"Two of the PCR tests of the day gave positive results, Leon Susnja and Lovro Mihic. As a result, Zeljko Musa and Valentino Ravnic left Zagreb" to replace them, the Croatian Federation announced on its Twitter account.
Susnja played nearly 35 minutes, while Mihic played nearly 22 minutes on the pitch against France.
The tests carried out in the coming days by the players of the France team will be scrutinized.
Many teams experienced preparations disrupted by players positive for Covid-19 before the start of Euro-2022, including a dozen within the France team including its star Nikola Karabatic and its captain Valentin Porte.
Just before the start of the competition, the European Federation (EHF) modified its protocol: a player tested positive is placed in solitary confinement for a minimum of five days and can only leave if he presents two negative tests spaced at least less than 24 hours, the first occurring only five days after his first positive test.
Croatians Domagoj Duvnjak, Luka Cindric and Marko Mamic also tested positive ahead of Euro-2022, but Susnja and Mihic are the first Croatian cases listed since the start of the tournament in Hungary and Slovakia.
All delegation members have been tested before arriving in the Euro-2022 host cities (Budapest, Szeged and Debrecen on the Hungarian side, Bratislava and Kosice on the Slovak side), in order to minimize the risk of importing the virus in the health bubble set up by the organizers and the EHF, while the wave of the Omicron variant affects central Europe.
On Thursday, Croats and French evolved in a room in Szeged that can hold more than 8,000 spectators, without limitation of gauge, with the obligation to present a health pass (vaccination, recovery from Covid less than six months old or negative PCR test of less than 72 time).
Upon their arrival in Szeged on Monday, several French players said they were "surprised" by the lack of sanitary precautions taken at their hotel, with customers not masked.
Coach Guillaume Gille had little taste of the "wide gap between the very strict protocol with restrictive measures on our life together and the arrival in a country which is experiencing the pandemic in a very different way".
© 2022 AFP