Next Sunday, 16th of November 2014, a somewhat inconsistent Italy will take on Croatia at the beautiful Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in Milan for the Euro 2016 Qualifiers on a match between those that appear to be the strongest teams of Group H.

Italy are on a poor run of results as they prepare to meet  their upcoming opponents, Croatia, as they have not managed to win any of their last six matches. The last time they measured forces was at Poznan during the Euro 2012 and the clash ended in a 1-1 draw.

Italy’s recent performance at Ta’Qali National Stadium against Malta was fairly uninspired, but in the end the Italians managed to win the clash by 1-0, thanks to a goal by Southampton’s super inspired striker Graziano Pelle in the first-half of the match. Not even the fact of playing against just ten men for almost 50 minutes allowed Italy to grant a win by a bigger margin.

Before that disappointing clash at Malta, Italy entertained Azerbaijan at home and their performance wasn’t better by any means. The Squadra Azzurra grabbed a 2-1 narrow win and interestingly all of goals in the match were scored by just one man, Juventus experienced centre back Giorgio Chiellini. The 30-year old defender had a match to remember, as he netted in the two Italy goals and Azerbaijan’s one as well.

Italy’s performance on that particular match also left something to be desired and the team showed some lack of ideas in the midfield line and some unexpected restlessness at their defence line. The new Italy’s boss, Antonio Conte, still has plenty to do in order to take the best out of his impressive group of players, nevertheless, he has managed to obtain the three points in all the qualifying matches and, in the end, that is all that counts.

As for Croatia, the Balkans team is having an excellent start at the Euro 2016 Qualifiers, as they've won all the three matches they took part in. The Croats smashed Azerbaijan by 6-0 on their last qualifying match, a result that dictated the end of the line for the experienced German manager, Berti Vogts, at the helm of the Azeri side.

After leaving a good image of themselves at the Brazilian World Cup last Summer, Nico Kovac’s boys continue their impressive growth, as they are showing clear signs of development, something that was blatantly obvious on their match against Argentina yesterday, which they ended up losing by 2-1.

The Italians are favourites to win next Sunday’s match just because they are playing at home, although, no one should be surprised if Croatia manage to cause a major upset at San Siro and grab the three points.

Italy

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

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Croatia

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

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Possible Line-ups

Italy (3-5-2) - Buffon - Darmian - Chiellini - De Sciglio - Verratti - Pirlo - Marchisio - Florenzi - Candreva - Pelle - Imobile

Croatia (4-4-2) - Subasic - Srna - Corluka - Vida - Jedvaj - Modric - Rakitic - Kovacic - Sharbini - Mandzukic - Kramaric

Prediction

Italy 1 Croatia 1