Romania produced arguably the biggest shock of Euro 2024 so far this afternoon, coming out as 3-0 winners in their group game against Ukraine in Munich.
The Romanians were largely billed as one of the weaker sides in this year's tournament, with few onlookers expecting them to pull up many trees in Germany. While Ukraine were not considered as one of the favourites to win the Euros, they do have some very talented players and were viewed as favourites for this fixture.
However, there is no doubt that Romania were deserving of their victory.
They took the lead just before the half hour mark, with Nicolae Satnciu putting them in front with a potential goal of the tournament contender.
Romania 1-0 Ukraine
Romania take the lead in stunning fashion through Nicolae Stanciu after some sloppy play by Ukraine at the back. @rte2 and @rteplayer https://t.co/vLYqIr22kW #Euro2024 pic.twitter.com/3t0kknDli4— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) June 17, 2024
While it was expected that Ukraine would respond after going in 1-0 down at the interval, they did not perform in the second half. Romania would score two more goals before the hour mark as they ran out as comfortable 3-0 winners.
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Euro 2024: Kenny Cunningham goes in on Zinchenko after Ukraine loss
A number of big name players in the Ukraine team failed to perform in this Euro 2024 game, with Oleksandr Zinchenko chief amongst them. The Arsenal star was very poor in his role as left back, with Romania causing quite a few problems down that side.
Speaking on RTÉ after the game, Kenny Cunningham gave a scathing takedown of Zinchenko's attitude over the course of the match.
He has got very emotional at times and understandably so, in terms of the position he and the players are in with the situation back in Ukraine.
He has spoken about the responsibility on the players, they feel it, what is expected of them when they go onto the pitch.
They were in a difficult spot at halftime Ukraine, they weren't playing well...
As a leader of the team he has got to throw down a marker, he has got to set an example. He gives up and is walking, that's not good enough, it really isn't. He has got to take leadership and send out a message in the second half...
He looks like he is feeling sorry for himself playing left back. He doesn't want to play left back, he wants to play in central midfield. I didn't like his body language today, I thought his attitude was all wrong.
He has to be called out. It's too easy to talk about the situation in the country, we know what is going on there. But that wasn't good enough today.
You can point the finger at all of those players, but him in particular. He's a leader in that team and it was nowhere near good enough today.
Ukraine will certainly need their big names players to show up over the next couple of games, with fixtures against Slovakia and Belgium still to come.
As for Romania, they will now fancy their chances of advancing to the last-16 at Euro 2024 on the back of this result.
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