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You don’t have to be a supporter of either of these teams to be excited by the prospect of them meeting in the first Group B match in the Euro2024 Championships
To whet the appetite, simply cast your mind back to that memorable match in Euro2020 (played in 2021 because of Covid), when Spain emerged the 5-3 victors after extra time, a match which has since been hailed as one of the most thrilling football matches in European Championship history.
Spain are the odds on favourites, but who can put it past the timelessly elegant Luca Modric to steal the show and cause an upset against one of the early predictions for the tournament?
Odds and Predictions
Whilst football lovers everywhere would love to see a highly entertaining goal fest, we don’t see it that way. There now seems to be a gulf in quality between these two sides, as a quick glance at the Spanish squad will confirm, but Group B has been labelled as the Group of Death. We have seen Croatia pull off surprises in the past.
For this game, though, we can’t see any other outcome other than a win for Spain and to be more specific, a winning scoreline of 3 – 1.
The odds for a Spanish win is 1.9, but for those looking for tips with a bit more meat on it, we expect the first half to be very tight, with Spain to show their superiority in the second half.
With that in mind, a ‘half time/full time’ bet of Draw – Spain will fit the bill nicely at odds of 5.0.
Comparison and Statistics from Past Meetings between the Teams
Spain and Croatia have played a total of nine H2H matches against each other, with Spain winning five, Croatia winning three and one game ending in a draw.
The last five head-to-head matches between Spain and Croatia are displayed below.
| Past Meetings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jun 2023 | croatia | 0-0* | spain | Nations League Final |
| 28 Jun 2021 | croatia | 3-5 | spain | Euro2020 |
| 15 Nov 2018 | croatia | 3-2 | spain | Nations League |
| 11 Sep 2018 | spain | 6-0 | croatia | Nations League |
| 21 Jun 2016 | croatia | 2-1 | spain | Euro2016 |
Expected Line Ups
Fingers crossed that Modric will start and not be on the bench, and the word coming out of the Croatian camp is that he will, in fact, be in the starting line-up.
That Spanish line-up looks imposing, doesn’t it, after such an impressive season for Manchester City, Rhodri will no doubt be relishing the opportunity to add another winners medal to his rapidly growing collection.
Spain (4-3-3): David Raya; Dani Carvajal, Robin Le Normand, Aymeric Laporte, Alejandro Grimaldo; Rodri, Pedri, Mikel Merino; Nico Williams, Álvaro Morata, Dani Olmo.
Croatia (4-3-3): Dominik Livaković; Josip Juranović, Joško Gvardiol, Josip Šutalo, Borna Sosa; Luka Modrić, Marcelo Brozović, Mateo Kovačić; Ivan Perišić, Andrej Kramarić, Mario Pašalić.
How Far Will These Teams Progress in the Tournament?
As already mentioned, Group B is being touted as the Group of Death so predicting how far these teams will progress is definitely a tricky one.
Don’t forget Italy are also in this group as well as Albania who have the potential to be a dark horse in the tournament.
Bearing that in mind, we are going with Spain to reach the Euro24 final and Croatia narrowly being eliminated in the group stages.
