Serbia vs England

England have won their opening game in all four of their major tournaments played under Gareth Southgate (EURO 2020 and 2024, World Cup 2018 and 2022), just one fewer such victory than across their other 23 major tournament appearances (W5 D11 L7).

England have kept a clean sheet in each of their last five group stage matches at the UEFA European Championship finals, the longest such run in the competition’s history.

Serbia have lost 10 of their 13 games at major tournaments as an independent nation (W2 D1 - World Cup/EUROs), going winless in their last six such matches since beating Costa Rica 1-0 at the World Cup 2018 (D1 L5).

This will be England and Serbia’s first encounter since the latter re-emerged as an independent state in 2006. In fact, since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, England have only faced Serbia and Montenegro once in 2003, winning 2-1 in an international friendly. 

England are unbeaten in their last six matches against Serbia/Yugoslavia, winning each of their last four. Their last defeat was against Yugoslavia in the semi-finals of EURO 1968.

As an independent nation, Serbia have qualified for a UEFA EURO tournament for the first time. They competed as Yugoslavia and FR Yugoslavia in five editions previously, finishing as runners-up on two occasions in 1960 and 1968.

Serbia’s most recent UEFA EURO finals appearance was in 2000 as FR Yugoslavia, reaching the quarter-finals before losing 6-1 to the Netherlands. It remains the only time a nation has conceded six goals in a UEFA EURO match.

33% of Serbia’s goals in UEFA EURO 2024 qualifying were headers (5 out of 15), the highest ratio amongst any team that have reached the finals in Germany.