A tricky Euro 2012 tie against Italy won’t stop Croatia from showing their usual attacking flair, coach Slaven Bilic said.
The largely untested strike partnership of Nikica Jelavic and Mario Madzukic scored all of Croatia’s goals in a dominating 3-1 win over Ireland on Sunday, and Croatia can secure a place in the quarterfinals if they beat Italy on Thursday.
“I can guarantee we're not going to change the way we play,” he said in comments on the UEFA website.
“Although Italy are a great team and they are going to try to force us to defend very deep, when we have the ball we will also try to be very dangerous.”
Winning with style against Ireland pleased Bilic, he said.
“We played very well against Ireland going forward. We dominated possession and we were flooding forward.”
“That's the way we should play but it's very dangerous if you lose the ball where you shouldn't.”
Ireland take on Spain in Thursday’s late game.
