Spain kicked off their Euro 2024 campaign with an emphatic 3-0 win over Croatia in Group B as Lamine Yamal became the youngest player to feature in the history of the competition.
After a fairly tepid opening 25 minutes, La Rojas broke the deadlock when Rodri threaded the ball through to Alvaro Morata who produced a composed finish.
Four minutes later, they doubled their lead when Fabian Ruiz bamboozled the opposition with some nifty footwork before lashing the ball into the bottom corner from the edge of the box via a deflection.
That sparked the Croatians into action and Josko Gvadiol came close to scoring. But on the stroke of half time they fell behind further when Yamal, aged 16 years and 338 days old, produced a brilliant cross which was converted by Dani Carvajal for his first international goal.
Zlatko Dalic’s side were unlucky not to reduce their deficit in the second period with Josip Stanisic’s shot was cleared off the line by Marc Cucurella and the rebound was saved by Unai Simon.
Croatia thought they had scored late on after they were awarded a penalty when Rodri brought down Bruno Petkovic after a mistake by Simon.
Petkovic’s spotkick was saved but he converted the rebound, however VAR disallowed the goal for encroachment in the box by Ivan Perisic.