Croatia ends Spain’s 12-year unbeaten run at European finals

Ivan Perisic’s late victor gave Croatia a victory over Spain, capping the best performance and best game of Euro 2016 so far.

Morata opened the scoring in just the seventh minute, capping off a wonderful team goal sprung by an outstanding cutback from David Silva that found the run of Cesc Fabregas streaking towards the end line. The Real Madrid striker fired a shot off the side of his foot to beat Danijel Subasic, putting all three points within reach of Vicente del Bosque’s men.

Croatia grew in confidence and risked taking the lead, as Tin Jevaj’s effort was charged down after De Gea’s ineffective punch and Marko Pjaca had penalty appeals waved away for a Ramos trip. He has arguably been the best player in the tournament, constantly probing the opposition until he finds a weak spot, and he is certainly a player everyone loves to watch.

Croatia’s Nikola Kalinic had cancelled out an early goal from Spain striker Alvaro Morata in the first half.

Botrh sides had chances to win it in the second half, the best falling to Sergio Ramos.

“We could not have done this without our great support, all these people who come from Croatia, we have to stay and fight and we want to make every single Croatian happy”. Kalinic ran at the back four of the champions who were back tracking.

The Czechs, however, will definitely go home after the loss on Tuesday (NZT Wednesday), having finished bottom of the group with one point from three matches.

Asked whether his players were exhausted, after starting three matches with the same XI, Del Bosque said he believed they were “in good condition” but admitted he could not be certain.

Although it was a first defeat in 15 matches at the finals for Spain since they lost to Portugal in 2004, they did recover from an opening defeat by Switzerland to win the 2010 World Cup. They achieved that with strikes in each half from Yilmaz and Tufan.

This is the goal in question, and although the initial shot does take a deflection off of Spain defender Gerard Piqué, the criticism of the goalkeeper in this instance does seem warranted, particularly as the near post seems to be something of a problem area for him.

Didier Deschamps’ side will play the third-placed team from Group C (Northern Ireland), D or E in Lyon on Sunday June 26, the day before England’s own last-16 tie.

“The players were sat in silence”.

Euro 2016 is now guaranteed at least one team in the final who has never won a major tournament. Post the final whistle and the talk should focus on if Modric can break back into this team.