Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said his team lacked "aggression" in a heavy 3-0 defeat to Spain in their Euro 2024 opener in Berlin on Saturday.
"We weren't aggressive enough, we gave them a lot of space and when you give such players that much space, you don't have opportunities," Dalic said in a news conference after the game.
"We were too slow and aggression was lacking," he added.
The coach stressed he won't make any radical changes for the next games against Albania and title holders Italy, even though his defence conceded three goals within 18 first half minutes from Alvaro Morata, Fabian Ruiz and Dani Carvajal.
"I hope this was a bad day, a bad reaction. We won't erase everything we've done well, we had good games before. We have to see why we had such bad reactions," Dalic said.
Croatia stars Luka Modric and Mateo Kovacic were subbed off in the second half and, while Kovacic had the chance to equalize right after Spain's opener, Modric didn't see much of the ball.
"They played for now and we realized that we have two difficult matches in front of us. We didn't want to force them. We wanted to give the chance to other players and rest these two," Dalic said.
He also apologized to the massive Croatian crowd that took over the Olympic stadium in the German capital.
"It was a great atmosphere. I don’t know how many Croatians were here, but I apologize for this game today."
Croatia were World Cup runners-up in 2018 and third in 1998 and 2022 but have never gone beyond the quarter-finals at the Euros.