Croatia vs Italy live updates: Euro 2024 match team news ...

Lovely day for it, isn't it.

It's due to be a warm 23 degrees Celsius by kick-off tonight, in around four hours or so.

In our 'Discuss' tab at the top of the page and clickable here, fans have already been having their say on tonight's match.

Joe R says: Spain is a very good team. Everyone is down on Italy but I think they show everyone the game previous was more about Spain's quality and less about Italy's lack thereof. I expect Italy to make a run in the knockout rounds.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know! And email us at: [email protected].

Spain are the only country to have successfully defended their Euros crown and Italy, having failed to qualify for the last two World Cups, do not look like emulating their opponents last time out.

Despite this, a group stage elimination would be nothing short of catastrophic.

This is only the third time Croatia have played Italy at a major tournament and, like the previous two meetings, it is in the group stage.

Croatia beat Italy at the 2002 World Cup then the nations drew at the European Championships a decade later.

Italy will be desperately hoping they can manage the one result that hasn’t yet happened.

Of the 24 teams competing in Euro 2024, five of them are managed by men from Italy. No other nation accounts for more than two managers in the tournament.

Those five managers are: Luciano Spalletti (Italy), Domenico Tedesco (Belgium), Francesco Calzona (Slovakia), Vincenzo Montella (Turkey), and Marco Rossi (Hungary).

Spalletti is the 11th man to lead Italy in the Euros, every one of whom has been Italian.

He left newly crowned Serie A champions Napoli in the summer of 2023 with the intention of taking time off, only to return to coaching when the national team came calling in August following the departure of Roberto Mancini.

Italy were outclassed by Spain and the 1-0 scoreline actually flattered the losing team. Azzurri coach Luciano Spalletti wants to see a response from his team, and said before the match:

“We have to recover and be able to think clearly about situations that happened on the pitch against Spain.

"Sometimes we could have done things differently from a tactical perspective, but they were much quicker and more reactive than us.

"With Croatia, we will have the chance to make the difference, but if we don't offer up multiple options, it becomes difficult.”

The Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic has had this to say ahead of their crunch game with Italy:

“We must remain positive, accept responsibility and correct our mistakes. In Russia we didn't concede in the group stage; in Qatar, only once.

"Here we've already let in five. Every dangerous attack ends up in our net. We need to change our approach and fix it before facing Italy.

"We have to win – if not, we're going home. We must maintain a positive atmosphere, accept responsibility and correct the mistakes we are making.”

Until last March, Luciano Spalletti looked set on playing with a back four. However, the Italy manager said that he wanted to do “something modern” before the friendlies against Venezuela and Ecuador in March.

“There is an openness now to being footballers who know how to interpret multiple systems within the same match,” said Spalletti.

“Before we had little time and we only focused on one system. Even when we lost, I said we would stay in that system, but now there is more time to do something different.”

The difference was moving to a back three instead of the back four Italy implemented in Spalletti’s games in the Euro qualifiers.

There’s not much deviation from how Croatia have been playing under Zlatko Dalic in previous tournaments.

They still set up in a 4-3-3 formation, and they are still built around the midfield trio of Marcelo Brozovic, Mateo Kovacic and Luka Modric, with flying full-backs as prominent as ever down the wings.

However, matches against Armenia and Latvia showed they can mix it up by playing Andrej Kramaric as a No 10 in a 4-2-3-1.

Croatia’s possession game is mainly built on the technical abilities of Brozovic, Kovacic and Modric. The experienced trio drop deep to control the game with the ball.

Good question.

The only other match today is the other Group B match, Spain vs Albania.

Remember, all of the group's final matches must be played at the same time.

We have our own live blog for that match too, of course - but here, we're dealing with Croatia vs Italy.

Cliches are easily overused, but they often have a kernel of truth to them. In the case of Italy playing low-scoring matches, it's more than a kernel.

Entering Euro 2024, Italy's matches in this tournament have produced an average of just 1.8 total goals (83 goals in 45 matches).

That's the lowest scoring rate of any of the 25 teams to have played at least 10 matches in this competition.

Croatia’s midfield of Marcelo Brozovic, Mateo Kovacic and Luka Modric is a trio that most nations dream of, even if they are into their thirties.

Together, they provide a balance of technical ability, press resistance, ball carrying, athleticism and defensive quality.

On top of that, their experience at the international stage will be needed. Brozovic (96 caps) and Kovacic (101) are among the wiliest players at the tournament, while Modric (175) is the country’s most-capped player of all time.

After guiding their team to third and second place in the two most recent World Cups, they will be hoping to emulate that success in a European Championship.

Hello to you all, and welcome to The Athletic's live blog.

Hope you're as excited as we are for this match, and the rest of this tournament.

Stick with us - we'll see you through.

Few expected Italy to win Euro 2020, and it’s a similar story this time around. At least five nations are favoured to have a better chance of winning the final than them: England, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. But what does history tell us about defending European champions?

The only country to have won back-to-back Euro tournaments is Spain, who did so in 2008 and 2012 either side of winning the World Cup. Italy, on the other hand, failed to qualify for the most recent World Cup.

Two nations have finished as runners-up as defending champions, the Soviet Union in 1968 and West Germany in 1976. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Greece finished in dead last in 2008 after their stunning run to the title in 2004, the only team that lost all of their matches.

Since Spain’s repeat win in 2012, the round of 16 has been the sticking point for defending champions. That’s where Spain’s tournament ended in 2016, and the same is true for Portugal at Euro 2020.

GO FURTHER

How Italy won Euro 2020: Magical Spinazzola, shootout prowess and the shadow of Covid

Of the 24 teams competing in Euro 2024, Croatia have the most experienced roster in terms of caps. Their 26-man squad has a combined total of 1,169 caps for an average of 45 per player.

As you might have guessed, Luka Modric leads the way for Croatia with 175 caps. The only player in the tournament with more is Cristiano Ronaldo with 204 for Portugal, who have the second most experienced squad.

Two of Croatia’s opponents in Group B are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Italy’s squad has a total of 546 caps, while Spain’s has a total of 552.

Those two sums added together still fall short of Croatia’s tally! Only one nation, the Czech Republic with 398 caps, is less experienced than them.

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