The Croatian squad landed in Zagreb earlier this week as they once again reunite for their 2010 World Cup qualifier against Andorra next Wednesday. Pure excitement could be felt as players touched down from all over Europe to join the rest of the team.
I might be biased in saying this, but I have never seen an international team show this much love for one another. Players are happy to see each other upon arrival and coaches are smothering their stars with kisses and hugs while continuing old conversations. It’s more than just business or playing for your country.
It’s hard not to love these guys. (Notice that Bilić and his crew are already hitting the bar as players arrive.)
VRUČINA IN CROATIAN GEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME
Slaven Belupo frontman, Bojan Vručina, was called up to the squad after the fact. It is unsure if Klasnić, Olić, or Mandžukić will be 100% for the game as they all have small knocks to tend to. Olić appears to have a small problem with his ear; possibly an infection. With Petrić already ruled out for the match, coach Bilić thought it would be necessary to bring up one more striker just in case.
It’s nice to see a non-Hajduk/Dinamo player called up to the squad; but it poses an important question:
WHAT ABOUT ANTE RUKAVINA?
BILIĆ PRESS CONFERENCE
The team is currently training in Rovinj, which is located just up the coast from Pula in the Istrian peninsula. From there they will fly to Andorra.
NOTES: Šimunić is in fact ruled out for the Andorra match for accumulating two yellow cards thus far in qualification.
That group of Hollands with Scotland, Iceland, Macedonia and Norway which is supposed to be relatively strong has been the worst group so far. Holland are easy winners of that group and the rest shouldn’t be allowed a play off place on there performance so far. They’re totally stinking out the place.
I’m finding it hard to be enthused about Croatia’s game against Andorra. I think Belarus, Ukraine and England are the decisive games. I’m still concerned about Belarus – less so about Ukraine at home and whereas Olic, Corluka, Simunic, Kranjcar, Srna and Modric are getting back to somewhere near there best, we could still do with another striker whose scoring for us regularly – that should be Petric who is not yet cutting it and i don’t know yet if the Juric and Pranjic positions are solid enough to defeat England. Andorra match will tell me nothing so waiting for months time.
@ Pintar,
Eduardo was asked by the reporter to ‘commentate on something’. That’s it; just to start talking about anything. The Croatian press is very poor when it comes to live interviews.
Eduardo replies with, “You always do that…mixed up approach.” He is obviously been annoyed by this reporter in the past.
He then answers a question about Champion’s League and states that Villareal is a great team but Arsenal will make the semifinals.
@ burp,
After further investigation, you are absolutely correct.
All this UEFA mumble-jumble got to be. Every single game and goal counts within the group for first place. This means we should rack up the goals against Andorra just in case we tie England for first place.
Goal differential is the first tiebreaker.
As for second place, all points and goals are dropped from games played against the last place team in your group.
Thanks for bringing that up blurp.
At Ante K,
You are wrong.
The goals and points against Andorra will actually count to determine who’s first and second in our group. Once that’s determined, they will drop the Andorra results for whoever finishes 2nd to determine if they are one of the best eight 2nd place teams in Europe. Scoring as many goals as possible is still important against Andorra.
Hope that clears things up for you.
This is the height of stupidity from UEFA, even by their standards…If we can’t pick up points or even goal differance, the only thing we can pick up is injuries…
When I first read “the boys are back in town” I thought Ante wrote a post about me coming back to town…:)
I was out of town for about a week or so, a little mini-roudtrip if you will, around the midwest of this still beautiful beautiful USA..
First, I would like to thank Ante for doing an unbelievable job while I was gone… Ante, you’re do for a vacation, or else I’ll take another one.
Back to work I guess…
Not CroatianSoccerReport, this is more like a baseball card collection, where you spend hours a day as a kid organizing your thousands of cards..
Ante and I will have a new feature on CSR “Twitter”…. for those of ou unable to watch the game because of (work, $, computer, snow, etc) you should join us on Twitter… you can receive up to the minute text messages to your phone keeping you updated on the status of the game…
hopefully, we can get some feedback from you on this new service. Just imagine yourself at work receiving a text message “Croatia wins” in front of your co-workers…
Just don’t get fired in the process… be slick about it.. pretend you are checking the time..
Since Group 9 (Netherlands, Scotland etc.) only has 5 teams in it as opposed to 6 teams like the rest of Europe, UEFA has stated that all games played against the team that finishes last (Andorra in out case) will not count; to make it fair.
This is because the best 8 2nd place teams go to playoffs.
Is that clear enough?
So no games against Andorra will count.
And as of now, Croatia really only has 4 points because we already played Andorra once. Ukraine also has a game in hand so we need some help.
Re: Vlad
Yes i agree on Kalinic. At present he’s played no seconds for the national team during all those times he’s been called up since the Euro so i’m not sure whats the total point of him if he never plays. I think all those strikers like Klasnic and Mandza have had a go. I think we should give Kalinic or Vrucina a good 20 minutes against Andorra or if the others are unfit or unwell maybe one can start. If they bang in some goals then at least Bilic would have learned something about whether they can be counted upon. At present it seems like HNS call him up but Bilic has no confidence in Kalinic. I have my opinions on Kalinic, but would like to see him tested. Some players can get better after experiencing new things. Personally i think we’d learned more from if Kalinic scored a couple than if Eduardo did. We all know Eduardo still has it. With Eduardo we just hope he has no injuries from this match. Regards Vrucina i already know he can score at this level as he banged in 4 against Andorra type teams in th UEFA Cup. As Kalinic is the more permanent fixture in every squad though i’m more keen to see what he can do. Vrucina seems like he’s got his work cut out being chosen ahead of the others whilst being at Belupo.
i like the vrucina call up, i would rather call vrucina than kalinic and mandzukic, im pretty sure vrucina is tied for the top scorer in the hnl, and hes on a weaker team, like croatianfan said, he has more of an ability to score fom open play, now i think more strikers have to be able to do that, i hope for the national teams sake kalinic proves me wrong i just dont see it, he seems like a box striker, which is fine but i dont think he has the skill to be a pure scorer in other leagues
i think its they dont count the points you get against the worst team in your group, i think among all the seceond place teams, the one seceond place team with the fewest points does not qualify for the playoffs. but some groups have one more games than others so the groups with more teams get the points taken off they gained from the worst team in the group, i think
i could be wrong, but i think if croatia and england are tied it goes by head to head goal diffrence, i think.
Matt, is that a new rule this time around? I don’t recall ever seeing that before.
Just a note, all the goals scored against any last place team in a group will not be counted for if it comes to goal differential to decide a tie. Meaning none of our goals scored against andorra will count if we want to catch up to englands goals, just another obstacle for the croatia NT.
Anybody care to roughly translate what Eduardo was saying in the video (for someone like me who’s not as fluent in hrvatski as he’d like to be)? Hvala.
Bilic and the coaching staff seem to like that “keep it up” game with the ball. i remember a while back (for Euro) you guys posted a video of them playing it. i guess it’s just their thing to do as the team runs laps to warm up.
I’m quite interested to see some of these new players given a try out. I know we need to rack up some goals against Andorra for confidence reasons and to improve our goals scored tally. However its high time these players like Kalinic and Vrucina were tested at a higher level. One problem i have with Kalinic is there seems to be a distinct lack of goals from open play. Vrucina seems to score more goals from open play, but his inability to make any impact at Duisburg last season is a little concern. Hopefully they can both step up at this level as we could do with some decent cover to be honest.
Regards Ruki its been a lean month from him so to be honest i’d say Vrucina and Kalinic are in better form. I don’t think Rukavina or Sharbini are too far away from a call up though. Klasnic is 29, Olic is 29, Petric is 28 so i think Klasnic probably in particular is only good for one more tournament as a sub which will make room for a Rukavina. But this month just like Mate Bilic and Ivo Ilicevic i don’t think Ruki has done anything much for his club.
Nice video 🙂
All we can do is ask “What about Rukavina?” It’s clear that something just isn’t right with his NT status.
However, I know for a fact that Vrucina is a top talent in the HNL that doesn’t play for Dinamo or Hajduk. He has played consistently well during his tenure with slaven belupo. at the age of 24, he is ripe for the picking by a club outside the HNL if he can prove he has something at the nt level, even if it is against andorra…