England will play Slovakia in the last 16 of Euro 2024 in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday.
Slovakia pulled off one of the shocks of the tournament by defeating Belgium 1-0 in their opening match, a result that should serve as a stark warning as to what awaits Gareth Southgate’s team against a country ranked 45th in the world.
Here, the PA news agency looks at what England can expect from the team who finished third in an intriguingly tight Group E.
Key Players
Midfield anchor Stanislav Lobotka played every match for Napoli during their 2022/23 Serie A title success and has been Slovakia’s standout player so far at these finals, though the 130-cap veteran defender Peter Pekarik runs him close.
The captain Milan Skriniar helps form the bedrock of the team, the Paris St Germain centre-back was an unused substitute for both legs of last season’s Champions League semi-final defeat to Borussia Dortmund.
Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka and the Verona pair, Ondrej Duda and Tomas Suslov, also know their way around Europe’s big leagues. The trio have started all three games in Germany.
Manager
Italian coach Francesco Calzona, 55, was appointed in 2022 and is in his first job as a number one having held numerous assistant coach and technical roles in Serie A.
He took charge of Slovakia after they fell well short of qualifying for the last World Cup and turned their fortunes around quickly to reach Euro 2024 with room to spare.
Having wrapped up Slovakia’s qualification for the finals, he was appointed caretaker boss at one of his former clubs Napoli in February until the end of the season, the team’s third manager of the campaign after Rudi Garcia and Walter Mazzarri had overseen a disastrous title defence.
Far from improving their lot, things arguably got worse for the champions as they won just three of Calzona’s 14 Serie A matches in charge as well as exiting the Champions League to Barcelona in the last 16.
Form
The win over Belgium was perhaps the most eye-catching result of the group stage though they were brought down to earth by defeat to Ukraine, chucking away a half-time lead to lose 2-1, and the 1-1 draw with Romania was very much two teams operating at about the same level.
Results ahead of the finals had been mixed, with 4-0 thrashings of San Marino and Wales doing little to rally optimism following an uninspiring draw with Norway and defeat to Austria in the spring.
Form in qualifying was good though their group provided not the stiffest opposition, minnows Luxembourg surprisingly turned out to be their closest challengers in the fight to finish runners-up behind all-conquering Portugal. Seven wins from 10 in a section which also saw them finish above Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Liechtenstein was a decent if to-be-expected return as they reached a third straight Euros finals.
Tactics
Romania, Belgium and Slovakia through to the round of 16 👏#EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/8cOMy5Fhce
— UEFA EURO 2024 (@EURO2024) June 26, 2024
Calzona’s plan to upset highly-fancied Belgium in the Group E opener was a masterclass in what can be achieved if decent but less heralded players are clearly instructed and work their socks off to do what is being asked of them.
Taking only one point from two games against sides who were closer to a like-for-like match talent-wise points towards a team not as effective when taking the game to the opposition, but nevertheless they created more than enough chances to have seen off both Ukraine and Romania.
England can expect to find space at a premium in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday, with the opposition likely to keep players behind the ball and wait for their chance to break.
