarter-finals of the 1994 World Cup, the victory was a welcome gift for his birthday the day before and showed that his team’s unbeaten record in qualifying may not be a coincidence.
