Romania turned in a high-octane performance to win their first European Championship match in 24 years with an emphatic 3-0 victory over Ukraine in their Euro 2024 Group E opener on Monday.
Before the match, Romania coach Edward Iordanescu said his players would fight for every metre on the pitch and they did just that, flying into tackles and racing all over to defend in waves as their boisterous supporters roared them on.
“We’ve had golden generations with big performances but this generation represents the soul,” Iordanescu said. “This team has put the biggest effort into everything.
As big a heart as this team, nobody has ever had. This generation is limitless.”
Stunning long-range strikes in each half, one from captain and Man-of-the-Match Nicolae Stanciu and the other from midfielder Razvan Marin, shocked Serhiy Rebrov’s Ukraine, who had dominated the opening 20 minutes of the match.
Stanciu’s cannon shot into the top right-hand corner gave Ukraine goalkeeper Andriy Lunin little chance. The Real Madrid keeper should have done better on the second, however, which slipped underneath him as he dived.
Stanciu called his strike the goal of his career and said the support from fans was like something he had never experienced. “(The support) was unique. We’ve never felt anything like this before. My siblings, my father and my wife... all had tears in their eyes.”
Dennis Man — who became the first Romania player to provide multiple assists in a match at a major tournament since Gheorghe Hagi against Colombia in the 1994 World Cup — created the first goal after intercepting Lunin’s poor clearance and sweeping the ball to Stanciu. Shortly before the hour mark, Man drove into the box from a corner and put the ball across goal for Denis Dragus to tap in.
Romania’s tight-knit defence helped secure their second win across 17 matches at the Euro finals, the first being a 3-2 victory over England at Euro 2000.
For Iordanescu, whose father Anghel had three spells in charge of Romania and took them to the 1994 World Cup quarter finals, the victory showed his side’s unbeaten qualifying campaign was no fluke.
