Croatia take first blood from Italians after World Cup glory

Croatia beat Italy 2-0 in the World Cup champions' first game since winning the title last month as the Azzurri used the friendly to give seven players their national team debut.

"This was the antipasto of what awaits the regular starters," their striker Cristiano Lucarelli said. "Let's not forget that Italy is the world champion and everyone wants to beat us."

The Brazilian-born striker Eduardo put Croatia ahead with a header in the 28th minute. Then Eduardo's Dynamo Zagreb team-mate Luka Modric banged in a rebound for Croatia's second after the Italy goalkeeper Marco Amelia was unable to grab cleanly a long drive by Milan Rapaic.

The midfielder Julien Faubert marked his first cap by scoring an injury-time winner to hand defeated World Cup finalists France a deserved 2-1 victory over Bosnia. Faubert scored with a strike inside the box from a Thierry Henry pass when the Bosnians looked sure of holding the score to 1-1.

Germany gave their new coach Joachim Löw a prefect start to his reign as they trounced Sweden 3-0 in a friendly in Gelsenkirchen, with two goals from Miroslav Klose and one from Bernd Schneider.

Pavel Nedved brought his international career to a close last night as the Czech Republic lost 3-1 to Serbia.

With tears in his eyes, the 2003 European Footballer of the Year was substituted near the end of the first half to a standing ovation.