Ivan Rakitić the competition. On 15 October 2008, he scored a brace in a 4–0 win at home to Andorra. On 5 September 2009, he scored the match-winning goal in a 1–0 win at home to Belarus. Croatia failed to qualify for the finals after finishing third in their group. After appearing in all of their Euro 2012 qualifiers, he was selected to be part of the Croatian squad at the Euro finals in Poland and Ukraine. Croatia were drawn in Group C together with Spain, Italy and the Republic of Ireland. Rakitić started in all three of Croatia group stage matches.
UEFA Euro 2012 statistics 2012 qualifying was required to serve the balance of any suspension unserved by the end of qualifying either in the Euro 2012 finals (for any player on a team that qualified, whether he was selected to the final squad or not) or in World Cup qualifying (for players on teams that did not qualify). Any player receiving a single yellow card during two of the three group stage matches and the quarter-final match was suspended for the following match. A single yellow card did not carry over to the semi-finals. This meant that no player could have been suspended for