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Team, which has serious intentions to win the championship, must demonstrate good game against every opponent. Many experts praised Italians after matches with world and European champions, but we know that historically Spaniards are favorable opponents for Italians. It's a whole different story with Croatians. They adapt to Italians, give initiative, patiently wait, and then react aggressively. That's what happened in Poznan.
The coach of the Italian national team Cesare Prandelli chose his favorite 3-5-2 formation for the match, while Slaven Bilić modified his 4-4-2 scheme slightly after the last match. He pushed Luka Modrić a bit deeper into the midfield, and instructed forward Mario Mandžukić to play in the number 10 position, leaving Nikica Jelavić as the lone striker. The goal was clear - not to let Italians play freely in the middle of the field, paying special attention to Andrea Pirlo.
Throughout the season shining for Juventus club, A.Pirlo is an obvious leader of Italy, distributing balls to teammates, organizing attacks. S.Bilić knew that in order to stop their opponents, it was necessary not to allow the ball to be passed freely to this player. At the beginning of the match, this task was entrusted to M.Mandžukić and it must be said, he did his job excellently. However, after 10-15 minutes, A.Pirlo managed to leave the player marking him behind and feed his teammates with long and short passes. Meanwhile, Croatians lacked their leader L.Modrić, who focused more on defensive actions rather than participating in rare attacks of his team. It was decided to wait for Italians in their own half and to counter-attack as quickly as possible. During such attacks, Croatians lined up in a 3-3-4 formation, moved quickly on the wings, but all the danger ended there, as Italians defended reliably by winning tackles or intercepting cross passes. The first half belonged to Italians. In attack, Mario Balotelli and Antonio Cassano were active, threatening the goal. As always, Claudio Marchisio was active. However, it was the hero of this match, A.Pirlo, who scored a goal with a penalty kick.
During the break, coach S.Bilić did more work. He "raised" L.Modrić a bit higher, pushed M.Mandžukić further up, and Ivan Rakitić towards the middle next to A.Pirlo. He no longer had as much freedom, the Italian attackers were cut off and their game was not as dangerous. Croatians took the balls, using L.Modrić more frequently in attacks, active wing-backs, tall forwards, they started to realistically compete for an equalizer. It was precisely after a pass from the left wing and a mistake by Giorgio Chiellini in his penalty area that M.Mandžukić scored a goal. Although C.Prandelli made traditional substitutions, it didn't liven up the game. The most important players for S.Bilić were energetic full-backs Ivan Strinić and Darijo Srna. They stayed consistent throughout the game. Few coaches allow their full-backs to attack as aggressively in this championship. S.Bilić deserves praise.
The match proved how talented the coach of the Croatian national team is (luckily he was lured by Moscow's "Lokomotiv" club), it is difficult for Italians to play against theoretically weaker, fighting opponents, when they have to break the opponents' defense themselves, and A.Pirlo's game is a big reason for the team's success. Now everything is in the hands of the Croats, they just need to play well against the Spaniards.
