Spain laid down a marker in their first outing of Euro 2024 with a 3-0 cruise past Croatia. La Roja’s goals came from Alvaro Morata, Fabian Ruiz and Dani Carvajal – all in the first half as they turned in an impressive opening period. Croatia had a late goal ruled out but struggled to create many presentable openings despite their stellar cast of midfield schemers.
Spain kicked off their Euro 2024 campaign with an emphatic 3-0 win over Croatia in Group B as Lamine Yamal became the youngest player to feature in the history of the competition.
After a tepid opening 25 minutes, La Roja broke the deadlock when Alvaro Morata raced clear before producing a composed finish.
Four minutes later, they doubled their lead when Fabian Ruiz bamboozled the opposition with some sharp footwork before lashing the ball into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
That sparked Croatia into action and Josko Gvardiol came close to scoring. But on the stroke of half-time they fell behind further when Yamal, aged 16 years and 338 days old, produced a brilliant cross which was converted by Dani Carvajal for his first international goal.
Zlatko Dalic’s side were unlucky not to reduce the deficit in the second period when Josip Stanisic’s shot was cleared off the line by Marc Cucurella and the rebound saved by Unai Simon.
Croatia then thought they had scored late on after they were awarded a penalty when Rodri brought down Bruno Petkovic after a mistake by Simon.
Petkovic’s spot-kick was saved but he converted the rebound, however VAR disallowed the goal for encroachment in the box by Ivan Perisic.
