Despite having numerous opportunities to kill-off the game the Azzurri have put themselves in a difficult position.
As was the case against Spain, Italy failed to build on their 1-0 advantage over Croatia, and ended up settling for another 1-1 draw, which considering that both Spain and Croatia obtained easy wins over the Republic of Ireland, puts the Azzurri in serious danger of being eliminated in the group stage.
Heading into the competition there were question marks as to whether Cesar Prandelli's side could produce the goods, due to a number of different reasons, from their lacklustre performances in warm-up games to max-fixing allegations against players.
But with their impressive 1-1 draw against Spain on Sunday, where they could have even won the game, all of their problems had seemed to be forgotten, but the reality is that they are still somewhat present, as was evident in Poznan.
Italy commenced the game strongly, clearly setting-out to display a similar brand of soccer that they produced against the reigning European champions.
The fact that Croatia, at least on paper, are a far less difficult side than Spain, gave the Azzurri that early psychological edge, and while the Italians played some delightful attacking-based soccer they had to wait until six minutes from half-time for Andrea Pirlo to give them a much-deserved lead with a trademark free-kick that curled its way around Croatia goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa.
Prandelli would certainly have told his players to continue to play in the same manner as they had in the first during the half-time team talk, but perhaps to be a little bit more cautious in a defensive perspective, particularly because they already had the lead and Croatia didn't pose too much of a threat up-front in the first half.
But this didn't happen, as Italy became increasingly vulnerable in defence, and Croatia certainly picked up a gear in an offensive aspect, creating ongoing problems for the Italians.
With Italy's most influential players almost disappearing while this happened, it was imminent that the Croats would draw level and they finally did exactly this in the 72nd minute, when Mario Mandzukic took advantage of a childish error from Giorgio Chiellini to fire home.
With the result, Italy have no choice but to defeat the Republic of Ireland on Monday, or they will have to lament yet another early exit from a major competition.
Heading into the competition there were question marks as to whether Cesar Prandelli's side could produce the goods, due to a number of different reasons, from their lacklustre performances in warm-up games to max-fixing allegations against players.
But with their impressive 1-1 draw against Spain on Sunday, where they could have even won the game, all of their problems had seemed to be forgotten, but the reality is that they are still somewhat present, as was evident in Poznan.
Italy commenced the game strongly, clearly setting-out to display a similar brand of soccer that they produced against the reigning European champions.
The fact that Croatia, at least on paper, are a far less difficult side than Spain, gave the Azzurri that early psychological edge, and while the Italians played some delightful attacking-based soccer they had to wait until six minutes from half-time for Andrea Pirlo to give them a much-deserved lead with a trademark free-kick that curled its way around Croatia goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa.
Prandelli would certainly have told his players to continue to play in the same manner as they had in the first during the half-time team talk, but perhaps to be a little bit more cautious in a defensive perspective, particularly because they already had the lead and Croatia didn't pose too much of a threat up-front in the first half.
But this didn't happen, as Italy became increasingly vulnerable in defence, and Croatia certainly picked up a gear in an offensive aspect, creating ongoing problems for the Italians.
With Italy's most influential players almost disappearing while this happened, it was imminent that the Croats would draw level and they finally did exactly this in the 72nd minute, when Mario Mandzukic took advantage of a childish error from Giorgio Chiellini to fire home.
With the result, Italy have no choice but to defeat the Republic of Ireland on Monday, or they will have to lament yet another early exit from a major competition.
