Why Slovakia must believe they can knock England out

Slovakia take on England tomorrow in the Round of 16 in Gelsenkirchen. An advance to the knockout stages - their second in eight years - is already a big success, but Slovakia feel there is more to achieve against a heavily criticised Gareth Southgate side.

- LUKAS VRABLIK

That’s especially true after a surprising 1-0 win against Belgium, the Group E favourites, in their opening game of the tournament. After the match, Slovakia’s players danced and sang along to a popular folk song Macejko, Macejko with a huge group of travelling supporters in Frankfurt, among which sat former internationals Martin Skrtel and Jan Durica.

Goalkeeper Martin Dubravka praised the fans, calling them “fantastic” and said he heard them in the second half even though he was in front of the Belgian stand. Slovakia have managed to get supporters on their side again – and they will see there’s another struggling giant out there for the taking.

Head coach Francesco Calzona joked that “nobody would bet a euro on us before the tournament”, but the team fulfilled their expectations and are playing in an interesting way. After the 1-1 draw against Romania, Stanislav Lobotka was asked by Slovak media what reaching the knockout stages meant? “That we will be here for three more days, so we will have a vacation shorter by three days,” he jokingly replied.

However, Slovakia believe they can do more than that.

Similar to England, Slovakia fans are usually not easy to satisfy. Even though the country qualified for a third Euros in a row, there were still doubters of Calzona’s methods.

He always had a tough job on his hands. In the summer of 2022, Slovakia fired the national team coach Stefan Tarkovic and started looking for his successor. The Slovak Football Association didn’t have enough money to attract an established name, so they ended up picking the Italian, who became the first foreign coach in the history of the country.