Wednesday was the last day of group stage matches at EURO 2020, and in Group E, all four teams were in with a chance of qualifying for the round of 16. Spain faced Slovakia in Seville with just two points on the board, and in real danger of being knocked out if they failed to beat the Slovaks. This did not come to pass, however, as Spain finally put together the attacking performance they had been threatening to do for all of EURO 2020, aided by some poor defending and goalkeeping from Slovakia. Spain had the chance to open the scoring with just nine minutes on the clock, when Jakub Hromada was adjudged to have fouled Koke in the box, but Alvaro Morata’s penalty was saved by Martin Dubravka, extending the Juventus striker’s luckless spell in front of goal. Spain continued to play well though, pressing Slovakia high up the pitch and continuing to create chances, with Dubravka forced into action a couple more times, before a horrendous mistake from him gave La Roja the lead. Pablo Sarabia’s shot cannoned off the crossbar, but when it came back down, Dubravka inexplicably punched the ball into his own net to open the scoring. They doubled their lead through Aymeric Laporte’s first goal for his new country. The excellent Sarabia scored Spain’s third after neat combination play between Jordi Alba and Pedri, Ferran Torres got the fourth with a backheel after Sarabia and Pedri had combined once again, while Pau Torres’ header was deflected into the net by Juraj Kucka to round off the scoring. Spain will now face Croatia in Copenhagen in the round of 16, while Slovakia were knocked out despite finishing in third place in the group. Check out our EURO 2020 analytics report from this match for all the key data, statistics and visualisations.
