We are rapidly moving towards the conclusion of the group stages at EURO 2020, and yesterday marked the last matches in Group D, with England facing the Czech Republic at Wembley, while Croatia played Scotland at Hampden Park. England and the Czech Republic had already qualified for the round of 16, while the winner of the Croatia-Scotland game would join them as one of the four best third-placed sides. Scotland’s preparations were hit when midfielder Billy Gilmour, who put in a man of the match performance at Wembley against England, tested positive for COVID-19 and therefore had to isolate for 10 days, ruling him out of this match. Scotland manager Steve Clarke brought in Southampton’s Stuart Armstrong in the only change from that match, while Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic restored Bruno Petkovic and Nikola Vlasic to the starting XI after a clamour from Croatian fans, and also brought Josip Juranovic in at right-back in place of Sime Vrsaljko. Scotland started well, having a couple of efforts on the Croatia goal and forcing Dominik Livakovic into an awkward save as well, but Croatia took the lead through Vlasic, when Ivan Perisic’s headed knockdown at the back post was placed into the net by the CSKA Moscow winger. Scotland kept pressing, and managed to equalise for their first goal at a major tournament in 23 years through McGregor, who hammered a shot into the bottom corner from just outside the area to give the Scots some hope. However, that hope was snatched away by Croatia captain Luka Modric, who reminded everyone of his quality with a stunning strike into the top corner with the outside of his right boot to give Croatia the lead once again. Perisic’s goal from a Modric corner wrapped things up for Croatia, who finished second in Group D as a result. Check out our EURO 2020 analytics report from this match for all the key data, statistics and visualisations.
