Budimir's erroneous hope: "We depend on ourselves"

Croatia striker Ante Budimir showed on Wednesday after the 2-2 draw against Albania that his team, with just one point after two games in the European Championship group stage, were confident of progressing, but he did so with the wrong mindset: he said Croatia would be depending on themselves against Italy in the final match to reach the last 16. Should the 'Azzurri' beat Spain on Thursday, Croatia could still finish third despite beating Spalletti's side, which would make them dependent on the other groups.

The Osasuna player was key for his country with his cameo in the second half. He set up Kramaric's equaliser and the one that gave his team a momentary lead, scored by Gjasula in his own goal. However, in stoppage time, Gjasula himself equalised to send Dalic's side into trouble.

"They had good chances and Livakovic reacted very well. The final result is perhaps fair. But we are aware that everything depends on us, which is good. Against Italy, we have to be at our level for the whole 90 minutes," he said equivocally.

"The result left us with a point and I regret that we couldn't hold on in the last 10 minutes. We managed to turn the score around, you think you've finished off your opponent and we had the three points. We wanted to score the third goal, it was important, but it didn't go our way," he told 'HTR'.