Looking to open their Euro 2024 accounts on a strong note, Romania and Ukraine will lock horns in their opening match at the Allianz Arena on Monday afternoon.

Romania

Romania manager Edward Iordanescu has overseen a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for this Eastern European sleeping giant. After several lacklustre qualifying campaigns, improved form saw Romania surprise many by winning Group I ahead of the much-fancied Swiss. Going unbeaten in ten games, winning six and drawing four.

However, since a 1-0 win over Switzerland in their final Euro 2024 qualifying game, they have drawn three of the last four. All those draws have come at home against modest opposition in Northern Ireland (1-1), Bulgaria (0-0) and most recently Liechtenstein(also 0-0), and they went down to a 3-2 defeat when facing Colombia in Madrid in March. 

With no goals in their last two games, manager Iordanescu will be hoping his team’s top striking talent can find their shooting boots ahead of this crucial opener with Ukraine.

Ukraine

Ukraine comes into this game in excellent form, having only been beaten twice since the start of 2023. In that period, despite defeats to Italy and Poland, they have won eight other matches, drawing four, holding England, Germany (twice) and Italy in those matches. 

After coming through the Euro 2024 Playoffs beating Bosnia & Herzegovina and Iceland by 2-1 scorelines to claim a spot in the finals, they drew with Germany early in June before losing away to Poland but in their last warm up game defeated Moldova 4-0 in Chisinau. 

Having reached the quarterfinals of Euro 2020, where they were beaten comfortably by England, Ukraine will want to qualify from the group stage and manager Sergei Rebrov will no doubt be targeting his team picking up something from this game.

Prediction: Romania 0-1 Ukraine

Romania vs Ukraine stream and TV listing

Panama：TVMax 9

Paraguay：GEN

International：Score808 808ball