Italy progress at Croatia's expense

Innocuous equaliser
Marco Motta's header eight minutes before half-time looked to have set the Azzurrini up for the minimum one-point haul needed to top Group 1, yet there was a sting in the tail in Varazdin. With eight minutes remaining, a seemingly innocuous Ivo Iličević free-kick swung into the area and somehow evaded everyone as it bounced into the net – dragging Croatia back into the game and leaving Italy with a testing finale.

Azzurrini wasteful
The visitors held on, though, consigning Croatia to second in the section and a runners-up position inferior to those of Belarus, France, Israel and Denmark, the four second-placed sides who joined the ten group winners in the play-off draw. Pierluigi Casiraghi's team would only have had themselves to blame had they lost. Having weathered an early storm, Italy took a deserved lead when Motta rose to head in Sebastian Giovinco's corner, then failed to press home their advantage. Giovinco was particularly guilty, blazing over the bar with only the goalkeeper to beat. In the end, however, it mattered not.