On Monday night, Croatia and Spain clash at Parken Stadium, in Copenhagen, with the winner progressing to the quarter-finals.

CROATIA

Croatia’s group stages got off to the worst start with a 1-0 loss to England and didn’t improve much against the Czech Republic, managing just a 1-1 draw. Their decisive win though came against Scotland, winning 3-1 and putting them third in the group.

In 2018 they got to the final of the World Cup finishing runners up to France, so will have expected to get out of the groups this year. Their best finish is the quarter-finals, which was in 2008. It’ll be tough to get there this year, but on their day they are definitely capabale.

Modric, Perisic, and Kovacic were late to the party this year. It took them three games to get going but they looked a lot better in the game against Scotland. They will need this level of performance to beat Spain on Monday.

SPAIN

Similar to Croatia, Spain‘s best performance came in their last group game. They drew their first two with Sweden and Poland before battering Slovakia 5-0, showing more of the Spain we’re used to seeing at international tournaments.

Spain have a fantastic history in this competition, winning it three times. They won it back to back in 2008 and 2012, but only made it to the Round of 16 in 2016.

Luis Enrique’s side have played as we expect every Spanish team to and that’s keeping hold of the ball for the majority of the game. They had struggled to turn this into goal-scoring chances, until the last game. A good defence though will make Spain work a lot harder and it’ll be interesting to see if anything changes to the lineup.

Team News

Croatia have no confirmed absentees through injury.

Spain also have a full squad available.