The match was held up for a number of minutes in the closing stages after several flares were thrown onto the pitch.
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Against the run of play, the Czechs earned their first point of the competition with two late strikes – the first time at Euro 2016 that a team has come back from two goals down.
A careless handball from Domagoj Vida as he jumped to head away a high ball in the area gave Clattenburg no option but to award the penalty that substitute Tomas Necid gleefully smashed home with his first touch to level the scores at 2-2.
But Skoda proved there was still some life in the Czech engine when he managed to put some power into his header from Tomas Rosicky’s cross on 76 minutes. “It’s probably not the last time they’ll do it”, he said.
Croatia are already under investigation following crowd incidents in their opening 1-0 win over Turkey. Unfortunately they are doing this. The governing body said after the match that it will open disciplinary procedures against Croatia.
Croatia dominated from the start and Milan Badelj fired wide early as Rakitic pulled the strings and he fired over seconds on 21 minutes after Perisic had just missed Mario Mandzukic’s cross.
“I must say the pause due to their fans helped us”, said Czech Republic goalkeeper Petr Cech.
But it wasn’t until the 37th minute that Croatia took the lead when Perisic picked up the ball, produced a fine step-over before firing a low angled shot into the corner of the Czech net.
Croatia’s coach Ante Cacic fields the same line-up that beat Turkey 1-0, with captain Darijo Srna starting after rejoining the team following his father’s death.
A stunning long-range strike from Luka Modric saw the Croats off to the flawless start against Turkey on Sunday and they’ll want to continue that winning momentum. “We were not concentrated that much when he left the pitch”.
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NICE Alvaro Morata kept his place in the Spain attack as the defending champions named an unchanged team for their Euro 2016 match group D match against Turkey on Friday. Punches were then thrown between fans before stewards calmed the situation.
