Spain 3 Croatia 0: Morata scores in dominant win as Modric & Co left with mountain to climb in Euro 2024 group of death
TIKI TAKA is dead, all hail the new Spain.
Luis de la Fuente’s fresh blend of experience and youth made Luka Modric and Croatia look their age in a devastating display of intent.
On paper, this match looked like a good bet to be the first competitive and compelling clash of the tournament.
Instead Spain brutally ripped the game away from the Croats with three deadly thrusts in 16 first-half minutes.
The goals from Alvaro Morata, Fabian Ruiz and Dani Carvajal were different in type but shared two key characteristics.
They were all, in their own way, brilliant.
But more importantly, they all came from Spain seeing an opening and instantly trusting themselves to make the most of it.
No more keeping the ball for the sake of it. No more trying to walk it into the net. No more inflicting death by a thousand cuts on the opposition.
Why bother when you can knock them out with good, firm punches?
It also felt significant that Lamine Yamal played his part in two of those big moments.
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In the stadium where Jesse Owens made Olympic history in 1936, much to the disgust of Adolf Hitler, the 16-year-old Barcelona star set a new record as the youngest player in European Championship finals history.
Yamal showed plenty of flashes to suggest he can go on to light up a tournament in which Spain must be considered serious contenders.
Croatia cannot say they were not warned.
Boss Zlatko Dalic had noted before the match how De La Fuente’s side played a quicker, more vertical and sometimes plain more direct game than the Spanish sides that won three major tournaments in a row between 2008 and 2012.
Substitute Bruno Petkovic thought he had given his team hope but his “goal”, after his initial penalty was saved by Unai Simon, was chalked off for encroachment.
The fan battle was the only one that Croatia won.
The red and white checks covered more than three quarters of the stands.
Pre-match talk of there being 50,000 people supporting the Croats felt, if anything, like an understatement.
The rendition of the Croatian national anthem, “Our Beautiful Homeland”, and some of the early chants made it like a religious rite as much as a football match.
Would Spain be spooked?
Er, no.
Boss De La Fuente sprang only one mild surprise with his line-up, picking Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella at left back ahead of Bayer Leverkusen’s Bundesliga-winning Alex Grimaldo.
Croatia were as expected, with a midfield three boasting a combined age of 99 and 372 appearances between them.
But Modric, Marcelo Brozovic and Mateo Kovacic barely had a kick in the opening stages as Spain came out hard and fast, with early chances for Morata and Yamal.
After a scrappy spell, the breakthrough came just before the half hour.
A Croatian attack broke down and it was no time for tiki-taka ball retention. With one, straight through-ball, Ruiz took out half the Croatian team.
Morata’s first touch was excellent, taking the ball away from Marin Pongracic. With his second, he rolled it past Dominik Livakovic.
Morata, after a week in which he said he felt Spain, if not the world, was against him, suddenly looked much more perky.
Kovacic could have equalised immediately, but after taking a while to decide to shoot, he scuffed his effort and Simon saved easily.
Punishment came swiftly.
The opening goal seemed to have freed something in Yamal. He worked the ball to Pedri, who touched it on to Ruiz.
The Paris Saint-Germain star sent Modric for a copy of the Berlin Echo with a chop back, side-stepped Brozovic, and found the bottom corner.
Croatia once more had the chance to hit back straightaway.
But Lovro Majer sliced the rebound into the side-netting after Simon saved from Brozovic.
Josko Gvardiol also went close before Carvajal killed the game in first-half stoppage time.
The full back timed his run perfectly to meet Yamal’s lovely cross and applied a striker’s volleyed finish. What a couple of weeks for Carvajal, a man not renowned for his goals.
First he grabs the opener in Real Madrid’s Champions League triumph at Wembley, then two weeks later he scores in another major European capital.
Finally, the Croatian hordes were quiet.
It almost got worse soon after half-time. But Livakovic saved a shot that Yamal should probably have buried, before the youngster dashed into the box and saw his cross/shot deflect off Morata to safety.
Then came Croatia’s best chance of the game.
But right-back Josep Stanisic’s shot was blocked by Cucurella. When Ante Budimir headed the ball back across goal, Simon pushed it off the head of Andrej Kramaric.
Little else of significance happened before a Simon error led to Rodri fouling Petkovic in the box and just about escaping a red card,
The Spain goalkeeper diverted Petkovic’s spotkick on to the post, then fellow sub Ivan Perisic crossed for Petkovic to find the net.
But VAR Stuart Attwell ruled Perisic had been in the penalty area when the initial kick was taken.
So Croatia were denied even consolation and Spain’s triumph was complete.
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