LILLE, France (AP) After an unexpectedly quiet night in Lille, Russian and Slovakian fans are gathering at the Stade Pierre Mauroy for Wednesday afternoon’s European Championship match while a legion of English and Welsh supporters are still in town.
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Slovakia opened the scoring shortly after the half hour mark when former Manchester City winger Vladimir Weiss collected a sumptuous pass from Napoli’s Marek Hamsik, cut inside the Russian Federation defence and fired past Igor Akinfeev.
Slovakia does not need to fear playing England following a series of victories against other big worldwide teams over the past few years.
Marek Hamsik’s long pass split the Russian defense, setting up Vladimir Weiss for Slovakia’s first goal in the 32nd minute.
“(Hamsik) is one of the leaders of this team along with Martin Skrtel”, said Kozak, according to Uefa.com.
“In Bordeaux, it was a great experience, so I hope emotions will cool down and there will be a great football atmosphere at the stadium”, he said.
“Napoli has become too small for Marek”, said the Slovakia coach. He helped a lot in the defence and scored a lovely goal.He is ready for a really big club’.
Hamsik’s decisive goal followed a quickly-taken corner by Weiss.
“I still have two years of contract with Napoli and my future is here”, Hamsik told Gazzetta dello Sport.
The Russian defence did not look comfortable as Slovakia grew with confidence and began to carry the ball against them.
No such dramas and now all England have to do is win both remaining games to claim top spot and draw a total duffer in the knockouts.
Russian Federation responded on the 17th minute after Smolov attempted a shot from distance that ended up high and wide of the top right hand corner.
A flare was then lit that appeared to be among the Russian supporters in the crowd, just a day after UEFA ruled they will be disqualified from the competition if there is a repeat of the crowd trouble seen during their fixture with England.
France violated “all commitments of the Vienna Convention” when police detained Russian fans, Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a speech at the Russian parliament on Wednesday.
“I was totally concentrated on the game, I was watching the events on the pitch”, he said. “We are not the favourites but the favourites do not always win in football”.
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Forced to withstand a late onslaught after Denis Glushakov reduced the deficit with a header ten minutes before time, Slovakia held on to record their first victory at a European Championship finals.
