Ukraine gritted their teeth before roaring back from a goal down to defeat Slovakia and put the cat among the pigeons in Group E at Euro 2024.

After being thumped 3-0 by Romania in their opening match of the tournament, Ukraine could have been forgiven for fearing the worst when Ivan Schranz gave Slovakia the lead but Mykola Shaparenko levelled things up early in the second half before Roman Yaremchuk’s deft winner completed their comeback.

Jacob Whitehead, Dermot Corrigan and Nick Miller analyse the main talking points from Dusseldorf.

Four days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, a moment of rare beauty emerged from the suffering — Roman Yaremchuk was substituted on by Benfica and rewarded with both the captain’s armband and a standing ovation.

With 10 minutes left in Dusseldorf, he provided his own moment of beauty for his country.

It looked as if nothing could be done with a long and slightly aimless ball into the right-hand channel but Yaremchuk cushioned it with silk, caressing rather than controlling.

With Martin Dubravka onrushing, his final touch was more functional — a toe which wormed its way towards the line, but for the Ukrainian fans behind the goal, its slow pace suspended reality.

Both goalkeepers came into the game under the spotlight and both Ukraine’s Anatoliy Trubin and Slovakia’s Martin Dubravka had eventful afternoons.

Real Madrid’s Andriy Lunin started the tournament as Ukraine’s number one but was dropped after two mistakes in their 3-0 defeat to Romania in their opening game.

Benfica’s Trubin came in and had some early confidence-boosters — first stopping a near-post Lukas Haraslin drive with his foot, then making a really top reflex stop when Ivan Schranz seemed sure to score a point-blank volley.

But Trubin — also once a target for Inter Milan — will have felt he could do better with Slovakia’s opener. Although not the most to blame as his defence did not react to a quick throw-in, the 22-year-old still might have got a stronger hand to keep out Schranz’s header.

With Ukraine needing to score to stay in the tournament, attention soon switched to the other end.

First, Dubravka finger-tipped Oleksandr Tymchyk’s piledriver onto the post, then sprang from his line to deny Mykhailo Mudryk when the Chelsea man was through one-on-one.

There was not much Dubravka could do about Ukraine’s well-worked equaliser but he will not enjoy another look at Yaremchuk’s winning goal.

The substitute’s control of a dropping ball was excellent but the Slovakia goalie was slow to move his feet and could not then react when the ball was poked agonisingly past him to the net.

Dubravka made headlines at Euro 2020 when punching the ball to his own net during a 5-0 defeat to Spain. It left the cameras focused again on the 35 year old — not good timing given he could be looking to move on from Newcastle this summer.