Spain v Croatia: Newcastle United fans' reasons to watch Euro 2024

We are going to be breaking down every reason to watch the first round of group games in Euro 2024 from a Newcastle United perspective covering players who play, have played or have been linked to Newcastle.

There will be a few tenuous links as we cover some games, but we will justify every selection.

Obviously, once the first round of fixtures is done there's no real point in doing more as every Nation will have been covered at least once.

The second match of the day gets underway at 5pm.

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Spain's squad is chock full of Newcastle connections

Spain v Croatia has plenty of Toon connections to cover so we'll get right into it starting with Spain.

27-year-old Defender Robin Le Normand who sounds way more French than Spanish (because he is) has been linked with Newcastle recently as they look to shore up their backline, although since the close of the season things have gone quiet on that front. Still worth looking at to see if he's worth going in for this summer.

Alejandro Grimaldo was a player linked to Newcastle last summer as one of several free agents we were chasing, but he ultimately left Benfica and joined Bayer Leverkusen.

Former Magpie Mikel Merino is now a fully-fledged member of the Spain national side, his one year on Tyneside is fondly remembered by fans and there's a large section of fans who'd love to see him return.

Joselu and Ayoze Perez are in Spain's squad. Unbelievable!

This is unbelievable ... Joselu, one of Newcastle's worst strikers in recent memory is now a Champions League winner with Real Madrid and is representing his country at a major tournament. What a dude!

Another former Newcastle striker is also there in the form of Ayoze Perez, not something we had on our 2024 bingo card either if we're being honest.

Finally, for Spain there's Ferran Torres who was the subject of a wild rumour last week that Newcastle had made a £20million bid for the forward, but those rumours were quickly rubbished. Shame, because he's mint.

Croatia's Toon links aren't as strong

Croatia's Newcastle links are a lot more down the "what might have been" line than Spain's.

22-year-old full-back Josko Gvardiol was linked with Newcastle many times last year before he made his big-money move to Manchester City. I doubt we were ever really close to making that one happen.

One of the most galling missed opportunities in Newcastle's history is next in the form of 38-year-old Luka Modric who Kevin Keegan wanted to sign during his second spell at the club only to be told by Tony Jiminez that he was too small to be effective in the Premier League. No wonder he walked away from the job.

The final one is rather tenuous, but there was a time when Newcastle were interested in Ivan Perisic before he moved to Tottenham on loan from Inter Milan. Whatever, it counts.