Euro 2024: The one that got away

DORTMUND, June 14

Spain and Croatia begin their Euro 2024 campaigns tomorrow with a rematch of last year’s nervy UEFA Nations League final as they kick off the action in Group B, which also includes European champions Italy and surprise package Albania.

With memories of a heartbreaking shootout defeat to Spain still fresh in their minds, captain Luka Modric’s perennial overachievers seem ready to again challenge the pre-tournament odds in their quest to finally win a major trophy.

5 Spain have won five of the countries’ previous 10 meetings, with Croatia winning three

6-0 Croatia’s heaviest defeat came against Spain in September 2011, when the Spanish won 6-0 in the Nations League

First they played possession and tiki-taka and they forced this kind of play, they destroyed opponents, exhausted opponents. Now it’s a bit different, they have the centre-forward, they have (Alvaro) Morata, they have fast players on the flanks, so they have a more vertical, faster game now. Zlatko Dalic, Croatia coach

After reaching the 2018 World Cup final and making the semifinals four years later, having fought back to eliminate five-time champions Brazil on penalties at Qatar 2022, the Nations League final loss to Spain was a tough pill to swallow.

It also raised questions of how long the country’s ‘golden generation’ can keep on writing one of the great underdog stories in recent football history.

Yet Croatia go into the tournament still relying on a midfield trio of Modric (39), Marcelo Brozovic (31) and Mateo Kovacic (30), who gave a taste of their competitive hunger last Saturday when they handed Portugal a 2-1 defeat in Lisbon.

The result did not reflect the visitors’ dominance against Roberto Martinez’s side, who were subdued despite being almost at full strength with Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Vitinha and Ruben Dias in the starting XI. The win gave Zlatko Dalic’s side a boost for their Euro 2024 debut against old rivals Spain — one of the few elite teams giant-killers Croatia have regularly failed to slain. — Reuters