In their first-ever meeting at a major tournament, Slovakia took on Ukraine looking to capitalise on their shock victory against Belgium.
Meanwhile, Sergiy Rebrov’s men were aiming to banish any memory of their abysmal 3-0 loss to Group E leaders Romania. And the flow of this game initially followed form, with Lukas Haraslin and Ivan Schranz both getting good shots off, but they were both denied by two great saves from Anatoliy Trubin.
Ukraine failed to heed those early warning shots, and Slovakia took the lead on 17 minutes when Haraslín’s lofted cross on the byline found Schranz at the back post.
He headed the ball low and hard under Trubin, but Artem Dovbyk nearly grabbed an equaliser against the run of play several minutes later. The Girona forward managed to get the ball near the six-yard-box, but his effort was blocked by a last ditch challenge from Peter Pekarik.
A lapse in concentration from Slovakia then gave Oleksandr Tymchyk a great chance to score with an effort that went across the face of goal, but Martin Dubravka’s fingertips did enough to push the ball onto the post.
That kept the scoreline at 1-0 going into half-time, but it didn’t take long after the interval for Ukraine to finally level, with a counter attack seeing Oleksandr Zinchenko play a pass into the middle of the box, where Mykola Shaparenko was waiting to hit a first time effort past Dúbravka at his near post to level the game.
Ukraine continued to grow as a unit, and they grabbed the lead with 10 minutes left, as Shaparenko became the provider with a flick-on pass into the box for substitute Roman Yaremchuk to poke under Dúbravka.
Slovakia had no answer, and while Ukraine gave themselves a huge boost after such a poor matchday one result, the Slovaks must avoid defeat against Romania to give themselves the best chance of progressing to the Round of 16.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Oleksandr Zinchenko (Ukraine)
