How to watch Group E | How to stream Spain vs Slovakia

Euro 2020 is here and, like the rest of the teams, Group E’s participants will be eagerly awaiting their chance to test themselves against the best on the continent. 

In most European countries, you can watch most – if not all – of the games through a national broadcaster or some other free-to-air channel. Sadly, if you’re outside of Europe, not only are these channels not accessible, you may be cornered into paying a sizeable subscription fee for a pay-tv channel that has exclusive rights to the games. The only way to avoid this irritating situation is with a VPN.

Next up in Group E is Spain vs Poland. This article will take you through how to stream this game legally and for free with a VPN and also why it’s the best option to go for! 

Unblock Spain vs Slovakia in 5 steps

The best way to watch Spain vs Slovakia is to use a VPN service and unblock a free, legal, and safe stream. Once you signed up to a VPN provider’s service, unblocking it is actually quite a straightforward process that doesn’t require much time. We list the channels showing in the next section.

This procedure is, essentially, the only instructions you need to get up and running – but scroll down to the bottom of the page to meet the teams battling it out in Group E! 

How to watch Spain vs Slovakia outside of Europe

Here is a bit more information about the TV schedule for Euro 2020 across Europe, including how many games certain channels are broadcasting. Remember, it’s not a full and comprehensive list of all the channels showing the games – every country in Europe has a channel showing them one way or another – but these will be amongst the most popular and widely accessed. 

Hopefully, there’s a channel here that works for you – but if there isn’t and you need to find another, just remember the instructions and information set out further down on this page apply to streaming services across the continent. 

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What time does Spain vs Slovakia start?

Spain will take on Slovakia on Wednesday 23 June in Seville at 18:00 CET (17:00 GMT). After drawing their first two games Spain, despite universal acknowledgment that their squad is not as quality-laden as it was four to five years ago, surprisingly find themselves in third with just two points. If they draw their final game, the chances of them making it through to the next round look very slim. Slovakia, on the other hand, will be pleased they’re second going into the final round of group games. If they can make that draw happen, there will be celebrations in Bratislava and beyond. 

Last placed Poland and group-toppers Sweden face off in the other concurrently-played fixture, which will play out in Russia. A win for Sweden will see them finish with a total of seven points, their best points total from a European Championship group since their first entry into the competition in 1992. Poland, on the other hand, still have an outside chance of going through if they can snatch a win and end their run of bad luck in continental competition. 

What channel is Spain vs Slovakia on?

In the United Kingdom, football fans will be able to catch the game on ITV and ITV Hub (formerly ITV Player) for free. The broadcasting giant has split all the games with the BBC, but will also be showing 

State TV channel TVP is broadcasting the game across Poland, whereas Mediaset España is the channel to head over to if you’re in Spain.

Do I need a VPN to watch Spain vs Poland?

Fans living in Poland and Slovakia will be able to watch their teams play for free. This is the same in many other countries across the continent, like England and Spain, where all the tournament’s games will be broadcast for everyone to see. If you live elsewhere in Europe, in places like France, only a selection of the tournament’s games will be available for free. 

Once you go further afield than Europe, things start to get a lot more difficult. There are many regions across the world – including Australia and the Middle East – where subscription channels have acquired the exclusive rights to show the Euros. In other places, like the US, you need a cable TV subscription to watch the games. On top of this, you can’t watch any of the free-to-air European channels because they enforce geo-restrictions – which essentially means that users outside of the country that they operate in will be blocked from viewing their content, whatever that may be. How do they do this? Every device has an IP address, and an IP address gives away your geographical location. So, European channels like ITV can simply block IP addresses from non-British users when they go onto ITV’s website. Most channels do this because they have only acquired the rights to show those games in their country, and nowhere else. 

This puts millions of fans around the world in a difficult position: pay the heavy subscription price to watch the games legally in HD, or miss them completely. The only way to avoid this dilemma is to download a VPN. VPNs have a lot of uses and you’ve probably heard of them before, but one thing they’re really good at is getting around geo-restrictions. They do this by sending all your traffic through a private server before it reaches the internet. The websites you visit then see the IP address of the server instead of yours. VPN companies often have servers in 50+ countries, so you can log into a server in the UK, for example, and you won’t be blocked from watching ITV. 

This means you can essentially watch the games on a free-to-air service in a number of commentary languages (French, Spanish, English, etc) from anywhere in the world. Most of the countries with free-to-air platforms showing the games are well served by VPN companies like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, amongst others, and you might even have a couple of different locations to choose from depending on which provider you choose to go with. If you wanted to watch one of the games being aired in Spain with Spanish commentary, for example, you’d simply have to connect to one of your VPN’s Spanish servers and head over to Mediaset España. 

Stream Spain vs Slovakia online for free

Every week, people from across the globe try to find ways to watch football for free. This leads a lot of people to illegal streaming sites (we’ll get onto why these are bad – and even dangerous – later). But there is a way to access these free-to-air channels that is technically for free, and it involves taking advantage of ExpressVPN’s money-back guarantee. 

ExpressVPN – as well as many other top-quality VPN providers – offer 30-day money-back guarantees when you download their software. Within that period, if you contact their support team and tell them you don’t want to continue your account, you’ll be issued a full refund. Conveniently, all 51 matches of Euro 2021 are scheduled to be played within a 30-day period, starting on 11 June and finishing on 11 July. That means you can download a VPN for Euro 2020 and just reclaim the cost you incurred after it finishes. It really is the only way you can legally and safely watch Euro 2021 online, in high definition and, most importantly, for free. 

Why you should avoid illegal streams for Euro 2020

A combination of factors including the rise of subscription TV channels, as well as generally poor economic climates in various parts of the world, have pushed more people than ever into streaming sport illegally. 

There have been a number of reports and warnings about the dangers of illegal streaming over the past few years, and some recent research has suggested the number of illicit domains showing sports content increased during the pandemic. This is a serious concern because a lot of people who access these sites aren’t fully aware of how damaging they can be. The ad overlays and frantic pop-ups that automatically open shady-looking websites aren’t harmless, they’re there for a reason, often an attempt to load your device with adware or malware. 

So not only is illegal streaming a form of piracy, because you’re accessing content/intellectual property via someone or something that has not secured the rights to, but you’re also opening yourself up to a whole world of harm just by heading onto these sorts of sites. When there’s a way to completely avoid these two issues using a VPN, it’s a pointless endeavor to put yourself through. 

Aside from these two important reasons to not stream Euro 2021 illegally, there’s also your viewing experience to consider. Illegal streams are notorious for being poor quality, laggy, and often cut out completely in the middle of matches. Audio quality is sometimes so poor it renders them impossible to watch. Overall, it’s just not worth it when VPNs are available!

Group E: meet the teams

Poland

Poland are a relatively new team on the European Championship scene, making their first appearance in 2008. However, they did manage to reach the quarter-finals last time out in 2016, and they have come third twice in the World Cup, so they’re no strangers to reaching the later rounds of major international tournaments. 

Although Poland’s squad for the recent round of World Cup qualifiers that took place in March included a string of Serie A and Premier League players, there’s one that springs to every football fan’s mind when the Polish team is mentioned: Robert Lewandowski. On recent form, the striker must be considered not only one of the most deadly strikers of his generation, but one of the best of all time – if the Ballon D’or wasn’t canceled last year, he would have been a shoo-in for it. The Bayern Munich forward has a ridiculous 40 goals in the Bundesliga this season in just 28 games and means this is his sixth consecutive season where the Polish striker has scored 40 or more goals in all competitions. Stats-wise he is, perhaps, the only player that has come close to Ronaldo and Messi over the past decade in terms of consistent, relentless goalscoring output.

Using the word talisman to describe Lewandowski is an understatement; he is his country’s captain, most capped player, and record goalscorer. Poland will expect the 32-year-old to be firing on all cylinders for what could be his final European Championships – without his quality in front of goal, they stand little chance. 

Slovakia

Slovakia would probably be the betting person’s choice to finish the bottom of this group. In recent years, however, they’ve shown they can mix it with the big boys, most notably when they dumped reigning champions Italy out of the World Cup in 2010. Slovakia have been involved in four of the previous European Championships – one as Slovakia and three as Czechoslovakia – winning it with the latter and reaching the round of 16 in 2016 with the former. 

Marek Hamsik, the country’s most capped player and record goalscorer, is likely to play a pivotal role despite reaching the ripe old age of 33. Another one to watch is Milan Škriniar, the Inter Milan defender, who is tasked with filling a Martin Skrtel-shaped hole in his national team’s defense. He is also Slovakia’s youngest ever player to appear at an international tournament, making his debut at Euro 2016 at the age of 21. 

Slovakia have one of the newest national team coaches going into the tournament – gaffer Stefan Tarkovic has only been in the job since the end of 2021 – so there has been little time to assess how his team might set up. This could be both a blessing and a curse. 

Spain 

Spain are by far and away the most successful international team of the 21st century. No other national team can match their haul of two European Championship wins (2008, 2012) and one World Cup victory (2010). They also won the Euros in 1964 and finished runners-up 20 years later, giving them a tournament pedigree unmatched by the other teams involved this summer.

However, the Spanish team haven’t maintained their dominance on the international stage in the latter half of this decade. The days of Xavi and Iniesta controlling the midfield and having a world-class striker like David Villa lurking up front felt like a distant memory when they crashed out of the World Cup at the Group stage in 2014 and the round of 16 at the 2016 European Championships. They did make it to the knockout stages of the World Cup two years ago, but went out on penalties in a shock win for far-inferior hosts Russia. 

Despite the more recent poor tournament form, it would be wrong to rule Spain out completely. They still have a squad littered with players from the best teams in Europe – players from Barcelona, Manchester City, PSG, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Napoli, and Liverpool were all included in the squads for the march internationals – so it will be on manager Luis Enrique to see if he can make them click. The former Barcelona gaffer had an incredibly successful period at the Catalan club, lifting two La Ligas, three Copa del Rey, a Champions League, and a Club World Cup – so it’ll be interesting to see what he can do on the international stage at his first tournament as Spain manager. Interestingly, Enrique hasn’t picked a single Real Madrid player – making this the first time Spain have gone to a major international tournament without one – leaving the injury-ridden legend Sergio Ramos at home. 

Sweden 

Swedish fans’ expectations for the tournament changed dramatically when Zlatan Ibrahimović – the country’s all-time record goalscorer – announced he was coming out of retirement earlier this year. Billed as “the return of the God” by Zlatan himself, the forward currently boasts the best shot conversion rate and second-best goals to minute ratio in Serie A, despite being 39 years old. 

However, disaster struck a few days ago when a knee injury sustained in Milan’s game against Juventus ruled him out of the tournament. “Of course, it feels sad, especially for Zlatan but also for us,” Sweden coach Janne Andersson said. “I hope he is back on the field again as soon as possible.” 

This doesn’t put Sweden entirely out of contention, however. They ventured to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2018 without the help of their famously self-confident icon, and have been to the semi-finals of a European Championship before thanks to a remarkable performance in 1992. The Swedes will still have players like center-half Victor Lindelof at their disposal, who has endured a fine season for Manchester United, and Dejan Kulusevski, a 21-year-old who has played 44 times for Juventus this season and is becoming one of Europe’s most promising young players.

Group E standings

Teams	PL	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	P
Sweden	1	1	0	0	2	1	1	4
Slovakia	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	3
Spain	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2
Poland	1	0	0	1	1	2	-1	1