Croatia v France

GROUP B

Venue: Dr Magalhaes Pessoa stadium, Leiria
Date/time: Thur, 17 June, 1945 BST
Referee: Kim Milton Nielsen (Denmark)
BBC coverage:
Live on MOTD, 1930, BBC1
Live on Five Live and the BBC Sport website

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TEAM NEWS

Croatia assistant coach Drazen Ladic has hinted at a squad rotation - with defender Igor Tudor returning after serving a suspension.

Dario Simic injured a thigh against the Swiss but is hoping to be fit.

France trio Thierry Henry, William Gallas and Claude Makelele should all shake off minor knocks.

Midfielder Makelele is the worst affected but is still expected to play in what is likely to be an unchanged line-up for the defending champions.

Croatia (from): Butina, Simic, Tudor, Simunic, N Kovac, Zivkovic, R Kovac, Rapaic, Mornar, Olic, Bjelica, Sokota, Prso.

France (probable): Barthez, Gallas, Thuram, Silvestre, Lizarazu, Pires, Vieira, Makelele, Zidane, Henry, Trezeguet.

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MATCH STATS

Head-to-heads

France and Croatia have met three times before. Twice in a friendly (1999, 2000) and once during the semi-final of the World Cup in 1998

France have won all three encounters. The friendlies resulted in 3-0 (1999) and 0-2 (2000) wins, whereas the World Cup clash on 8 July 1998 ended in a 2-1 victory.

On that day Davor Suker scored for the Croats and Lilian Thuram netted both French goals, his only international goals to date.

Thuram is one of seven French players in the Euro 2004 squad who also played against Croatia in 1998. The others are Fabien Barthez, Bixente Lizarazu, Marcel Desailly, Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry and David Trézéguet.

Dario Simic is the only player from the current Croatia squad who played against France in 1998.

Robert Pires scored a goal in each of the friendlies in 1999 and 2000.

David Trézéguet, who was responsible for France's second goal in 2000, is the only other French player at this tournament to have scored against Croatia.

Player facts - Croatia

Defender Igor Tudor is available after the one match suspension that forced him to sit out Croatia's opener.

Five players will be suspended for Croatia's final group match should they receive a yellow card in this game. They are: Dado Prso, Boris Zivkovic, Nenad Bjelica, Milan Rapaic and Ivica Mornar.

Ivica Olic's six international goals leads the scoring tallies of all of his team-mates in the Croatian squad.

The total of six has Olic in joint tenth place in the Croatia's all-time leading scorers list. It would take another 10 to occupy second place. It would take another 30 to overtake record holder Davor ¿uker.

Croatia's offensive hope, pony-tailed Dado Prso, was one of the sensations of the 2003/2004 Champions League reaching the final with AS Monaco. This prompted Glasgow Rangers to sign him before the European Championship started.

Prso scored the only goal in the second leg of the qualifying play-off against Slovenia to hand Croatia a 2-1 aggregate win. Prso also scored in the first leg.

Dario Simic is the most experienced player in the current squad with 68 caps. He is still well short of the Croatian record which belongs to Robert Jarni who was capped 81 times.

Defender Boris Zivkovic made his international debut against France in the friendly encounter on 13 November 1999 which ended in a 3-0 defeat for the Croats.

Player facts - France

Lilian Thuram played his 100th international against England last Sunday. Thuram has scored just twice in that century, but both goals came against their current opponents Croatia in the 1998 World Cup semi-final.

Thuram is accompanied at Euro 2004 by six other international centurions (team-mate Marcel Desailly, Frank de Boer, Fernando Couto, Vitalijs Astafjevs, Luis Figo and Stéphane Chapuisat.

French defender Marcel Desailly is the most capped player at Euro 2004 with 115 caps (three goals).

Marcel Desailly, Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram have played 11 European Championship matches so far. If they are fielded against Croatia they will be one match away from the record for this competition.

Seven players share the all-time record of 13 European Championship matches. Jürgen Klinsmann was the first to reach this total in 1996, followed by Dennis Bergkamp, Laurent Blanc, Didier Deschamps, Thomas Hässler, Paolo Maldini and Peter Schmeichel in 2000.

Zinedine Zidane's second goal against England marked his 25th for France from 90 matches.

David Trézéguet has scored most goals for France in their current squad: 28 goals in 52 matches.

If he nets two more he will move into joint second place in the French all-time top scorers list which is topped by Michel Platini with 41 goals. He would share that spot with Just Fontaine and Jean-Pierre Papin.

Mikaël Silvestre and Robert Pires will miss France's last group match should they receive a yellow card in this game.

Team facts - Croatia

Croatia were fined ¿6,600 for improper conduct after five of their players were booked in their first match at Euro 2004 against Switzerland.

Croatia are the only team in Group B that did not qualify by winning their group.

Croatia are the most nomadic squad at Euro 2004, drawing only two of their 23 players out of their domestic league.

Hajduk Split's Mato Neretljak and Vartek Varazdin's Vladimir Vasilj are the only players among Otto Baric's men not to earn a living abroad.

In their only previous participation in these finals in 1996, Croatia started with victories over Turkey (1-0) and Denmark (3-0) before losing their last group match to Portugal (3-0).

In the quarter-finals they were eliminated by eventual winners Germany (2-1). In that match Germany scored the winner two minutes after the Croatians had been reduced to ten men.

Team facts - France

France wasted no time on their way to winning the title in 2000. They started with two wins to become one of four teams to seal qualification for the next phase after just two matches.

France then lost their third group match against Holland who had also already qualified.

That match marks the last defeat for France in a European Championship match. Since then they have won four straight matches, one short of the competition record for most consecutive wins.

That record was set by France who won the entirety of their five-match 1984 campaign. In the 1988 and 1992 finals, the Netherlands compiled a streak that equalled that record.

France have scored at least one goal in each of their last seven European Championship matches.

France have won their last 14 competitive matches. This streak includes matches in the Confederations Cup and Euro 2004 qualifying.

France are two-time winners (1984 and 2000), and reached the semi-finals on two other occasions (1960 and 1996).

No nation has ever successfully defended their European Championship title.

The French Euro 2004 squad contains 10 players who were also in the Euro 2000 winning squad.

Miscellaneous stats

Should Croatia be awarded a penalty, they will likely not turn to Dado Prso. After missing from the spot in Monaco's Champions League encounter with Lokomotiv Moscow this season, the striker vowed never to take a penalty again.

This match could feature several 2003/2004 club mates squaring up against each other. Croat Robert Kovac may face Willy Sagnol and Bixente Lizarazu with whom he played for Bayern Munich last season.

Juventus team mates Igor Tudor (Croatia), Lilian Thuram and David Trézéguet (both France) could meet.

Dado Prso (Croat) will meet Jérôme Rothen (France) with whom he played for AS Monaco last season.

Croatia boss Otto Baric is the oldest head coach at Euro 2004. Baric will celebrate his 71st birthday on June 19. The oldest team boss ever at a European Championship was Romania's Emerici Jenei (73) in 2000.

France have been unbeaten in competitive matches for the last two years. Their last defeat in a competitive match dates back to 11 June 2002 when Denmark defeated them 2-0 at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

France gained maximum points from their qualifying campaign. They were the only nation of the 50 involved in qualifying not to drop a point.

Croatia secured their ticket by beating Slovenia in a play-off after finishing runner-up to Bulgaria.

The referee for this match is Kim Milton Nielsen who was also present at this tournament in 1996 and 2000. He will become only the second referee to take part in three different European Championships.

The first referee to do so was Anders Frisk earlier this tournament. Frisk was also active at the 1996 and 2000 tournaments.

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HEAD TO HEAD TOTALS
	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	GF	GA
Croatia	3	0	0	3	1	7
France	3	3	0	0	7	1

VENUES/CATEGORY BREAKDOWN
	Total	Croatia	France	Draws
All venues	3	0	3	0
In Croatia	1	0	1	0
In France	2	0	2	0
Neutral	0	0	0	0
Competitive matches	1	0	1	0
European Ch'ship	0	0	0	0

LIST OF MEETINGS
Date	Comp		Res
08 Jul 1998	WC SF	France	2-1	Croatia
13 Nov 1999	Friendly	France	3-0	Croatia
28 May 2000	Friendly	Croatia	0-2	France

KEY
WC SF - World Cup semi-final