Yugoslavia 3 Slovenia 3
Three goals down with half an hour to play and reduced to 10 men, Yugoslavia needed just six minutes to turn things around
Due to the political upheaval in the Balkans prior to Euro 92, Yugoslavia had been replaced at those finals by Denmark – who went on to win the tournament.
Eight years later, Yugoslavia as a nation was beginning to break up. Yet despite all the problems, the national team had reached the knockout stage of the 1998 World Cup and now faced Slovenia in their opening game at Euro 2000.
In his report, Nicholas Harling suggested: “Yugoslavia’s arrogance and complacency so nearly got the better of them against their Balkan neighbours.”
Not much was expected from Slovenia, but they surprisingly took the lead through Zlatko Zahovic and held it until half-time. Then, remarkably, within 12 minutes of the restart, they found themselves three goals to the good.
But as Harling explained: “The Slavs staged their recovery without central defender Sinisa Mihajlovic, who was sent off after receiving two yellow cards in the space of five minutes.
“Savo Milosevic had been on the field for only 15 minutes when he scored from a yard out. And the 10 men were back in serious contention three minutes later when [Predrag] Mijatovic’s pass invited the excellent [Ljubinko] Drulovic to drive in the second goal.”
Harling wrote: “Slovenia were hanging on now having lost all semblance of shape at the back.
“The sense of urgency inspired by Drulovic was characterised in the midfielder’s tantalising run to the byline, followed by an accurate pull-back which left Milosevic with another simple task.”
Yugoslavia’s three goals had come in the space of six remarkable minutes and they would go on to qualify for the knockout phase, where they went out to co-hosts Holland.