I don’t care that we lost to a better Portugal side on the road Thursday night in Lisbon. I don’t. But I do care about certain deficiencies in the team that are not being addressed. These are three questions I would ask Dalić directly after the Portugal loss:
1.Why are you not playing true wingers in your Starting XI? Croatia has lacked speed and 1v1 capability for years now. This is the time to try something new. Pjaca gets called up to the squad due to injuries and you still don’t use him. Rijeka’s Marco Pašalić — not called up at all. Why? It can’t be a HNL issue because Petković, Perišić and now Baturina and Petar Sučić are all getting reps. So what’s the deal?
2. Why do you continue to use Mario Pašalić as a right winger? He has never done anything in that position for Croatia from the opening whistle…EVER! Pašalić is a super-sub at best for this Croatia squad. He can add some energy late during the last quarter hour of the match. Why continue this experiment of putting him on the right side? He’s not a winger.
3. Why is “Possession Ball” still you prerogative? Other teams around the world have figured out Croatian football a long time ago. They will give us possession in the midfield and know we will not be able to do much with it as our offensive build-up is too slow. The opposition knows they can hit this Croatian side on the counter and be successful at it. This Croatia team is not speedy to say the least when having to back track and defend counter-attack. You can alleviate this by playing guys on the outside (wingers) to run at opposing defenses while keeping your midfield intact defensively. Why continue playing “Possession Ball” when this Croatia team is not scoring goals from it?
I would love to see them playing as much as anyone else but I think Pasalic and Pjaca are not known for tracking back and I think that is Dalic’s worry. We allowed 6 goals in 3 games in the Euro and only scored 3. We also missed 2 penalties. Horrible. We created chances and could not finish. We had one of the highest XG (expected goals) and SCA90 (shots creating actions) in the group stage. Simple, if you’re not finishing, you can’t be letting in goals. However at some point I think Dalic has to start experimenting other tactics and possibly bring on some more offensive minded players earlier on if he is not content with a tie or needs a win in which case Paslic and Pjaca would be the most likeliest of players. The Simpsons soccer tactic, “holds it, hold it, holds it,” can only take us so far.
I still think Gvardiol will eventually be our CB co-captain with Kovacic as leader in the middle and I think Kovacic’s best soccer is yet to come for the NT as he is given a more senior role with greater expectations and more touches on the ball which only helps his confidence. He sat on the bench for 3 years in Real, learned a lot though. Tuchel loved him at Chelsea, and City is where he shines under Pep. Would be nice to see him shoot and score like he did at Inter Milan. Crazy to think he is still 30 with how many years we’ve been watching him play.
Recall when Anonymous pointed out the silliness of Euro 2024 #s being
#15 Pasalic
#24 M. Pasalic
As opposed to Mario and Marco (or whatever)
Everyone doubted Anonymous pointing this out
But it is now 100% clear now that Dalic never had any intention of playing Marco Pasalic at the Euros 2024 or now even calling him up now for Nations League
Otherwise they wouldn’t have had the #s silliness (and #15 Pasalic would have changed to something more logical if Marco was going to be a fixture)
Lesson for many – so much that can be learnt from small details
2-1 loss in Portugal is acceptable. I thought Portugal was far better than France in their semi loss at Euros. Holding your own against them is nothing to be concerned about.
Dalić is a solid coach (I’m sure Luka also puts in a lot of input)
2 world cups, semis and finals
2 nations leagues 1 finals (lose on pens)
2 Euros- lost in ot second round
Out in group stage (2 heinously unlucky last kick goals to tie us)
The Euros were the biggest disappointments of his tenure so far and even in those (if the ball bounced differently we could have went much deeper).
I like Dalić. I like our team. I don’t think you change the entire character/identity of our team because of a few setbacks.
Nogomet is a tricky game, fine margins dictate disparate results.
Držite glave gore
Nema paniku
Samo napred!!!
Bog I Hrvati
I hate your delusional mindset
I have one little thing that I disagree with you on. The last kick goal to Italy was not “heinously unlucky”, it was heinously poorly defended.
Scammed by officiating but definitely poor defending and strategy in extra time. Dalic strategy is usually just pray . Not a bad strategy but you need more than that a pro level.
I’ll agree with that.
Hopefully Joško’s time at City in big pressure games will instil some leadership and poise so we can better handle these types of unacceptable lapses when opposing teams get desperate. Especially against minnows like Albania and Italy….hahaha
Bog i Hrvati
Praying that all the recommendations are implemented against Poland.
We don’t have quick players to catch the opposition on the counter and I agree with Ante that the other teams have worked us out. Classic example today was towards the end of the match when Pasalic was running towards the goal and got caught. That really should have been one on one with the goalkeeper if he had some quick forwards.
I would have brought on Budimir to partner Matanovic up front and told the players to keep on crossing the ball into the penalty box and who knowns something might have happened. Instead, we just kept on moving the ball from one side of the field to the other just like in handball. Our defence is also leaking too many goals of late, which is a huge problem. Pity about Erlic getting injured, I would like him to be given a chance.
The quickest player that we have in U21 is Soticek. He like others struggled today in our 2 – 1 win against Faroes. Speed is not much good against teams that play bunker like Faroes did today. We play Portugal next and I’m hoping that Olic will bunker down and try to catch Portugal on the counter.
I didn’t watch the U21s, but Olic could have used Matanovic.
It’s funny because Dalic called up Matanovic (and had Budimir as well) but opted to not start either of them and we played a 3-7-0 formation ha ha.
Poor Olic had a bunch of speedy forwards (who could also double as wingers) against a team where a tall striker was needed.
Then again, I don’t care for Olic and it’s probably for the best if we crash out of the U21s.
I don’t like this idea of Olic being groomed for the senior National Team.
Igor Biscan was a near certainty, before he was exposed and crashed out at Dinamo (and more recently at Al-Shabab in the Saudi league).
Don’t need these coaches with “sheltered” coaching experience (like Olic, Corluka, etc.) getting any sort of consideration once Dalic is gone.
When Duje came in Ronaldo stfu. Duje should play more. Bilice represent.
The game was fine. Not as bad as feared
The highlight of the game was matanovic
Aggressive movement within the box and going after the ball. At 6’4’’ and 21 years old…that’s intriguing
I didn’t think we were all that bad to be fair. I thought it was actually a pretty even game with Portugal have a few more
quality chances. We were much better in the second half and with some finishing, we come away with a draw in Portugal which is not that bad.
Pongracic was disappointing and rightfully was subbed. After Caleta – Car came on, we were much more organized defensively. Sutalo actually played really well today.
What everyone needs to realize is that we don’t have any quality wingers. Plus with all the injuries,(aside from Gvardiol, who wouldn’t classify as a LB) we had NO options at either LB or RB. Sosa plays in Turkey for a reason. Jakic seems to be able to play a few different positions and did an ok job.
Dalic had little choice than to play 3 at the back and use Jakic to cover on the right. Dalic is far from a tactician, but we have a team full of midfielders and very few serviceable options on the wings.
Matanovic looks like he could be a good
option upfront, and Petar Sucic was impressive for the few minutes he played. Same with Luka Sucic.
Isuse this short corner bs is annoying AF. If you are that concerned about getting hit on the counter, just kick the ball out of bounds. We have some big players that could actually do something with a decen ball in. Modric just can’t be taking them either.
Lastly, Kova was excellent. He’s been our best player for a while now and I think is FINALLY becoming the player we know he can be. Hvala Bogu.
Just to be clear, Sosa plays for Torino in Italy. Barišić is the one who plays in Turkey, along with Oršić. I mostly agree with you, except that I don’t think Sosa was bad. The goal he looked to be at fault for, he had to stretch over to cover Pongračić’s man. He defended his own side well, forced an own goal, and played excellent tikitaka. He should have chipped the keeper on one of the last plays of the game, but he saw the big guys as being more likely to score and crossed instead. I think the wingers haven’t been played because Dalić doesn’t trust them. That can always change with time, but what he did today mostly worked, especially without Pongračić.
You’re right Doom and I stand corrected. I know there were rumors of Sosa to Turkey but you are correct as he ended up in Torino. He wasn’t at fault for that goal, but he hasn’t been very effective for us. I think it’s mostly because he is a classic left sided wingback, and up until today has never been used that way for us given our usual 4-3-3 lineup.
I really liked our young players, Kova, Sutalo and Gvardiol today.
Also liked Caleta Car coming back and playing solid to give us another option at CB given Pongracic’s poor play.
Our play in the first half was abysmal.
Short corner that went nowhere, no striker up top to cross to, playing a couple of longballs to a slow player in Krama, Sosa/Jakic not really playing like wingers, etc.
Individually, our players were good…but we just played the wrong formation.
It was pretty easy for Portugal to defend us, and Livakovic made a couple of really good saves to prevent the game becoming a 3-1 or 4-1 result. If those went in, we wouldn’t be talking positively about this game at all.
Starting a simple target man up top (like Budimir) would have changed everything (just like it did at the Euros). There was no reason to start Pasalic up top there with Krama.
We’re always wasting the first half on these Dalic midfield experiments…then he’ll come around and play a striker up top and make a couple of decent subs here and there…after we dig ourselves a hole to get out of.
Now, everyone will praise Dalic for keeping it close and the effort our players had in the second half. But if we got the formation/players right in the first half, we likely would have won.
You’re right about that. Dalić has to find a way to win from the start by the time world cup qualifying starts. I think it’s OK to experiment in the first half of the first game of Nations League, especially since he was experimenting with some relevant players for WC 2026, but he needs to find a winning solution to rely on too. I think it became clear that he can do that without Pongračić and maybe even without Modrić on the field. The young guys showed that they can compete with the best.
A few things. Pjaca is a winger, but I wouldnt consider him adding speed. M Pasaloc started at RW against Brazil and did a pretty good job for the most part
Mario was one of the more dangerous players today. He’s not that quick, but he created chances, including two that should have been whistled as penalties.
What? There were no instances where Croatia should have been given a penalty. None.
I think this covers questions 1 and 3. I genuinely think we play this way because we just don’t have sufficient pace in transition and the wingers to do so (defensively or offensively). So we need to control games as much as possible which is the one thing we are good at. You might be right that this is not a good long-term strategy but maybe we don’t have a choice
Why not use possession and control the midfield, we have world class midfield players so why not use them that way. When Pirlo for Italy was doing the same thing he was considered a maestro. Problem is we have no fast wingers/offensive players where they can make a run behind the defense so our world class midfield cam hit them with a pass. You can see what Luka does at Real Madrid over the years with fast wingers and forwards.
We have Marco, Pjaca, Oršić, and a few U21 guys (Sotiček, Crnac, Matković) to choose from who are capable of playing the wings.
Sosa is also an option but was largely useless today when there’s no striker inside to send it to (he caused a Portguese own goal nonetheless). Juranović can play the wing too.
Lots of options. Just need the coach to swallow his pride and play a striker and two wingers.
Orsic before his injury was an option. Pjaca before tearing up his ACL was an option. Pjaca and Pasalic are HNL players for a reason. Marco Pasalic was aggressive and looked good in the limited minutes he’s played but it’s too small a sample size. He could be an option but isn’t tearing up the HNL either.
Writing someone off because they are a HNL player is too shortsighted.
Look at Petar Sučić. HNL player who already looks like he could fill in for Broz.
Luka Sučić was our most offensively impactful midfielder at the Euros, and people were writing him off just because he was an Austrian league player.
I’m sure if you give any of our wingers the last 20 minutes off the bench, they would surprise you.
I guess I should say it’s different if it’s a promising 20 year old player like the Sucic boys vs vs someone who’s torn their ACL and not the same player….
Exactly. We are playing to our strength and wide play and pace isn’t one of them.
Pirlo had Emanuele Giacherini and Pele (Italian Brazilian), both garbage. We should be doing more regardless of wingers.