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Tournament debutants Georgia are the lowest FIFA-ranked team at UEFA Euro 2024, but they started their campaign by producing a spirited effort in a 3-1 loss to Turkey on Tuesday, with the margin of defeat inflated by a late stoppage-time goal put into an empty net after goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili had ventured forward in an attempt to grab a last-gasp equaliser. Their next opponents, the Czech Republic, are also coming off an agonising loss, which means that the loser of this match is likely to complicate their chances of progressing out of Group F, even as one of the four best third-placed sides at the finals.
The defeat on Tuesday was Georgia’s first in four encounters (W3), so manager Willy Sagnol won’t be losing sleep yet. Those wins have come against relatively lowly ranked nations though, underlining the Crusaders’ imminent need to step up their game against the 34th-ranked Czechs.
Playing their eighth consecutive European Championship since becoming independent, the Czech Republic didn’t have the desired start, falling to a 92nd-minute goal in a 2-1 loss to Portugal on Tuesday, despite taking the lead. That result was the first defeat under new boss Ivan Hašek (W4), and they will be targeting an immediate bounce back here in their first-ever H2H to give themselves a decent chance of further improving their record of reaching the knockouts in four of their seven previous Euros appearances.
It wasn’t an ideal result in that quest against the Portuguese, but not altogether unexpected, as the Czechs have now won just one of their last seven group-stage Euros games (D2, L4). If they are to improve that record and give themselves a decent chance of progressing past the group stage, then they’ll have to do something they’ve never done before, namely win at the Volksparkstadion, after losing 2-0 to Italy in 2006 and 3-0 to Germany in 2016 in their two prior matches there.
Players to watch: Georgia will hope to see Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on the scoresheet, as eight of his last ten scoring appearances for the national team have ended in wins (D1, L1). Lukáš Provod got the Czech Republic’s first goal of this tournament to make it his third career international strike, with each of those coming in matches that saw both countries find the net.
Hot stat: Five of the Czech Republic’s last six games have produced exactly three goals.
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