Croatia vs England: the old rivalry resumes

There's no confirmed kickoff time doing the rounds yet, and the exact date has bounced between October 2 and 3, 2026 depending on which outlet you check, but the broad shape of the night is clear enough: Croatia at home, England travelling, and a fixture that has rarely been dull whatever the stakes.

That history is the whole reason this one gets circled on the calendar. Luka Modrić's Croatia have got the better of England at major tournaments before, and Nations League meetings between the two in recent cycles have been tight, scrappy, low on space and high on tension. Rijeka isn't the biggest stage either side will play on this season, but neither team tends to treat this fixture as a friendly in disguise.

Team news still taking shape

Football365 and GiveMeSport both flagged team news and predicted lineups ahead of the match, though full confirmed squads weren't locked in across the available previews. That's normal enough three or four days out from a Nations League date sandwiched into an already packed international window, but it means the tactical picture is still being filled in rather than finished.

For Croatia, the question is how much continuity the manager keeps around a midfield that has defined this generation of the national team. For England, it's the usual puzzle: which combination up front gets picked, and whether the back line set up to deal with Croatia's possession game is the same one used in the previous fixture.

Why the lineup calls matter here

This is a game that tends to get decided by who controls the tempo in midfield rather than by moments of individual magic, so the starting XIs will tell you almost everything about how each manager wants to play it. A Croatia side set up to dominate the ball invites a different kind of England performance than one built to sit in and counter, and vice versa.

Expect the final team news to land closer to kickoff, with both camps likely to manage minutes given the scheduling squeeze around this international break. Whatever the exact selections, a Croatia-England Nations League night in Rijeka was never going to be short of an edge.