Preview: England v Croatia

With UEFA EURO 2020 officially underway and less than 24 hours until England face Croatia at Wembley, it’s time for full focus on the task at hand. 

Sunday will be the third time we’ve met the Croats at a major tournament with the most recent being the 2-1 semi-final extra-time defeat at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the other a 4-2 victory in the group stages at UEFA EURO 2004.

An 18-year-old Wayne Rooney bagged a memorable brace back in 2004 as he announced himself on the international stage and the Three Lions might well be looking to some of the younger members of the squad to produce some magic this time around too. 

England’s record at Wembley in major tournaments is good too, winning seven of eleven games there, drawing four and never having been beaten. However they’ve also never won their opening game of a European Championships - so something has got to give on Sunday. 

Having taken an early lead through Kieran Trippier’s brilliant free-kick, defeat was a bitter pill to swallow three years ago but Gareth Southgate’s men have since had the better of Croatia. 

Drawn in the same group for the UEFA Nations League, England were held to a 0-0 draw in Rijeka before goals from Jesse Lingard and skipper Harry Kane earned a 2-1 victory in the final international of 2018 at Wembley. 

Kane finished as top scorer in EURO qualifying with 12 goals in just eight games while Raheem Sterling, who was awarded an MBE on Saturday, provided six assists as well as finding the back of the net eight times. 

With the Croatia squad largely similar to that in Russia and being led by the same manager in Zlatko Dalić, our opening opponents represent a relatively known quantity. 

Captain and talisman Luka Modric is likely to dictate his team’s tempo in midfield whilst Ivan Perisic will pose the biggest threat to our goal having scored seven and assisted four over his career at major tournaments. 

Both sides are considered favourites to get out of Group D over Scotland and Czech Republic and 2018 goalscorer Trippier is confident Southgate’s side can start the tournament with a win. 

“They are a very good team,” said Trippier on Saturday's edition of Lions' Den.

"They’re balanced and well organised as we saw in the World Cup and at Wembley not long ago. 

“They’ve got some fantastic individuals like Modric and Perisic but we don’t want to overcomplicate it for ourselves.

“We’ve got a fantastic team ourselves and we need to just do what we’ve been doing in training and hopefully we get the result.”

The match kicks-off at 2pm BST at Wembley Stadium and fans in the UK can watch the game live on BBC One.