Euro 2016: Croatia 0-1 Portugal - 5 talking points
The third knockout game of Euro 2016 saw Croatia taking on Portugal. While the Croatians had pulled off a surprise result by beating Spain and topping their group in the last match, Portugal needed heroics from Cristiano Ronaldo to draw 3-3 with Hungary and finished third in their group.
Both sides knew that they would face Poland in the quarter-final stage should they have progressed but neither side had any real attacking quality in the game with the match ending 0-0 after full-time.
The game only came alive late in the second half of extra-time as Portugal hit Croatia on a counter and Ricardo Quaresma scored off a saved shot from Croatian goalkeeper Danijel Subasic. Portugal might not have played great football but they had that one moment of quality that counted.
We look back at the tie and provide the five talking points.
1) Game lacking real quality
When the best chances of a game fall to two centre-backs, it does provide a sorry tale for those who wanted to see more attacking football on display. Portugal and Croatia both cancelled each other out and the sides were horrendous in attack.
There were no shots on target for 117 minutes of the game, the goalkeepers barely had to do anything apart from taking sips from their drinks bottles and jogging off to change ends.
The fans weren’t having any of it and both sides were booed and jeered at the end of full-time and in extra-time as neither team wanted to lose the game. The knockout stages are nerve-racking and many do freeze up in these games but Portugal and Croatia had the talent to provide a spectacle and failed, massively.