Roman Yaremchuk's special finish re-invigorated Ukraine's Euro 2024 campaign as they came from behind to beat Slovakia 2-1 and give their last 16 hopes a major boost on Friday.
The team from the war-ravaged nation did remarkably well to even reach the finals and a determined response to falling behind to Ivan Schranz's header was rewarded with Mykola Shaparenko's equalizer early in the second half.
Substitute Yaremchuk then expertly controlled a ball dropping over his head and prodded home 10 minutes from time.
"I'm very glad for the players. We reacted very well to conceding," Ukraine coach Sergiy Rebrov said.
"We changed some positions in our high press at half-time. The players who came off the bench improved us. Most importantly, we showed our spirit. We really tried to change the result and deserved the win."
Francesco Calzona's Slovakia would have been through to the knock-out stages with a second win after the shock opening victory over Belgium, but a second last 16 Euro qualification as an independent country after 2016 is now in the balance.
Romania face bottom side Belgium in their second Group E game on Saturday and also have three points like Ukraine and Slovakia.
Schranz netted the opener with a clever downward header at the far post on 17 minutes after Slovakia had made by far the brighter start.
Ukraine goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin, who replaced Real Madrid's Andriy Lunin after his errors in the first loss to Romania, had been forced into two early saves from Schranz and Lukáš Haraslín.
More German rain - a feature of recent matches - fell on Dusseldorf but Ukraine got a foothold, with Mykhailo Mudryk going close and Oleksandr Tymchyk hitting the post.
Rebrov, who also brought captain Andriy Yarmalenko back into his starting line-up on the right wing, urged his side on and they deservedly levelled on 54 minutes.
Man of the match Shaparenko calmly finished off a fine team move, which started on the edge of Ukraine's box.
Both sides then tired as the game appeared to peter out before Yaremchuk struck.
Finishing third with four points should be enough to progress as one of the four best third-placed teams, with Ukraine getting through with three in Euro 2020.
Ukraine meet Belgium in their last match and will need results in other groups to go their way if they fail to win.
Slovakia, who also qualified from their group at the 2010 World Cup, will be looking to go through and still finish top against the Romanians next Wednesday.
Slovakia keeper Martin Dúbravka told euro2024.com: "We started well, scoring a goal, but after the break it was completely different.
"They created chances, scoring two times, unfortunately for us. We were not able to push more. As for the group, it's close now but we are still in the game. We have still one more game to play."