Portugal vs Czech Republic LIVE: Euro 2024 team news and line-ups as Cristiano Ronaldo leads Selecao

Turkey have never won the opening game in any of their previous five European Championship campaigns, and they lost all of their group games at Euro 2020, finishing bottom of the group.

Nevertheless, they finished top of a potentially difficult qualifying group, ending the campaign one point above Croatia having won five, drawn two and lost one of their eight games.

They’ve had very mixed form in their last five matches though, losing 1-0 to Hungary and 6-1 to Austria in March friendlies, a few months after drawing 1-1 to Wales in their final qualifying game.

In their warm-up matches, Vincenzo Montella’s side drew 0-0 with Italy before falling to a 2-1 loss to Poland on 10 June.

There are few real stars around Europe who are truly unknown when it comes time for summer international tournaments summer anymore, at least not in the way used to be the case. Czech Republic and Euro ‘96 are a great case in point: few were familiar names before it, a whole raft of players were not just known, but sought-after, following their exploits there.

Modern accessibility to more matches and footage than ever before means some of that surprise element has departed, even if players can still come from nowhere to have a great summer with their national team.

But even from countries with less prestige or history, if they have a genuinely top-tier player, they enter the tournament as known quantities, generally speaking. Georgia, at Euro 2024 in their first competition finalssince independence from the Soviet Union, at first seem a case in point.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was an unheralded signing in many ways when Napoli took him from Dinamo Batumi in his home nation. But within a few months, he was known everywhere: Sparkling Serie A performances, a host of goals and assists and the realisation that he was a top-class performer who warranted much, much more attention than he was getting months earlier.

And yet Georgia present a confusion of both the above statements: firstly, they do arrive with a relative unknown quantity in their ranks who can make an impression, and secondly, it may be this other player, not their best player in Kvaratskhelia, who offers their best route to cause an upset in Group F. Introducing, Georges Mikautadze.

Inside BVB Stadion after a hell of a time trying to navigate the elements, and it is remarkable how this ground contains noise. There’s almost something overwhelming about it.

Some neutrals might have identified this group game as the one they were the least fussed about, but the atmosphere is already something else.

There has been fighting in the stands, biblical rain, and now intense noise. The violence and weather have made for a tension here, too.

When the noise rises, it feels like things are on a knife edge. This should be very interesting.

Half an hour until kick-off now, so here’s a reminder of how you can watch tonight’s first game.

The fixture will kick off at 5pm BST on Tuesday 18 June at the BVB Stadion Dortmund.

Turkey vs Georgia will be shown live on BBC 1 and iPlayer, with coverage starting at 4.30pm. You can find a full list of which channel is showing each match here.

If you’re travelling abroad and want to watch major sporting events, you might need a VPN to unblock your streaming app. Our VPN round-up is here to help and includes deals on VPNs in the market. Viewers using a VPN need to make sure that they comply with any local regulations where they are, and also with the terms of their service provider.

Fans of Georgia and Turkey brawled inside the BVB Stadion Dortmund an hour before kick-off in the two countries’ opening Euro 2024 match.

Video footage circulated on social media showed groups of opposing supporters clash in one corner of the stadium, with punches thrown and missiles launched before police intervened to quell the violent scenes.

The fighting came amid torrential rain in Dortmund on Tuesday which caused the stadium’s roof to leak waterfalls of rain on to fans below.

Severe weather warnings are in place across the host nation, while the level of precipitation was too much for the BVB Stadium to handle.

The build-up to the match has been slightly barred by some clashes between the two sets of fans at the Westfalenstadion.

Earlier on, unusually high rainfall had caused leaks from the stadium roof.

This is Georgia’s first major international tournament, so of course two sides have never met in international competition, though they have faced off in three friendlies and two World Cup qualifiers between 2002 and 2012.

The first meeting came in August 2002, when Turkey won 3-0 in a friendly, before World Cup qualifiers in September 2004 (which ended 1-1) and March 2005, in which Turkey ran out 5-2 winners.

Georgia’s only win against Turkey came in February 2007, when they won 1-0 in another friendly.

The two sides have not met since 2012, when Turkey ran out 3-1 winners thanks in part to goals from ex-Bayern Munich midfielder Hamit Altintop and recently appointed Borussia Dortmund manager Nuri Sahin.