A Red Card, a Late Collapse, and a Spanish Journalist Fighting Shazam: Croatia's Wild Night Against Spain

By CreativeQuizzes Editorial Team

A response that still ended in defeat

Croatia lost 1-2 to World Cup and European champions Spain at a packed Poljud in Split on October 6, 2026, in UEFA Nations League Group 3 action — a result that stung far more than the scoreline suggests given how the match actually played out. In front of 32,600 fans, Croatia led through Ivan Perišić in the 17th minute and held that advantage into the second half, only to have the match turned on its head by a contentious red card and a Spanish substitute who simply refused to stop scoring.

The result came just days after Croatia suffered a historic 0-7 humiliation against England at Rujevica, so this performance — right up until the final act — was exactly the kind of response head coach Slaven Bilić had demanded from his players. Bilić made four changes to his starting lineup from the England disaster, bringing back Josip Šutalo in defense, Kristijan Jakić in midfield, Nikola Vlašić on the right wing, and Igor Matanović up front, while moving Perišić back out to the wing and Gvardiol to left-back.

The red card that changed everything

The pivotal moment came in the 79th minute. Trying to stop a Spanish counterattack, Perišić caught Marc Cucurella from behind while the Spanish full-back was running at pace — a foul that referee Erik Lambrechts, after a VAR review, judged worthy of a second yellow card. Perišić, who'd already been booked earlier in the match, was sent off, and Croatia had to see out the final ten-plus minutes a man down.

The decision sparked furious protests from Croatian players, coaching staff, and the Poljud crowd alike, with chants reportedly breaking out against the officiating. Bilić didn't hold back afterward, telling reporters: "When you look at the VAR and see what Cucurella is doing, he's conning his way into it — cunningly." He also disputed Spain's eventual winning goal, suggesting it came from an offside position. Spanish outlet Marca, notably, sided with the referee's decision on the red card, writing that Perišić had fouled Cucurella and that "VAR couldn't save him."

Merino punishes Croatia twice

Spain's turnaround was built almost entirely around one player: Mikel Merino, who came on as a second-half substitute and scored twice to complete the comeback — equalizing in the 61st minute with an assist from Dani Olmo, then netting the winner in the 89th minute to snatch victory from a Croatia side that had spent most of the night frustrating the reigning world champions. Having entered only at the start of the second half, Merino needed just 45 minutes to become the match's decisive figure.

The win secured Spain top spot in the group, while Croatia sit third with three points — a tough position for a side that, by most accounts of the performance itself, had done enough to deserve at least a point against the best team in the world.

A heated exchange on the pitch

The frustration of the collapse reportedly spilled into visible tension among Croatia's own players, with Josko Gvardiol and Perišić engaging in an animated exchange during the match — the kind of moment that tends to surface when a game slips away in a way that feels avoidable. It's a minor subplot compared to the result itself, but one that added to the sense of a night that got away from Croatia in the final 15 minutes after they'd controlled long stretches of play.

The lighter side: a Marca reporter loses the plot over the pregame playlist

Amid all the controversy, one of the more charming side-stories from Poljud had nothing to do with the match itself. Half an hour before kickoff, Marca's reporter on the ground, Miguel Ángel Lara, became completely captivated by the music blasting over Poljud's stadium speakers — the only problem being he had no idea what any of it was.

Lara spent the pregame reaching for Shazam, trying to identify song after song playing through the warm-up. "What music, please! Shazam is going to block me with how much I'm searching," he wrote during Marca's live coverage of the match. His colleagues running the broadcast quickly picked up on his enthusiasm and gently ribbed him for it, with Marca joking in its own coverage that fellow commentator José Luis Allegue probably wouldn't be building a playlist out of Split's stadium soundtrack just because Lara liked it so much.

It was a small, genuinely funny moment buried inside a much heavier night for Croatian football — a reminder that even in the tensest Nations League fixtures, a visiting journalist can still get completely derailed by someone else's warm-up music.

What it means going forward

For Croatia, the performance itself — character, organization, a disciplined gameplan against the world champions — offers some genuine reassurance after the England debacle, even if the result doesn't reflect it. But the red card controversy and the manner of the late collapse mean this match will likely be remembered as another frustrating entry in a difficult campaign, with two Group 3 matches still to play in November to determine how Croatia's Nations League campaign ultimately shakes out.