Having witnessed Croatia´s efforts at Euro 2008 thus far, England manager Fabio Capello might just be a worried man.

That´s because England are scheduled to meet the Croats on September 10 in their 2010 World Cup qualifying group. It will be Capello´s second competitive match as an England manager – the Three Lions play Andorra four days prior to that game.

Slaven Bilic´s side produced a brilliant display to defeat tournament favourites Germany 2-1 in the group stages and of course famously defeated Steve McLaren´s England at Wembley during qualification.

Historically, England´s results against the Croats have been something of a mixed bag. They first met them in 1996 with the match ending 0-0.

England then beat the former Yugoslavian sector twice (including a memorable 4-2 win at Euro 2004). But the Croats have of course held all the aces since then with two wins – the most recent coming in that Wembley qualifier when Mladen Petric´s late strike earned a dramatic 3-2 victory.

The second group match against Croatia is on September 9, 2009 at Wembley and it is clear that Capello will need to have improved England considerably by then if they are to hold any hopes of reaching South Africa.

The bad news for England supporters is that the current Croatia side has youth on its side and is likely to be even better by the time they clash in the Balkans later this year. Crocked Arsenal striker Eduardo is likely to be back to boost their forward line as well.

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