The second round of matches in Group C of the European Championship includes a meeting between Ukraine and North Macedonia.
The match will take place at the Arena Națională, Bucharest on the 17th of June and both teams could do with a victory if they are to have a good chance of qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition.
Ukraine come into the match having lost 3-2 against Netherlands in their opening fixture of the tournament. Netherlands were the better team for much of the game and opened the scoring after 52 minutes.
The Dutch doubled their advantage just 6 minutes later and it appeared as though they were on their way to a comfortable victory.
Credit to Ukraine who fought back with two good goals and appeared as though they would take a point from the game. Unfortunately for Ukraine, Netherlands had other ideas and scored the winning goal in the 85th minute, much to the despair of the Ukraine players.
Ukraine showed enough in a good second half spell to suggest they can win this match. The defeat was their first in 7 games, a run which included a 1-1 draw in France for 2022 World Cup qualifying.
However, their recent record at the European Championship is poor and Ukraine had lost each of their last 6 matches in the competition, conceding 2 or more goals in 4 of those 6 games.
North Macedonia are delighted to be participating in the European Championship but would have wanted more from their opening fixture against Austria.
Having fallen a goal behind after 18 minutes, North Macedonia did well to find the equaliser, all be it fortuitously just 10 minutes later.
It appeared as though North Macedonia were going to hold on and take a point but Austria had other ideas and scored two goals in the final 12 minutes of the match to win the game.
Much like their upcoming opponents, North Macedonia will be disappointed to have conceded late goals in their first fixture.
It was their first defeat in 5 games having tasted success over Liechtenstein, Kazakhstan, and Germany away, the latter of which was an excellent result in 2020 World Cup qualifying.
Trends show North Macedonia have scored at least one goal in each of their last 6 games in all competitions.
Looking ahead to the team news and Ukraine could be without Oleksandr Zubkov, who went off early in the match against Netherlands. Marlos could come into the starting XI but was later substituted himself, meaning Mykola Shaparenko could get the nod.
North Macedonia are likely to go with the same starting XI from the game against Austria. Tihomir Kostadinov and Egzon Bejtulai will be hoping to force their way into the team.
Ukraine gave Netherlands a fright and could have enough to take maximum points in a game both teams need to win.
Great reaction, we fought for the whole match but was not enough. Now time to recover energies and prepare at best the next ones. 🇺🇦 #NetherlandsUkraine @uafukraine @EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/GiWH4pNGCX— Andriy Shevchenko (@jksheva7) June 14, 2021
Great reaction, we fought for the whole match but was not enough. Now time to recover energies and prepare at best the next ones. 🇺🇦 #NetherlandsUkraine @uafukraine @EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/GiWH4pNGCX
We do not expect to see a huge number of goals in this match and just a single goal could be enough for Ukraine to take maximum points.