Norway v Croatia background

Norway will do their best to avenge a heavy defeat as they take on Croatia for a second time in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying Group H, knowing a win would put them into the automatic qualifying slots.

• Mateo Kovačić is suspended after accumulating three bookings. The following players are a yellow card away from a ban: Håvard Nordtveit, Jone Samuelsen (Norway), Mario Mandžukić, Ivica Olić and Domagoj Vida (Croatia).

Previous meetings
• Croatia won 5-1 in Zagreb in March when the sides met for the first time in a competitive international.

• Altogether, Norway are yet to prevail in four meetings with Croatia; they lost two friendly games in Croatia 2-1, and more recently held the Balkan team to a 1-1 draw in Oslo on 2 June 2012.

Form guide
• Norway have won only one of their last five competitive home matches (2-1 v Bulgaria) with their record in that run reading: W1 D2 L2.

• Croatia's 0-0 draw in Azerbaijan last time out means they have lost just one of their last ten qualifying away fixtures (W4 D5 L1).

Trivia and links
• Croatia midfielder Luka Modrić turns 30 three days after the Norway game, on 9 September.

• Modrić and Norway teenager Martin Ødegaard are club-mates at Real Madrid.

• The Norwegian representative has won five of the last six encounters between the nations' clubs in UEFA competition. The overall record of Norwegian clubs against their Croatian counterparts is W5 D0 L4.

• The two countries have faced off four times in UEFA age-group competitions, Croatia posting three wins to Norway's one.