Spain vs Croatia LIVE: Euro 2024 result and final score as Lamine Yamal shines for La Roja

14 mins

Italy have done well to recover so quickly, but they’ll be aware of the threat that Albania possess. The Azzurri are keeping the ball well at the moment.

10 mins

GOAL! Italy are level.

Italy win their first corner of the game as Hysaj puts it behind. Pellegrini plays it short before delivering an inviting ball to the back post, and Bastoni rises high to power the header past Strakosha.

5 mins

The goal was recorded after 23 seconds, which makes it the fastest goal in European Championship history.

Italy look a little shellshocked but they attack again, with Djimsiti making an important block from Chiesa’s shot.

1 min

GOAL! An unbelievable start!

Dimarco’s throw-in is put into the Italy box but it runs straight to Nedim Bajrami, who takes a touch and rifles it past Donnarumma at the near post!

KICK-OFF! We’re underway at the Westfalenstadion after rousing renditions of the respective anthems. There are an awful lot of Albania fans present.

Albania get us started.

A new Spain, in more ways than one. As Lamine Yamal, who was not even a year old when they won Euro 2008, became first the youngest footballer to play in a European Championships and then, before half-time, the youngest to set up a goal in one, Luis de la Fuente’s side made a break with the past.

With less possession and more potency, Spain looked a team trying to cast off the influence of their champion sides. They had 47 percent of the ball but scored three goals. After going out of successive World Cups in knockout games where they attempted over 1,000 passes each, but seemed to show precious little interest in scoring, this was Spain, but not as we knew them.

Nor, really, was it Croatia as we have come to know them: the great survivors, the tournament team whose powers of endurance have carried them deep into World Cups, were strangely supine. It was the Croatia of old, in that Luka Modric became the oldest player ever in a European Championships, in that they started with a midfield trio with 376 caps between them and the first substitute deployed was Ivan Perisic. The faces were familiar, but there was not the usual resilience.

Holders Italy are up next for Spain, with that game kicking off at 8pm BST on Thursday, 20 June.

For Croatia, next up is a crucial game against Albania. They desperately need three points on Wednesday, 19 June – that game kicks off at 2pm in Hamburg.

Spain got up and running at Euro 2024 with a straightforward win over Croatia, beating their Group B opponents 3-0 on Saturday.

Captain Alvaro Morata opened the scoring for Luis de la Fuente’s side in Berlin, following a fine Fabian Ruiz assist, and it was Ruiz who doubled the lead with an impressive solo goal.

The standout moment, however, might have come from Lamine Yamal, when the 16-year-old assisted Dani Carvajal with a brilliant cross for 3-0.

Croatia thought they had pulled one back in the second half, when substitute Bruno Petkovic won a penalty, hit the spot, and scored in the aftermath, but the goal was ruled out for encroachment.

95 mins

Carvajal is fouled near his own box and that should be that.

The referee blows the whistle and Spain wrap up what was, in the end, a fairly comfortable three points.