The Euro24 Tournament hasn’t gone to plan so far for Croatia and their ageing team must be wondering what they have to do in order to win a match.
They were well beaten by Spain, but after playing well enough against Albania they conceded late in injury time, a devastating blow for the team and their supporters.
Italy beat Albania in their first game but suffered a somewhat unlucky loss to one of the tournament favouries, Spain, on Thursday evening.
For Croatia, this is a must-win match, Italy could do with at least the draw, but preferably a win as well, so we are looking forward to a very interesting encounter.
Odds and Predictions
Croatia and Italy have always had a similar style of play, both teams are confident on the ball and play ‘tippy tappy’ football, which is entertaining to watch but can be frustrating for the fans, especially when they are passing the ball around the box instead of shooting.
This is a relatively evenly priced match for our tips. Italy are the favourites with odds of 2.35, Croatia are priced at 3.20 and the odds for the draw are also 3.20.
We like the look of the 3.20 for the draw and as usual, the scoreline we favour is 1 – 1 at 6.5.
The last one of our predictions is a speculative bet on the Half-time/Full-time market, Croatia to winning at Half-time, the Draw at Full-time.
Comparison and Statistics from Past Meetings between the Teams
Croatia and Italy have faced each other H2H a total of 9 times in various competitions.
In these matches, Croatia won 3 matches, Italy won 1 match, and 5 matches ended in a draw.
Here are the results of the last five head-to-head matches between the two teams.
| Past Meetings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jun 2015 | croatia | 1-1 | italy | UEFA European Championship Qualifier |
| 16 Nov 2014 | italy | 1-1 | croatia | UEFA European Championship Qualifier |
| 14 Jun 2012 | italy | 1-1 | croatia | UEFA European Championship |
| 16 Aug 2006 | italy | 0-2 | croatia | Friendly Game |
| 08 Jun 2002 | italy | 1-2 | croatia | FIFA World Cup |
Expected Line Ups
Some of those Croatian players must be feeling the strain. Luka Modrić, at 38 years old and Ivan Perišić, at 35 years old, are just two examples, but they have done well so far, so good luck to them.
This Italian side seems to be growing into the competition and even though they lost to Spain and conceded the fastest goal in the history of the European Championships, don’t be surprised to see them do well in the knockout stages.
Croatia (4-3-3): Dominik Livaković; Josip Juranović, Joško Gvardiol, Martin Erlić, Borna Sosa; Luka Modrić, Marcelo Brozović, Mateo Kovačić; Ivan Perišić, Andrej Kramarić, Bruno Petković.
Italy (4-2-3-1): Gianluigi Donnarumma; Giovanni Di Lorenzo, Alessandro Bastoni, Riccardo Calafiori, Federico Dimarco; Jorginho, Bryan Cristante; Federico Chiesa, Nicolo Barella, Davide Frattesi; Gianluca Scamacca.
How Far Will These Teams Progress in the Tournament?
Italy will get through to the round of 16, but we feel that this will be the end of the road for Croatia. If they are able to sneak a win against Italy, there will be a chance of qualifying as one of the runners-up with the most points, but we think it is unlikely they will get a result in this match.
