EURO 2012: Italy vs Croatia

Italy took one point from their group opener against favorites Spain with a 1:1 result, which can be described as a positive result for them. The Italians took quite  a defensive approach in the first match, trying firstly to defend their own goal and to slow down the tempo a bit wanting to remove the pressure from the Spanish forwards that way. Their main offensive chances were created on fast counter attacks as they didn’t have too much ball possession. Italian national team coach announced that they will have to play in much different style then they did against Spain, as they can’t afford to have another draw, which leaves a lot of speculation regarding their tactics in this match, however it’s almost sure that the formation 3-5-2 they used in a match against the Spaniards will also be changed.

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Croatia, on the other hand, got a important victory over Irish 3:1. This victory was mainly important as they continued having good chances to progress to the next round. Now they are having two very hard matches, against Italy and Spain where they must continue searching for their chances. They played a good match in first round, were better then the Irish team, but also they scored their goals a bit too easy as at two times Irish defenders weren’t at their top of concentration. Anyway, their defense wasn’t at it’s best in this game and they will have to improve the performance of the defensive lineup if they are to cope with the biggest teams from Europe. However, they are all fired up for this game as they know that the game against Spain will be much harder for them and that this game, game against Italy is the crucial one for them.

Italy will and also needs to change the tactics for this game as they can’t defend once again (neither they have reasons to defend this time) and it will be interesting to see how will they perform in almost a must situation. Croatia on the other hand is playing with lots of passion and if they repeat similar performance from four days ago, there is no reason to doubt that the Croats are having very good chances in this game too. The odds are representing value on their side.

Bet: Croatia +0.25 Asian handicap @1.93 with Bet365