The 2024 Euros continued their trend of surprising results, with Romania earning their first win in the competition in decades with a 3-0 dismantling of Ukraine. Belgium's hopes were dashed with a 0-1 defeat to Slovakia with Ivan Schranz scoring the winner.
Favourites France began their campaign with a narrow 1-0 win over Austria, that was decided by a Maximilian Wober own goal in the first half. More worryingly for Didier Deschamps though, was Kylian Mbappe coming off with a broken nose.
ESPN's By The Numbers brings you best stats from all the Euro 2024 action on June 17:
Romania 3-0 Ukraine
2
Romania won a game at the Euros for only the second time in their history, the other being a group stage win over England in Euro 2000.
3
Romania scored as many goals in one game against Ukraine as they had in their last 7 games at the Euros, combined. The three-goal margin of victory over their opponents was their biggest-ever win at the Euros
1
Dennis Man became the first Romanian with 2 assists in a major tournament match since Gheorghe Hagi vs Colombia at the 1994 World Cup. He's also the first Romanian with multiple assists at the Euros (let alone the same game).
29%
Romania finished as the victors with only 29% possession of the ball - the lowest of any winning team in the Euros since 1980.
Belgium 0-1 Slovakia
45
Belgium's defeat was the largest gap (45 places - Belgium 3rd, Slovakia 48th) in FIFA World Rankings for an upset in European Championship history
1 and 3
Romelu Lukaku became the first player in history with 2 goals overturned by VAR in a European Championship match. He also missed three big chances, the most of any player in a Euros tournament since 2000. The last player with 4 big chances missed in a game was Netherlands' Dennis Bergkamp in 1996 vs England. Italy's Roberto Bettega in 1980 is the only other player since 1980 with 4 big chances missed in a match at the Euros.
5.94 and 2.56
Belgium have accumulated 5.94 xG across their last three games at major tournaments and have 0 goals to show for it (0-1-2; W-D-L). Romelu Lukaku has 2.56 xG in those games by himself (8 shots, 4 on target, 2 goals overturned by VAR).
47
Belgium have not converted any of their last 47 shots on goal in major tournaments - including missing 11 big chances. Ironically, Lukaka was the top-scorer in Euro qualifying, scoring 14 goals from 29 shots.
Austria 0-1 France
100
This was Didier Deschamp's 100th win as manager of France in 154 games (30 draws, 24 defeats) - a win percentage of 64.94%. Deschamps is far and away the most successful manager in French history, with Michel Hidalgo and Raymond Domenech second on the list with 41 wins each.
3 and 10
France is only the third team in the history of the Euros to win a match 1-0 with an own goal from the opposition - Le Blues also won their Euro 2020 opener 1-0 with a Mats Hummels own goal. France also extended their unbeaten streak in Euro openers to 10, having won seven and drawn three in their last 10 tournament appearances.
6
There have only been 6 previous game-winning own goals in UEFA Euro history, with a record 4 of them coming in the previous edition.
3
N'Golo Kante has played three games for France in the last two weeks - the same amount he managed in the last 35 months.
4
Olivier Giroud achieved a bit of history by joining Thierry Henry, Lillian Thuram and Hugo Lloris as the only Frenchmen to represent their nation in 7 major international tournaments (World Cup and Euros).
48 vs 138
Kylian Mbappe's broken nose, and resulting absence could trouble France. Since Mbappe made his senior debut on March 25, 2017, he has played in 80 of France's 94 games and leads the team with 47 goals in that span (next closest is Giroud with 36 goals). Deschamp's team averages a goal every 48 minutes when he plays vs a whopping 138 in games where he does not play.