Croatia suffers a 1:0 loss to England in the Nations League

The Croatian national football team lost to England in their penultimate Nations League group stage game 2:1 in London's Wembley Stadium last night. This was its fourth consecutive loss in the Nations League following a less than convincing first round win over The Czech Republic.

Morgan Rogers opened the scoring for England in the 24th minute of play. Croatia equalized in the second half with midfielder Petar Sučić scoring in the 59th minute of play. The joy was short lived however, as England was awarded a penalty shot just minutes later, which Harry Kane converted.

"I feel similar to how I felt after the Spain game in Split. We are too big a football nation to be happy with a loss, but we can be content with our play. I have to differentiate between the result and the way we played. We're clearly very disappointed with the final score. I think we deserved more, at least a point. But our play was very, very good. I have to commend my players, because they did everything I asked of them. They showed character, quality, unity, and even individual effort when it was needed. So, all in all, it looked very, very good," coach Slaven Bilić said after the game.

"It's a shame, if only we'd had a bit more luck. But, I think that we played a good game. It's a shame about the result, just like it was against Spain. But, unfortunately we didn't manage to at least tie the score," added midfielder Martin Baturina.

"I think we played really well today, and we had scoring chances. But somehow we had to work hard to score and create chances, while they capitalized on our mistakes too easily and then you can't expect a positive result. But we definitely deserved better," concluded fellow midfielder Petar Sučić.

Croatia will play its final group stage game on Sunday against The Czech Republic. Opening kick-off is at 8:45 local time in Osijek's Opus Arena. Going into the game Spain is first in Group "C" with 15 points. England is second with 12, while Croatia is third with only three points. The Czech Republic is yet to register a point.

Source: HRT