This will be Croatia and Italy’s third meeting at a major tournament, all taking place in the group stages. Croatia won 2-1 at the 2002 FIFA World Cup before a 1-1 draw at UEFA EURO 2012.
Since gaining independence in the early 1990s, Croatia are unbeaten in their eight meetings against Italy (W3 D5). Their last three encounters have all ended 1-1.
This will be Croatia’s fifth UEFA European Championship meeting with the current reigning champions, with each game coming in the group stages. They beat Denmark 3-0 in 1996, drew 2-2 with in 2004, lost 1-0 against Spain in 2012, before beating the Spaniards 2-1 in 2016.
Since the group phase was introduced in 1980, Italy have lost their final group game in only one of their nine appearances at the UEFA European Championship (W6 D2), going down 1-0 against Republic of Ireland in 2016.
Croatia have conceded five goals in two UEFA EURO 2024 group stage matches so far, only conceding more goals in two major tournament group stages, shipping six in EURO 2004 and six at the 2014 World Cup.
Croatia are winless at EURO 2024 (D1 L1) but haven’t gone through a group stage without winning at a major tournament since the 2006 World Cup (D2 L1). They’ve won their final group game at three of their last four major tournaments (D1) since losing 3-1 to Mexico at the 2014 World Cup.
Italy lost 1-0 to Spain last time out, attempting their fewest shots in a UEFA EURO game on record (four). They have never lost consecutive games at the European Championship.
Croatia have already had more shots (38) and more shots on target (15) at EURO 2024 than they had in their EURO 2020 group stage (30 shots, 10 on target). Indeed, they’ve only had more efforts on target at the group stages of two UEFA EURO tournaments – 19 in 2004 and 16 in 1996.
Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma is set to make his 10th UEFA EURO appearance for Italy – aged 25 years and 120 days on the day of this game, he will be the youngest goalkeeper to hit this milestone in European Championship history (current youngest is Rui Patrício in 2016, aged 28).
Luka Modric made his 34th appearance across the UEFA EURO + World Cup combined for Croatia against Albania, a total just six outfield European players can better. On MD2, he played 64 es in the final third, the second-most by a player on record in a European Championship match (1980 onwards), behind Mesut Özil for vs Greece at EURO 2012 (74).
Image source, Getty Images
