PARIS: Ukraine found another late winning goal in another comeback win. Georgia and Poland held their nerve in penalty shootouts. All are going to the European Championship.

The 24-nation Euro 2024 lineup was finalised on Tuesday with three qualifying playoffs giving a stronger eastern European flavor to the tournament that opens June 14 in Germany.

Mykhailo Mudryk’s sweeping low shot in the 84th minute lifted Ukraine to a 2-1 victory over Iceland and a second late comeback win in the playoffs for a team representing the war-torn country.

The “home” game for Ukraine was played in neutral Poland because international games cannot be played in Kyiv for security reasons during the military invasion by Russia, whose team UEFA banned from trying to qualify.

Ukraine’s fans displayed yellow-and-blue banners criticising Russia and its president Vladimir Putin in the stadium in Wroclaw.

“A big thank you to our fans,” Ukraine midfielder Oleksandr Zinchenko said, “they helped us through these difficult times amazingly.”

Georgia and star forward Khvicha Kvaratskhelia will make their major tournament debut at Euro 2024 after beating Greece 4-2 in a penalty shootout. It had been a tense and testy 0-0 draw in a raucous atmosphere in Tbilisi.

Wild celebrations saw thousands of Georgia fans in a 50,000 crowd at the national stadium pour onto the field and some climbed the goalposts to sit on the crossbar.

Poland became the last team to book their ticket to Germany, beating Wales 5-4 in a penalty shootout in Cardiff also after a 0-0 draw.

Poland captain Robert Lewandowski, who had scored the first spot-kick of the shootout, could not bear to watch the action when his goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny pushed away the final penalty taken by Dan James.

“It’s big because I probably would have finished my international career tonight had we lost the game,” Szczesny said.

Two years ago, Ukraine fell just short in playoffs to reach the 2022 World Cup, eventually losing to Wales with a team emotionally drained from the effort four months into their homeland’s invasion.

Ukraine would not be denied this time and twice within five days rallied in the second half and found a late goal to win 2-1. Last week, Coach Serhiy Rebrov’s side had trailed 1-0 in Bosnia-Herzegovina until the 85th.

In a game of stunning goals, Albert Gudmundsson silenced the crowd in a city with a large Ukrainian refugee population as he fired Iceland into the lead on the half-hour mark with a curling shot.

Iceland, with a population under 400,000, were hoping to return to the finals of a competition in which they reached the quarter-finals in 2016.

However, Euro 2020 quarter-finalists Ukraine equalised nine minutes after half-time thanks to a superbly taken goal by Viktor Tsygankov of Spanish side Girona.

Extra time was looming when Ukraine grabbed the winner with six minutes left as Chelsea’s Mudryk swept home a first-time shot from the edge of the area.

“Thank you, guys! Thank you, team! For significant emotions for the entire country. For the important victory and making it to EURO. For proving once again: whenever Ukrainians face difficulties but do not give up and continue to fight, Ukrainians certainly win,” Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on X.

Having narrowly missed out to Italy in their qualifying group and being forced into the play-offs, Ukraine can now look forward to the European Championship. They will go into Group ‘E’ alongside Belgium, Slovakia and Romania and will have ambitions of progressing to the last 16.

AGONY FOR WALES AND GREECE

Poland go into a difficult Group ‘D’ at the Euro along with France, the Netherlands and Austria after getting the better of Wales in a tense shoot-out.

A high-quality shoot-out, which began with Robert Lewandowski converting Poland’s first kick, saw nine successful penalties before James had his effort saved.

There will be no third consecutive European Championship for the Welsh team, who were semi-finalists in 2016, but Poland will be present at a fifth continental finals in a row.

“It’s a cruel game, that’s what I’ve said to the players, one kick away from qualifying. It hurts,” Wales manager Rob Page told broadcaster S4C.

Earlier, Georgia made history by winning through to a major international tournament for the first time since the country in the Caucasus of 3.7 million people gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Nika Kvekveskiri stroked in the decisive penalty for Georgia after Tasos Bakasetas and Giorgos Giakoumakis both failed to score from the spot for Greece.

Surprise European champions in 2004, Greece’s defeat means their wait to qualify for a first major tournament since the 2014 World Cup goes on.

Ranked 77th in the world, a Georgia team coached by former France full-back Willy Sagnol will join Turkey, Portugal and the Czech Republic in Group ‘F’ at the European Championship.

“I would pay to feel what I feel today,” said Sagnol after the game, speaking in English.

They had never come close to qualifying before, until losing in a play-off at the same stage for the last Euro, going down 1-0 at home to North Macedonia in 2020.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2024