HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) – Disappointed at squandering a lead to Albania in the dying seconds of a pulsating Euro 2024 match, Croatia’s focus turned straight to beating Italy in their final group game to secure a place in the knockout stages.
Croatia reached the World Cup final in 2018 and the semi-finals in Qatar two years ago, but are again struggling to reproduce that form at the European Championship despite boasting such talents as Luka Modric and Josko Gvardiol.
“The most important thing is that we’re still alive. We have to go for the win against Italy,” coach Zlatko Dalic said after his side’s 2-2 draw in Hamburg left them with one point and bottom of Group B on goal difference.
Against Albania, ranked 56 places lower, they were shocked by an early goal and did not recover until the second half when they flooded forward and scored twice in quick succession – before Klaus Gjasula snatched a stoppage-time equaliser.
“First half we played badly. We were very slow. In the second half we played a lot better, a lot more decisive,” added Dalic.
“We gave our all to get to 2-1 and for 45 minutes our opponent couldn’t pass the half-way line, and then in extra time we allowed them to come at us and we conceded this goal.”
DIFFICULT STORY
Dalic, whose team lost their opening game 3-0 to Spain, said he had not expected the tournament to be so hard for Croatia but noted other teams with big pedigree had struggled too.
“We didn’t expect to have such a difficult story in these two matches, it has been a struggle,” he said.
“The World Cup was two years ago and slowly our players are getting older, and this whole tournament has shown us that everyone is having a hard time … It is very open and the teams are pretty equal.”
His players acknowledged they must improve.
“The disappointment is huge. Something like this must not happen to a team like us. We were leading and should have ended this calmly, but this is a lesson to learn,” midfielder Luka Sucic said.
“The second half was better, it shows how to start against Italy … If we play like in the second half we will surely get through this group.”
Man of the match Andrej Kramaric, who scored Croatia’s first goal, was philosophical.
“This is why everyone loves football. In the last seconds, sometimes you score a winner, sometimes you concede, unfortunately that is what happened to us,” he said.
“We should have won. But that’s football. Croatia can’t do anything the easy way. Everything is still open. We are well aware we are playing against a top team Italy. We have to win, we have to give our all.”
(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne and Daria Sito-Sucic, Editing by Ed Osmond)
