The game was held in the Municipal Stadium in Poznan, Andrea Pirlo opened the scoring for Italy , but then Mario Mandzukic equalized the game for Croatia . Italy did pay a heavy price for their mistakes.

★ Gianluigi Buffon, Italy Goalkeeper

I think our performance was very good, we had tried various ways in order to prevail. If we can win the last match, I believe we will eventually qualify. Unfortunately, we did not score more goals, especially after creating opportunities in the first half. Though we played well in defensive, it was a pity that we made a mistake which gave our opponent a chance to turn the game. As what I have said, I feel that our performance was good, but we need to calm down to kill off the match when the chance appeared.

★ Claudio Marchisio, Italy Midfielder

We did a great job in the first half, we had chances to score more goals, but unfortunately we missed them. We were disappointed that we had lost two points in hand. In the second half our performance was clearly not as good as before, but we had fully controlled the situation in the pitch until our opponent scored goals. I had a few chances during the first half, I lobbed the ball over for the first time and I could have handled better for another chance. It's really a big pity, because we could have won the match. Now we need to wait for the last game, which will determine whether we can ultimately qualify. Hope is still in our hands, we do not expect the results of the opponent's game, we will go all out to win over Ireland.

★ Leonardo Bonucci, Italian Defender

We were clear about the threat from Croatia, especially when they passed the ball to the box from the wing. Unfortunately, today we lost the ball just under such a situation. At that time, our whole defense line made mistakes on judging positions, which ultimately punished us. This is not responsibility of a single player, a simple link will be able to decide the whole game in the football world, and it happens to us today. It was clear that we played better than Croatia in the first half, but we slowed down in the second half, and we paid for it finally.

★ Riccardo Montolivo, Italy Midfielder

It was 1-1 draw once again, but bitter for us this time, because we had created enough chances to beat our opponent in the match, especially in the first half. In my opinion, we performed quite well in the first half. Croatia dramatically improved themselves in the second half, but we had fully controlled the situation in the pitch until Croatia scored goals actually. We were all clear that the opponent was a considerable threat to us, their performance also proved this. We were punished for our mistakes.