Croatia cruise past Latvia to boost Euro 2024 qualification hopes
After back-to-back losses last month, Croatia needed to return to winning ways to stand a chance of booking an automatic place in UEFA’s European Championships in 2024.
The visitors gave themselves a fantastic opportunity to do just that by opening the scoring inside 10 minutes when Luka Ivanusec picked out Lovro Majer inside the area before the winger picked out the bottom corner to make it 1-0.
Croatia weren’t done there however, and they continued their blistering start when Andrej Kramaric capitalised on poor defending to make it 2-0 and keep his side on track to equal or even better their 5-0 mauling of Latvia the last time they met.
The hosts left themselves plenty to do in the second half and especially needed to be more productive, not even recording an attempt on goal before the referee blew for the break.
Croatia continued to dominate the ball well into the second half, but Latvia did manage their first attempt just shy of the hour mark when Andrejs Ciganiks’s long-range effort went wide of the post.
Roberts Ozols then prevented it from getting even worse for his side when he superbly tipped a looping Josip Sutalo effort over the bar. After only winning one game of this campaign so far, Latvia only had pride to play for and this was evident as they struggled to cause the visitors any real problems throughout the game.
Majer and Marco Pasalic missed late opportunities that saved Latvia further embarrassment and meant the game finished 2-0. The victory takes Croatia two points ahead of Wales after their draw against Armenia with only one game remaining, Latvia remain rooted to the bottom on three points.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Lovro Majer (Croatia)
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In the other match being played at the same time Belarus struck late to narrowly beat Andorra in Group I.