Italy were outclassed by Croatia but managed to hold onto a 1-1 draw in their Euro 2016 Group H qualifier at San Siro on Sunday evening.
Antonio Candreva’s long range strike gave the Azzurri an early lead before Ivan Perisic’s shot squirmed under Gianluigi Buffon almost immediately afterwards. In what was Daniele De Rossi’s 100th international appearance as the visitors dominated the game for long periods.
In what was the first real test in the group for the Azzurri, they began the game slowly as the visitors were the brighter of the two sides during the opening exchanges but it was the home side who surprisingly took an early lead against the run of play.
Simone Zaza did well to maintain possession in the Croatia area before laying the ball back to Candreva who struck a low effort from outside of the area past Danijel Subasic into the corner of the net, however the lead would not last long.
Just moments later the visitors levelled as Perisic’s low effort went through two defenders before going straight under Buffon, who should have done better, to send the numerous Croatian fans into raptures.
The Croatians continued to have the better of the first half as Antonio Conte’s side struggled to contain the dynamic duo of Ivan Rakitic and Luka Modric for the first thirty minutes.
Both sides were forced into early changes as Roberto Soriano came on for his Azzurri debut and Modric was forced off and replaced by Mateo Kovacic.
Mario Mandzukic came close to giving the visitors the lead on the stroke of half time after Buffon had failed to gather a high ball, but his headed effort was cleared off the line by Andrea Ranocchia.
After the break the pattern of play continued in the same manner as the Croatians continued to dominate possession and they found much success behind the Italian wing backs with crosses to Mandzukic, who was unable to beat Buffon on several occasions.
The Italian forwards posed little threat to the visitors’ defence and the ineffective Ciro Immobile was replaced by Stephan El Shaarawy with Conte looking to the AC Milan forward to offer a more creative approach.
Midway through the second half, the Azzurri began to raise their game and El Shaarawy fired just over the Croatia goal. However, with around 15 minutes to play, the game was suspended by the referee for ten minutes after flares were thrown onto the pitch by the visiting fans.
Perisic wasted a glorious chance in the dying minutes to put Croatia ahead but he could only fire his effort wide with no-one else in the area and only Buffon to beat.
The result ensures that Croatia maintain control of the group alongside the Azzurri with both sides having ten points from their opening four fixtures, however Italy continue to trail in second place.
