Croatia and Czechia play out a boring 0-0 draw in Prague during World Cup qualifying. The Vatreni remain top of group with superior goal differential plus a game in hand.
-Perišić had a tough game, skying 2 shots over the crossbar
-Marco Pašalić played 30 minutes and had a fantastic shot and cross into the box
-Croatia played passive from the opening whistle and let Czechia come to them. Dalić will be happy with the result.
Next game: Sunday vs. Gibraltar in Varaždin
FT: 0-0 Final. We should have scored a goal but this is great road result in what was scheduled as our toughest game.
80′: Marco Pašalić with a strong shot from the cusp of the box. Keeper makes the save but that is what we need! If he shoots 2 yards to the right it’s a goal.
75′: Marco Pašalić with a great cross to Perišić in the box but the PSV man heads it straight to the keeper.
62′: SUBS! Ivanović comes in for Budimir. Marco Pašalić comes in for Mario Pašalić. Finally! Please God score a goal to prove CroatianSports right!
HT: 0-0 at halftime. Absolutely snooze fest. Czechia has been the better team and Croatia is letting them come into the attacking third. Perišić should have done much, much better with both shots in the box. Not sure if Budimir has even touched the ball yet. Croatia have yet to register a shot on goal yet.
37′: Jakić with a wonderful run into the box! He lays it off to Perišić who skies the ball well over the cross bar AGAIN! He scores that 4/10 times.
32′: Modrić feeds Perišić in the middle of a busy box but Perišić skies the ball into the 25th row. Could have done better if it was on frame.
30′: Nothing from Croatia offensively. Livaković sees the ball well to parry away a Czech free kick from 20 yards out. The ball bounces in the box of Gvardiol’s arm following a deflection. Czechia argues for a penalty but you can’t give it in that situation.
10′: Czechia on the front foot and pressing forward early in the match. Remember, a draw really doesn’t help them much as Croatia have a game in hand.
The Vatreni take the field Thursday night in Prague in what was always going to be their toughest World Cup qualifier this campaign. A win and Croatia will have one foot qualified for the 2026 World Cup next summer in North America. A draw would not be the end of the world by any means with three matches left again Gibraltar, Faroe Islands and Montenegro. A loss vs.Czechia would make things interesting in Group L as Czechia would then own a 3-point advantage (however, Croatia have a game in hadn’t and far superior goal differential.)
With the tie, Croatia nearly guarantees a World Cup appearance but their odds for finishing 9th have gone down
Belgium is pretty much locked at 8th so it’s between Croatia, Germany, and Italy.
If Italy or Germany win out now, they’ll surpass Croatia.
If Croatia wins out, AND Germany AND Italy both have a tie in their final 4 games, Croatia will stay at 9.
Current odds are 38 percent down from about 60 percent prior to the game.
Working in favor is that Italy has to play Norway who seem much better than their coefficient that counts for points
A negative is Germany plays Luxembourg twice and those wins will count a lot more than they should
I agree with some opinions below… Krama, Mario Pašalić, were barely present this game and should have been subbed earlier. We have so many options in Karma’s position Luka Sučić is one for example who loves getting in scoring positions. We need fresh legs in the final third. Both Ivanović and Marco Pašalić should.have started sooner. They should have been subbed at half time.
I don’t know if it is just me, but I am not convinced with Budimir. I know he works hard, and I am not trying to take credit away from him. I know he is the highest scoring striker we have in a top tier league, but I dunno. We need someone younger up there. He did a lot of great work, but at times his ball control seems off. Don’t get me wrong it’s not easy, but still. He doesn’t seem like that kinda player who will take the ball forward for us. I dunno if we have that right now, but I don’t see it with him.
I think Dalic should drop one unessecary call up from the midfield and add a striker or a winger for more options up front.
Igor Matanovic would an ideal replacement for Budimir, but unfortunately, he is not getting a lot of playing time at Freiburg.
As Perisic goes, so goes Croatia. Should had been 2-0.
Listen, we didn’t lose so I can’t complain too much. My only grievance is this team cannot find the net. We still cannot score. We still don’t have that striker. We’re not gonna go anywhere as long as we can’t score. That’s what counts.
Have you been watching any of the games so far?
Not sure Croatia was “passive.”
In the first half, sure, but there were times in the second half where we ran at them like we were losing.
We weren’t passive, credit has to be given to Czechia in the first half. They pressed hard and did not allow us time on the ball. Second half we were better than them partially because they were physically spent especially towards the end of the match.
Friday morning coaching perspective, If the order was reversed with Ivanovic and Marco Pašalić starting, and they are subbed out for mature players to close out, Croatia would possibly have had a more dynamic first half and maybe went into the half with a lead. The difference in activity was clearly drastic. Not enough time the other way around. Here is to Luka Vuskovic given a chance with Gibraltar.
Usually, Perisic shots are on frame, and require the goalie to perform. Did not seem like he was his best self today.
We need to be dominant our last three games, to give us the best chance to close out @ 9th ranking. Don’t want to start atrophying as in the Ante Cacic days.
Not Croatian soccer content, but some here might appreciate Luka Doncic’s reaction to biting into a wing with the Bomb hot sauce on it, on the new episode of Hot Ones … lol … Starts at about 12:15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzwBq7rvdrM
The Zlatan episode of hot ones is still one of my favorites
Good result for us.
We could lose one of our remaining three games (Gibraltar, Faroe, Montenegro) and we still finish first.
World Cup qualification is essentially a guarantee. Unfortunately, we did lose FIFA ranking points with this draw and we likely can’t make it up with wins against such low-ranked teams in our group. We’ll have to see if Germany, Belgium or Italy continue to choke games, to confirm if we can secure a seed.
I didn’t mind the lineup and strategy. It was a safe lineup, and the strategy to sit back and counter was probably the best call…but not with guys like Krama in the starting eleven. It’s a tough call because of how elite his finishing has been…but we didn’t use the right personnel for this strategy, and it showed with our lack of chances in the first half.
I’m at least happy that Dalic learned to make substitutions (Ivanovic and Marco were the right subs)…but he really probably should have subbed out Krama first (who is the LEAST suited for a counterattacking game against a very physical side).
will this result today put croatia out of pot 1 thanks
Depends on Italy and Germany’s results.
But yea, we lost FIFA ranking points today.
I have read that Morocco is also a chance to overtake us. They won today against Bahrain in a friendly. They have one more friendly match to go.
If they play a strong team from South America like Brazil or Argentina and win that might be enough to overtake us ?
Overall solid performance especially in defence. The result is good and keeps us in a good position for direct qualification. Three games left, we need to beat Gibraltar and Faroes at home and that should be enough to finish first in the group.
Faroes have improved a lot, and they won’t be easy to beat even at home and hopefully they can make things difficult on Sunday for Czechia on their artificial turf.
Modric once again our best player. Perisic, I thought was disappointing today and should have done better with his two shots that sailed over the bar. Livakovic despite not playing for his club was solid in goal today.
Against Gibraltar Dalic should make 4 or 5 changes to the starting 11 and then in the second half bring in another 4 or 5 players that did not play today.
One foot in the door to the WC.
We have a plus 11 differential on the Czechs…and a game in hand. We hammer Gibraltar Sunday to add to that differential.
A win would have been nice, but a draw favors Croatia. The most important thing is that Croatia kept the ball out of our net. Czechia had very few truly dangerous plays that weren’t clearly offside, and Livaković made the saves easily. Dalić made the right substitutions, and the young players he put in played well. The match was tough all around. I think with Kovačić in the game instead of Mario Pašalić, Croatia wins. The missing ingredient was speed, which came in with the substitutions. Franjo was more effective than Perišić on that left side. Marco Pašalić was effective, period. I would like to see a younger #9 brought in too. Budimir did a lot of unseen work wearing out the Czech defense, but we also saw how much speed in the attack improves the result that Modrić and Kramarić can produce with their creativity. It’s time for the younger, faster players to play more, and it’s good to see that they’re integrated into Dalić’s famous system now.
Yeah at the end i thought we were gonna win the game. In the closing stages we looked way more likely to score and we had more speed and urgency after those subs. Perisic was badly gassed for some time.
Still good, regarding group standings , but hope we keep our FIFA 9th place ranking .
I asked the question in ChatGTP. This is what it said:
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Croatia’s new FIFA ranking total ≈ 1710.4 points
Change: −3.6 points due to drawing a lower-rated opponent (Czech Republic).
——————————-
So, we are currently tied for 9th now.
Before this game we had 1,714 points with Italy behind us with 1,710. Morocco and Germany had 1,706 and 1,704.
Germany plays Luxembourg tomorrow and they will likely move up to 1,708 points (with a win).
If Italy beat Estonia on Sunday, they move up ahead of us by about 3 points (with a win).
Morocco played a friendly against Bahrain today (won 1-0) and that put them up to about 1,708.
Looks like we just slipped into 10th in the FIFA rankings behind Italy with the draw today. If the Germans win out, they get the 9th spot and pot 1 even if we win out. Ideally they slip up but their 4 remaining games at vs Luxembourg x 2, Northern Ireland (away) and Slovakia (home). Oh well, hopefully we get lucky and pull the US in our draw 😁.
Oh well, an awful game, but this draw should be enough to qualify. Gibraltar at home is a guaranteed 3 points and Faroe Islands at home is pretty safe too. Czechs would have to win their last two and overcome an 11 goal difference deficit, which ain’t happening.
Czechs also have to hope that we lose a game too, since we have three more games left (to their two).
Even if we lose one, the Czechs STILL have to overcome the goal deficit to surpass us.
Qualification is pretty much done.
Faroe Islands, impressive win!
Definitely more bite to our attack with Marco P and Ivanovic. The tie is good enough and maybe ruins our Pot 1 chances but that’s ok.
What a pass by Luka to Gvardiol to create that chance. Amazing vision at 40.
our grouping is so bad that when we play bad , we still actually look good.
Well, that was boring.
Perisic put in a performance similar to what he did at the last Euros… which is not great.
On the plus side the team has looked a lot more dynamic since putting in the young guys; Fruk, Ivanovic, Marco P
Čorluka probably convinced Zlatko to put Marco in.
There we go!
Zlatko finally listened to me, LOL!!!
…And Marco with a nice shot already (that unfortunately was partially blocked)
I can’t watch the game but I was afraid that Perisic wouldn’t be as sharp as he had been in our last matches – I saw that he hasn’t performed super well/not played a lot in his last club matches
This is a tough match. I think he picked the right starting lineup, but now that Budimir has roughed the Czechs up a bit, Dalić needs more speed: Marco, Franjo and Toni or Martin
2 Brutal misses by Perisic and Mario P has been almost invisible.
We need speed so hopefully Marco P gets brought on sooner rather than later
As much as I’d like to see Marco, he’s not in Dalic circle of trust.
Wow, he proved me wrong.
Mario is not a creator.
He pounces on chances created by others… But we haven’t really had possession or crested anything.
We should probably just sub him off early in the second half if we continue to play like this.
It’s time to put speedster Marco Paŝalić and Franjo Ivanovic since they will be pressing more in the 2nd half.
Zlatko, for your 100th game, please put aside your petty bias to MLS and get 3 points instead of only 1!!!
1 point still puts us in a commanding position to qualify first.
I don’t think Dalić cares about being a top World Cup seed.
We could be leading by two goals from the two chances Perisic had.
He really should have buried that second chance
Pretty crappy half from us but i guess 0-0 suits us fine so if it stays like this, all good.
Looks like the strategy is to sit back, defend, and hope to play the counter.
Not a bad strategy… but it won’t work with slow guys like Krama and Budimir.
Czech has all the chances, and our forwards are just not quick enough to take advantage with a counter.
Need franjo and Marco P to do this well
Oršić would be a good sub for this game (but he didn’t make the final cut)
Agreed. You need some speed to counter which we lack up front.
What ever happened to calling a blatant offside when it happens vs this playing on and calling it well after!?!? I can see if it’s close but two of those offsides weren’t even close. Isuse.
Yeah i wondered that too – the one Sutalo saved off the line, guy was 2-3 metres offside obviously.
Here we gooooo !
Stream Link
https://for-evesemntv.icu/dec/dec15.php
Anyone else think Bradaric looks like a late teen-age Joey McIntyre from NKOTB?
Doppelgänger
Match day squad
Dalic t-bagged wedding boy Sucic he’s not included
Also Bradaric not in (so zero LB cover for Josko lol)
Erlic not in either (so at least Luka V is ahead of him – so Erlic doesn’t need to stress about his wedding during WC 2026 preparations camp)
Anyone else missing from the match l squad?
Match squad 23 (11+12)
What’s the max allowed – not sure thought it’s 25?
Dalic does with his boys till they rerire pasalic is Kovačić replacement thats that bearing injuries this is the lineup minus pasalic just sub kova at 2026
100% boring, predictable and just lazy line-up
This is exactly the formation and personnel Czech has prepared for
And now they get it
You got to mix it up to keep opponents on their toes and give them what they aren’t expecting
Your a magarac. Dalic beat them 5-1 before.. Think he knows better then you
This is a big game here.
A win pretty much guarantees qualification… and a win pretty much guarantees a top seed at the World Cup.
Czech has some key injuries (more than we do), but a draw does nothing for the Czech… so they will try to score on us and go for the win.
It’s Dalić’s 100th game. There shouldn’t be any weird surprises in the starting eleven… but hopefully he makes the right subs when he needs to.
STREAM:
https://sports100.tv/
4 game winning streak with no PK overtimes, riding on the line. This is unchartered waters. Hope we add another +3-goal differential with a 5th win. Would be nice to have a 20- goal differential over an 8-0 record. Why not? Might propel Croatia into the FIFA top 8 ranking.