RIJEKA, Croatia, Oct. 12 -- Croatia and England couldn't put the ball in the net during their UEFA Nations League match here on Friday behind the closed doors of an empty stadium.

One hundred days ago, Croatia beat England to reach the FIFA World Cup finals. Mario Mandzukic scored in extra time at the fully packed Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. This time around settings were much different.

Stadium in the biggest Croatian sea port has just one-tenth of a Luzhniki Stadium capacity but all 8,000 seats were empty because of the ban that UEFA had imposed on Croatian Football Federation three years ago.

Both teams started their campaign with losses against Spain who beat England 2-1 at Wembley Stadium last month and three days later crushed Croatia 6-0 in Elche, which has been the most humiliating loss in the history of the Croatian national team.

In the first 45 minutes, both teams were getting used to a non-football atmosphere in which the players could hear every breath from each other. There was nobody in the stands to applaud for the good moves on the pitch. English goalkeeper Jordan Pickford managed to stop Andrej Kramaric's shot in the 37th minute and England were close to scoring in the 44th minute when Eric Dier hit the post with a header after the corner kick.

In the second half both teams had much more chances to score. In the 51st minute Croatian winger Ivan Perisic made Pickford to dive for a save, with his shot from the edge of the box. In the next six minutes the visitors had three attempts to put the ball behind the back of the 23-year-old Croatian goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic.

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