The Croatian U-21 national team lost to Australia 2:1 in the first of three friendly matches at the International Cup in Doha.
The young Croatian under-21 national team lost 2:1 against the Australian under-23 national team in the first match of the friendly tournament.
Australia took the lead in the 55th minute through Dukuly, but Croatia quickly equalized when Luka Tunjić scored just two minutes later. For the final 2:1, Adamson scored the goal in stoppage time.
In the first hour, the team that played, I was delighted. They played very well and had a lot of good chances. They even pleasantly surprised me, considering we managed to do only one joint training session with many new players. It looked good; we had our chances, and it’s a shame we didn’t use one in the first half. There were a lot of changes in the second half, and in this difficult weather, we had a lot of problems considering that we could only make six changes. Some players had problems with cramps, and they barely did. But a good test with a team two years older than our generation. We saw how much better the Australians looked today, especially in the last 10 minutes, because they also had difficult conditions like us. Still, they handled themselves much better than us at the end of the game – Ivica Olić, Croatia Head Coach
Croatia played with: Savatović, Vušković (Živković 60′), Topić (Rukavina 61′), Zvonarek (Barzić 46′), Bukvić, Čaić, Tunjić, Jagušić (Antunović 60′), Šotiček (Knezović (61′), Tikvić (Dizdarević 46′), Krušelj.
Croatia’s next match is against Egypt on Saturday, March 22, followed by a match against Thailand on March 25.
Games schedule:
March 22, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
Croatia – EgyptMarch 25, 2025, 63:0 p.m.
Thailand – Croatia, 6:30 PM
SOURCE: Croatian Football Association
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