England vs Croatia Prediction, Lineups, Results & Betting Tips

Euro 2021 Prediction: England vs Croatia

• No Euro 2020 participant have conceded more goals in competitive gamed since the 2018 World Cup than Croatia.
• England scored 37 goals in their 8 qualifying games, an average of 4.63 per game.
• England have won 15 of their last 16 games on home soil.

Euro 2020 Prediction: England to score over 1.5 goals

There’s plenty of optimism around this youthful England side, a rarity going into any tournament around the Three Lions. One key benefit for Gareth Southgate and his players is they’ll have all group games at Wembley in front of home fans, surely one of the reasons why they’re so short to win their group.

Croatia reached the final in the last major tournament, the 2018 World Cup. However, since then they’ve really toiled as key players don’t have the legs they once had and the likes of Mario Mandzukic and Ivan Rakitic have retired. Luka Modric was the player of the tournament in 2018 but he has had to play a lot of football for an injury ravaged Real Madrid this season.

Defensively Croatia have looked all at sea. Dejan Lovren and Duje Caleta-Car are liabilities and Domagoj Vida is playing at a pretty poor standard in Turkey and is also ageing. Right back Sime Vrsaljko started just 6 games for Atletico Madrid this season too. Against the better sides in the past couple of years they’ve conceded multiple times on various occasions and they’ve leaked against the likes of Wales, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Slovakia and Armenia.

With the plentiful options going forward for the hosts we could see them grab a couple of goals and the 19/20 available on England to score over 1.5 goals looks a generous quote, especially given they’re as short as 4/6 to win the game.

The aforementioned Duje Caleta-Car always puts himself about and struggles to time his tackles well. He picked up 13 cards in 45 competitive games this season and will struggle with the pace and guile England have at the top of the pitch. At 7/2 to go into the book he looks worthy of a small play, especially when we consider the referee is Italian Danielle Orsato who averages over 5 cards per game in his career.

England vs Croatia Odds

England vs Croatia Lineups

England Probable Lineup (via WhoScored):

Pickford, Trippier, Stones, Mings, Shaw, Rice, Phillips, Sterling, Mount, Grealish, Kane

Croatia Probable Lineup (via WhoScored): 

Livakovic, Vrsaljko, Vida, Caleta-Car, Barisic, Brozovic, Kovacic, Rebic, Modric, Petkovic

England vs Croatia Head to Head

England vs Croatia Prediction

England 2-1 Croatia