Wales and Slovakia make their European Championship bows as Group B gets underway this afternoon.
Chris Coleman’s side head into their opening fixture having lost three of four friendlies prior to the tournament, scoring just three goals and conceding eight. Those matches were, however, played out without the exceptional talents of Gareth Bale who was involved in 81% of Welsh goals during the qualifying campaign.
Slovakia make their tournament debut and will have a simple objective of attempting to restrict Bale’s influence – no easy task. They can, however, point to an encouraging run of form that has seen them go eight matches unbeaten, which includes a 3-1 win over Germany in a friendly in May.
