10′ WIDE! From the resulting set-piece, Zinchenko delivers towards the far post, where Yarmolenko uses his strength to get in front of his opposite man. Despite working hard to find space, the Ukraine captain can only poke wide at the back post and the chance to test Dimitrievski fades away.
9′ SAVE! Malinovskiy wanders over to the right of the area before setting his sights on the bottom right corner with his left foot. Dimitrievski initially appears wrong footed but he does well to get across and tip around the post for a corner.
8′ Yarmolenko sees his right-footed strike deflected behind and Ukraine get the first corner of the game. Shaparenko’s delivery causes chaos at the near post, however, Elmas eventually manages to clear.
7′ Karavaev plays inside and via Malinovskiy, Stepanenko and Zinchenko, the ball finds left-back Mykolenko, who sensibly opts to play backwards as Shevchenko’s team remain patient in possession as they look to carve out an opening.
6′ Nikolov’s touch lets him down as Zinchenko presses him on the right-hand touchline. After North Macedonia’s fast-paced start, Ukraine are growing into the game and slowly asserting their dominance on proceedings.
5′ Dimitrievski is called upon to punch away Malinovskiy’s cross before Karavaev powers a right-footed volley well over the crossbar from around 25 yards out.
4′ Malinovskiy catches Ristovski with a high foot and the centre-back wins another free-kick for his team inside their own half. If it wasn’t the opening stages of the game, the Ukrainian may have ended up in the book there.
3′ Alioski looks over the top for the run of Elmas but the chipped pass skips away from the forward and ends up in the hands of Bushchan. The North Macedonians have started well in Bucharest.
2′ Spiroski arrows a smart pass out to the left-hand side to Alioski, who immediately finds Pandev. The forward goes down and wins the first free-kick of the game near the halfway line.
1′ With the national anthems over and done with, referee Fernando Rapallini gets the game underway!
Ukraine have beaten North Macedonia in both of their competitive encounters prior to this match (1-0 at home and 2-0 away, in qualifiers for Euro 2016).
Angelovski opts for just the one alteration to the starting line-up that lost against Austria. Up front, Trajkovski makes way and Spirovski replaces him, meaning Elmas will likely occupy a more advanced role against Ukraine today. Apart from that, the starting-11 remains unchanged and left wing-back Alioski needs to be careful as he is one booking away from a suspension at Euro 2020.
Andriy Shevchenko makes two changes to the side that narrowly lost last time out. Oleksandr Zubkov misses out through injury and Shaparenko takes his place, meaning Malinovskiy will move further forward to partner Yaremchuk and Yarmolenko up top. The other change sees Sydorchuk drop to the bench and Stepanenko comes into the midfield for him.
SUBS: Egzon Bejtulai, Ivan Trickovski, Ferhan Hasani, Daniel Avramoski, Aleksandar Trajkovski, Risto Jankov, Darko Churlinov, Marjan Radeski, Kire Ristevski, Tihomir Kostadinov, Milan Ristovski, Damjan Siskovski.
NORTH MACEDONIA (3-4-1-2): Stole Dimitrievski; Stefan Ristovski, Darko Velkoski, Visar Musliu; Ezgjan Alioski, Stefan Spirovski, Arijan Ademi, Boban Nikolov; Enis Bardhi; Goran Pandev, Eljif Elmas.
SUBS: Sergey Krivtsov, Viktor Tsygankov, Artem Dovbyk, Oleksandr Tymchyk, Andriy Eduard Sobol, Anatolii Trubin, Serhiy Sydorchuk, Heorhii Sudakov, Marlos Bonfim, Artem Besedin, Evgeniy Makarenko.
UKRAINE (4-3-3): Georgi Bushchan; Oleksandr Karavaev, Illia Zabarnyi, Mykola Matvyenko, Vitalii Mykolenko; Oleksandr Zinchenko, Taras Stepanenko, Mykola Shaparenko; Andriy Yarmolenko, Ruslan Malinovskiy, Roman Yaremchuk.
Just like Ukraine, North Macedonia also succumbed to late defeat in their opening Group C fixture. A historic Goran Pandev goal had the visitors level, however, two late goals from the Austrians resigned Igor Angelovski’s side to a 3-1 defeat in Bucharest.
Ukraine came out on the wrong end of a five-goal thriller against Netherlands in what was arguably the game of the tournament so far. A 3-2 loss for the hosts will still have encouraged them and they will be looking to collect their first points of Euro 2020 against Euro 2020’s lowest-ranked side today.
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Euro 2020 Group C clash between Ukraine and North Macedonia.
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