The Slovak national football team before the match in Luxembourg. (source: TASR)
Slovakia's men's national football team are on the brink of qualifying for the Euro 2024 championships in Germany after a hard fought victory against Luxembourg on Monday night.
Slovakia defeated Luxembourg 1-0 thanks to Dávid Ďuriš's goal.
"It was a very difficult match for us," said Slovakia's coach Francesco Calzona, "In the first half, we did everything we shouldn't have. We changed some things. We got better in the second half."
"It was not the performance we imagined. The game did not go our way and we had to put more heart into the match," said the team's captain Milan Škriniar.
The team need just one point from their final two qualifying matches - a home match on November 16 against Iceland before playing Bosnia and Herzegovina three days later - to go through to the European championship for the third time in a row.
Slovakia could also qualify without taking any points from those two games if Luxembourg lose their next two matches and Iceland lose their last game against Portugal.
Portugal is comfortably on top of Qualification Group J.
On October 13, Slovakia lost a match against Portugal 2-3 in Porto.
Dávid Hancko scored the contact goal with a long-range shot. Only a few minutes later, Ronaldo put Portugal in the lead again. In the 80th minute, Stanislav Lobotka reduced the score with a beautiful shot from outside the penalty area.
Slovak footballers started their qualification journey in front of their own fans in Trnava with a 0-0 draw with Luxembourg, then won over Bosnia.
With a 2-1 triumph in Iceland, they improved their prospects for advancing to the European Championship. They also managed a duel in Liechtenstein, where they won 1-0. They played an even game with Portugal in Bratislava, losing only 0-1. In a home match, they won over Lichtenstein 3-0.
