Small teams have improved: Slovakia coach Calzona after shocking Belgium

Slovakia manager Francesco Calzona claimed his sidersquos stunning 10 win over Belgium on Monday showed smaller nations are capable of competing with the Euro 2024 superpowersCalzonarsquos team caused the first major upset of the tournament as Ivan Schranzrsquos seventhminute strike rocked the Belgians in FrankfurtAlthough thirdplaced Belgium are placed 45 spots above Slovakia in FIFArsquos rankings the underdogs showed they were not overawed as they delivered an aggressive display that knocked Kevin De Bruyne and company out of their strideWhile Slovakiarsquos Group E upset is unlikely to be the start of a march to the final in Berlin Calzona believes it should serve as a rallying cry to the unfancied teams competing in Germany ldquoThe smaller nations the lesser teams if you will have made progress and we can cause problems for the big nationsrdquo he saidldquoWe have quality in the team Wersquove produced a number of excellent displays during the qualification stage Of course it has an extra taste to it to beat Belgium They are a topclass side It is true the small teams have improved But there is still a big gap and we have to work hard It is not easyrdquoSlovakia will face Ukraine beaten 30 by Romania on Monday in their second group game on Friday knowing a win would book their place in the last 16 But Calzona who served as Napolirsquos interim coach for part of last season cautioned his players against getting carried away by their success which was aided by the controversial decision to disallow Romelu Lukakursquos late equaliser for handball against Lois OpendaldquoIt will be very tough to qualify Unexpectedly the two teams who were favourites to go through have lost their first gamesrdquo Calzona saidIt was a significant moment for Slovakia as they seek to emulate their run to the last 16 at Euro 2016 They failed to get out of the group stage at the 2020 European Championship and Calzona said ldquoMy team did what they had to do We had to dig in during the second half but we showed no fear ldquoIrsquom delighted Itrsquos a hugely significant win for me on a personal levelrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever