Attending a major international tournament is very much the highest level a football fan can reach. While it’s clear that football supporters will concentrate much of their focus on club football, there is nothing like following your national team into battle, and when it comes to either the Euro finals or the FIFA World Cup, it doesn’t get any bigger.
Getting to see your national team in action isn’t easy, especially in key qualifiers and major competitions, and both UEFA and FIFA routes, via what are effectively lotteries, are ones you are likely to fail in.
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Portugal vs Croatia UEFA Euros Tournament Record
Portugal didn’t qualify for the European Championships until 1984, and when they arrived on the scene, they made an immediate impact. They managed to finish ahead of West Germany to ease into the knock out phase, where they went up against hosts France in the Semi-Finals.
Two goals from Jordao were not quite enough as the great Michel Platini fired home a 119th-minute winner to settle a five-goal thriller in Marseille. 12 years later, at Euro 96, a team bristling with talent reached the quarter-finals.
Four years later, they made another impressive run, losing in extra time to France once again in the Semi-Finals.
In 2004, a team revolving around a talent by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo forced a route all the way to the final, buoyed by their home crowd, but the hosts somehow contrived to lose to Greece in the final, a result that may well still haunt those who witnessed it first hand.
2008 and 2012 were successful in their own way, both seeing A Seleção das Quinas getting to the knockout phase, but 2016 finally brought an end to their ongoing pursuit of a major international trophy.
In France, Portugal started sedately, drawing all three of their group games. They then defeated Croatia and Poland in the Round of 16 and Quarter-Finals, respectively, to set up a Semi-Final with Wales, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani scoring to ease them into the final against the hosts.
Ronaldo was subbed off in the first half with an injury and the game looked to be heading for a penalty shoot-out when forward Eder crashed in a superb long-range effort to hand Portugal a well-deserved first UEFA European Championship title.
Croatia have had an up-and-down time of it in the competition. They got to the Quarter-Finals in their first tournament since independence, and in 2008, they did amazingly well to top their group, beating Germany, Austria, and Poland, with Luka Modric, in particular, making a real impact.
They then lost to Turkey on penalties in the quarter finals in Vienna, with three of the four spot-kicks taken by Croatia proving unsuccessful.
In both 2016 and 2020, they could only manage Round of 16 exits, despite being a very strong unit in both tournaments.
Portugal vs Croatia Head-to-Head
Portugal and Croatia have met twice in UEFA European Championship finals matches, and the first of these came in 1996 when goals from Luis Figo, Joao Pinto, and Domingos all scored in a 3-0 group stage victory at Nottingham Forest’s The City Ground.
Portugal once again beat Croatia in 2016, this time in the Round of 16, with tricky winger Ricardo Quaresma scoring the winner in the 117th minute in Lens.
