Football

Slaven Bilic's troops clinch Euro 2012 Championship spot

16.11.2011 u 00:05

Bionic
Reading

Croatia cruised into the Euro 2012 finals after a 0-0 home draw against Turkey, ensuring a 3-0 aggregate victory after the second leg of their play-off on Tuesday.

Croatia entered the play-offs after being edged out by Euro 2004 champions Greece in their qualifying group, while Turkey came in way behind runaway leaders Germany in their group.

Ivica Olic, Mario Mandzukic and Vedran Corluka did the damage in Istanbul on Friday to make Tuesday night's game in Zagreb a mere formality, although Croatia boss Slaven Bilic insisted his side's job remained only 'half done'.

Indeed, Turkey were much improved in Zagreb after a poor performance in the first leg but Croatia  comfortably held their own in front of a passionate 30,000 home crowd. Despite lacking the heroics of their first leg outing, Bilic's men held on to maintain Croatia's unbeaten record on home soil going back to 2008.

Turkey pushed hard from the start, trying to set the pace. Colin Kazim Richards almost scored in the fifth minute after Umut Bulut had hit the post.

Minutes later an effort from Galatasary midfielder Selcuk Inan bounced off the post as Croatia keeper Stipe Pletikosa dived to save.

Eintracht Frankfurt's centre back Gordon Schildenfeld missed a chance to increase Croatia's aggregate lead after 19 minutes when his header went wide.

Tottenham midfielder Luka Modric missed a shot on 27 minutes, and four minutes later it was the turn of Sevilla's Ivan Ratikic, with Mandzukic attempting to break the deadlock from ten metres out when Modric was better placed to score.

Croatia dominated the second half closing down all hopes of the visitors.

Bayern Munich midfielder Danijel Pranjic had looked threatening with a mazy run into the visitors' penalty box with 20 minutes to go but Bayer Leverkusen defender Omer Toprak blocked his path to the goal mouth. Turkey's Hamit Altintop missed the target from just outside the box in the 65th in his team's last real chance.

Rakitic, Josip Simunic and captain Darijo Srna all had shots on goal in the final minutes of the game, but the crowd still cheered as the fans were celebrating their third consecutive European finals.

The success completed Croatia's revenge over Turkey for a painful defeat in their Euro 2008 quarter-final, when the Turks won on penalties after making the score 1-1 with the one-off last kick of extra-time.

With this, Croatia kept its perfect playoff record, having qualified against Ukraine for the 1998 World Cup and against Slovenia for Euro 2004.

'Turkey showed they are a good team, they were very dangerous. We knew we had to play seriously today despite having such big advantage from the first leg', Slaven Bilic said.

 

Croatia (4-4-2): Pletikosa; Vida, Schildenfeld, Simunic, Pranjic ; Srna, Vukojevic (Da Silva 88), Modric, Rakitic; Mandzukic (Jelavic 77), Olic (Perisic 62).

Subs not used: Subasic, Leko, Buljat, Ilicevic.

Turkey (4-4-2): Bolat; Balci, Toprak, Korkmaz, Koybasi, Inan, Hamit Altintop, Sahin, Erkin (Tore 46), Bulut (Halil Altintop 71), Kazim.

Subs not used: Zengin, Gonul, Cetin, Topal, Ipek.

Referee: Pedro Proenca (Portugal).