CROATIA 0 GEORGIA 1 (FT)

Does anyone have a link where I can see this debacle on tape?

I've searched everywhere on the net, but cannot find it.

JERSEYCRO- Yea I know but, after this game what can anyone say ?! We would have been better of if we fielded 11 from the CSR team!!!!

@Shinobi

If I'm an apple tree, you're an apple! 🙂

It finally seems that the tide of perception is finally shifting about Bilic, at least at this site.

I used to like the guy, but if he was truly honourable he'd fall on his sword and resign, for the players, for the nation, and for himself. At this rate, he'll never get another coaching gig again.

Chorav je.

It's quite obvious that he lost the respect of the players a long time ago. The Turks, English, Ukranians, Greeks, and now the Georgians are laughing at us.

It's about time y'all open your eyes.

Mark my words, after he's gone, all sorts of "ugliness" will be revealed.

Shame. Sramota za vatreni bez vatre, samo smece.

Bilic you deprived yourselselves and the nation in taking part in the world cup and now yourself and your players are set to repeat that fiasco, how much more shame can we endure? i know its not the be all and end all but your piloting us in that same direction, with no light at the end of the tunnel in sight with bilic in charge. Some major heads should roll after this but they wont. If the england and ukraine games werent a wake up call then this wont be any different, best thing to do is prepare ouselves to wallow in the mire so we dont set ourselves up for disappoinment. Granted we are not a top tier team but with the players we do have on the list we should be beating the likes of georgia and greece. Bilic you dick if you dont learn from your mistakes you are set to repeat them. At this point no coach is better than this coach.

Ivankovic has international experience but he uses the same cautious approach Bilic has been using. But I would think he is the #1 domestic choice within the HNS, don't forget Mamic is somehow involved in the coaching selection!

Ciro would definetely light a fire under the players asses but I don't know how good he is in the long term.

I'm trying to think of some other domestic coaches and boy, not many come to mind…Soldo? Jurcic? Loncarevic? Pamic? Nothing too exciting there

@Gilbert

That's funny dude, and a first… I suppose I'm an anti-Hrvat because i care enough to try and spur us to success…

My advice to you would be to watch today's game again, and then think to yourself… is this a team I am proud of? One that competes with heart and determination?

From there you can come to your own conclusions about what needs to happen next. Otherwise you can join the long list of Hrvat apologists blaming God, the opposition, the astrologers or the turf conditions for our consistent under-achievement. If you need further proof watch Bilic's post-game interview… have you seen a man shrug his shoulders so much?

anti-croat JP said "@Gilbert @ Johnny and the rest… it's funny watching you guys go through the stages of denial… are we at the stage where we begin "bargaining" with the fates yet?"

Croatia is one point back with five games to play, so what according to you it's time to throw up your hands and leave everything to "fate"?

Jerko: I obviously don't have any inside info (haha) but I would suspect Branko Ivankovic would pretty much get the job if he wanted it. Wouldn't be surprised if they went after Kranjcar again

There really aren't any good Croatian options in all honesty, they might have to look at foreigners, which can be hit or miss. I feel Croatia would be a good challenge for a decent manager, but they won't come for peanuts like what the HNS pays

i wouldn't questions the heart of the players. they tried, they just are not good enough today.

@ Ziva….I have been on the website before, but never commented. I know you have some inside connections with the players and the savez and your comments always seem to come true. I am wondering, if Bilic were somehow to resign or was ousted who would be in line and who would the players like to see.

One word….Sammir

I also "love" how I read no comments from the players…where are they? Usually after these games they blow smoke up their own ass

Excellent post Rob!!

The players/managers always find excuses after these games, most notably the ones you noted, but when it is consistently poor they need to go out the window

I agree with the team not having a leader…Srna as captain is a joke, he spends half the game waving his arms around looking for fouls

I'm not one of those who thinks Croatia is really a top 5 team in Europe and should be challenging for trophies…but yes, I do think we should win this group without too much sweat, thats not too much to ask!

This team has zero in the way of leadership since the Kovac bros. left, and I see nobody on the horizon able to carry the mail in that regard.

As it stands, I have pretty much no faith in this current core of players and staff to turn things around. As has been said numerous times, there have been no impressive wins since Euro 08. All games Croatia have played in this qualifying campaign have been lackluster: this one, the Greek game, the Israel game, vs. Malta, etc. Nothing even half-way convincing and very little in the way of quality play.

Eventually, everyone needs to stop lamenting "luck" and "getting no breaks" and realize that this appears to be a mentally weak group and a (currently) mediocre soccer team.

Before things can change, we must accept what they are.

it's so bad that greece won 🙁

i'm georgian …. i just wanted to say that it wasn't our strongest team. 2 players (who might be best) were not playing…

I'm not expecting the 98 team, in fact I am accepting those results may never happen again…but I did expect to finish first in this group without too many problems!

This loss actually wouldn't bother me too much if we actually beat Greece at home and look competent. Losses like this were just waiting to happen

Was it Corluka who stood around and didn't cover his man when they scored? and we wonder why he sits on the bench in club action?
Bilic sucks and is not qualified to coach; I don't care if he plays the guitar, no matter how interesting that is to lame journalists.
We need to fire Bilic. He's shown no skill and we need to finally consider a foreign coach.
We can dream of being the team of 1998, but that is not realistic. Watch an old tape and observe a skill set our players dont have today. Would Modric, I dare ask, have made that team's midfield?

Why some of you say we did not deserve to win??? We deserved it 100%. My country's players did all the best at the field…. the played like it was a play for final. We did out best and we reached success. I know that Croatia has a very good team….but today, we played better….

To be fair now that its done and over and I have cooled of quite a bit…we were unlucky a bit BUT in noway were we ever deserving of anything more than a point! We can make all the excuses we want we simply have been at best average for the last two years. The talent is not the question BUT the heart and engine of this team is in question.

You can complain about Petric but if there was a man out there today working hard it was him. I am not saying he should have stayed in because he was awful but he did alot of midfield and dirty work. The problem is we pass and dont move…we play possession and do nothing with it. We have no wide men and we have no pace…and if we are using possession we at least have to move like we did for final 5 minutes when we were down….its pathetic that the players are not motivated enough and thats what its coming down to.

You can say Modric is pedestrian for the NT BUT he isn't even getting on the ball enough! We are not closing down on the opponent when they have possession…its like we are playing at 75%…I know we are not a top-tier team but man where is the heart that Olic shows every match. Where is that engine in the team?

Bilic is at fault for some of the things but when I think with a calm cool head he has all the right to point blame at the players today. I would say I am not the fan of the 433 but the right players were chosen based on club form and previous NT chances. Like many said the subs were his only downfall. I know something needs to change…a new captaincy? A new coach? New tactics? I dont know what to be sure but we need some energy in this side who has not played with it "consistently".

I like Bilic as a person and he is a great motivator as we have seen but what is going on? Seriously there is something wrong…I barely saw Modric on the ball! How is he not on it almost all the time…dont we want our play to go through our best player…

Bilic has to light a fire up under the players "asses" today because they seemed like they were hungover and not there today.

Re: Kalinic V Lakic
whoever made this comment is a wally.

Kalinic has scored just 6 goals in 18 matches this season, whilst Lakic has scored 18 goals in 28 games.. Excuse me but what the hell are you on about ..

of course Lakic can be considered. Not as a starter, but his stats look strong when you compare them to Kalinic and Mandzukic…

Let take you further back in time

whilst Kalinic and Mandzo have been playing HNL1 which Lakic left a long time ago cos he was too good for it, Lakic has scored an additional 27 goals for Kaiserslautern and Heracles which is at a strong level then Hajduk and Dinamo play at.

Re Lakic you can purely says he's not been tried and has had a few disappointing games lately and hasn't been tried out yet by Bilic. That's why he can't be played, but as for him not being better than Kalinic or Mandzo theres no justification for that statement whatsoever. Even Klasnic has scored same as Kalinic this season without starting hardly any matches.

i'm not saying Lakic should start but Kalinic and Mandzo have not proven themselves better … Jelavic should have started with Rakitic or Perisic in behind.

Eduardo, Olic, Klasnic however all are better forwards .. we missed them

Greece is tied with Malta in the 72nd minute.

I know a lot of you guys want Bilic fired, but it won't happen.

Here is what I know from within the savez. I just got done text messaging back and forth with my guy as the team was leaving the stadium in their bus……Markovic has no plans to fire Bilic and right now Bilic has no plans to quit. Only way Markovic would fire Bilic is if it were to save his job as the head of the savez. So, anyone looking for a change, unless Bilic has a change of heart, it wont happen until this qualification cycle is done.

Me personally, we call see something is wrong with the team. it is a lot easier to make a coaching change than anything else. We need to do something to make sure we qualify. Sometimes a loss like this is the best medicine to cure a team just rolling around and sometimes a coaching change is needed. We will see what takes place.

But, some of you need to think more rationally when analyzing the team's play. Not all, because there have een some good comments. But, some people have no idea about soccer.

hahaah cant believe this crap, the teams true colors shown, I knew from the beginning this match would be no walk in the park, but for f*** sake, Georgia,

oh well all they have done is gave a clear passage for Greece to qualify, As i said before, Bilic needs to go ASAP..cant coach for shiit..

@Gilbert @ Johnny and the rest… it's funny watching you guys go through the stages of denial… are we at the stage where we begin "bargaining" with the fates yet?

You people need to stop panic-ing, bunch of defeatists all is lost, bunch of elitists like qualification is our birth rite. Georgia is tough they knew they were outmatched and their game plan played out to perfection. Still the entire 2nd half left (5 games). I'd play kranjcar left wing, Srna right wing, Modric left middle, Rakitic right middle. Better to concentrate your strength.

Well said Anon, there is no vatra in the vatreni, I wonder why… even Prosinecki had the sense to get out while the getting was good.

@Olly

A revolution is exactly what is needed… we need to aim for the top, not just to qualify. The players will be the same but the energy and urgency much different. lets face it we are in a shambles and have been for years…

Please point to an impressive victory that we've had since Germany in Euros…?

its amazing how many chances Bilic gets….yes qualification is still hopeful but once again we go into these games with the same negative attitude and with the attitude of "its still early, the later games will mean more"

HELLO…you could have practically secured qualification with two wins versus Georgia, now the best is three points

Gorahrv,

Although the jury is still out on Croatia qualifying (may still back there way in), I pretty much agree with everything else you have said. We seem to have a glut of players who play better for their club teams than they do for the national team, which is not good.

It's disappointing, but in the big picture I don't think it'll matter, we'll come back in the home leg, 2-0, 3-0 maybe. Our play was just sloppy and disorganized, maybe the plane ride messed us up.

This won't change much, if the results from WC 2010 qualifying didn't then this won't either. It was just another long list of "playing not to lose" games which Croatia has offered the past 5-6 years.

I am all for Bilic going, he should have left after the debacle against England. No excuses this time

Quite simply, to me this is the worst loss I can think of in the history of Croatian football…a tie is not the end of the world in a game like this, but a loss is (as far as winning the group, IMHO). Greece tied Croatia in Croatia and tied Georgia, whereas Croatia lost to them….MASSIVE advantage Greece!

This is now Greece's group to lose, and we should do all we can to ensure that we can at least make the playoffs.

Too annoyed to contribute much else right now, feel bad for all the Vatreni fans that made the trip to Georgia.

A revelation, Ziva finally admits Bilic should go…

Actually, tactically Bilic did ok today until he started to make substitutions, and furthermore he actually chose the right guys to put in, but he took the wrong guys out, which turned out to be fatal. This is not to say that his chosen tactics (before the substitutions) were optimal, just that they should've been sufficient with a well functioning squad, playing with urgency.

Anyway, there's larger problems with Bilic that I've been listing here for years and they are not going away until he does, deal with it boys. The most unfortunate thing is that with Bilic at the helm we are proving Ziva's assessment of our team correctly. We're middle of the pack, and a largely pedestrian European side.

And yes Ziva our loss to Turkey was also Bilic's fault (and all other wins and losses too)… to separate the Coaches responsibility from that of the players is both foolish and subversive. Ultimate responsibility lies with the manager as selector and strategist, if not who else?

Anyway, if we want anything to change he has to go, is this not getting stale to anyone else by now?

Ziva, I agree in most you've said but saying Bilic didn't screw in the tactics is not true at all. Why would you use Petric as a Mf? Why subbing niko and Rakitic and leaving an empty midfield? The problem wasnt the finishing (not even one chance to test it) but the creative Mf. As I saw it, niko was the only one trying.
Anyway, embarrassing but not the end of the world. Still a long way to go.

pathetic display, Petric and Kalinic together are a big zero. I don't understand bilic you have Jelavic and Lakic who have showed this whole season that they can be dominant strikers up top and Jelavic is sitting on the bench while Lakic didn't even get a callup. Petric hasn't done shit for 70% of the season in BL but he scores a hattrick and that justifies him bein in the starting 11, BULLSHIT. I'm not even gonna get started on Kalinic.

I don't know what Srna was thinking rushing on the player like that when he has no angle to shoot on goal and can't really do much from that position. He could have fouled him or gotten it the ball put though his legs like he did. That was just pathetic. We played like shit today, no heart at all. Why can't these guys tare it apart for the NT like they do for their clubs, I just don't understand. Bilic also needs to be more creative with the lineup because what he had on the field today didn't work at all. Petric playing behind Kalinic doesn't work and Rakitic needs to be used in the middle because he is so much more effective there.

P.S. Gavranovic played for Switzerland today so you can retire him from CSR pretty much

The players are to blame for this too…they get a lot of pressure to preform but the fact is all of our players ARE PREFORMING at CLUB LEVEL! So obviously they are great players…who are not being used correctly or being inspired anymore. Bilic made these players great but he lost that and now nobody has confidence anymore! NOBODY! I used to have that faith and its slipped out for good now.

Bilic has to resign by himself for his self respect….this team is at an all time low and him staying there isnt going to give anything but huge pressure to the players to preform so he can keep his job.

I'd really like to see a week long "training" session with Croatia

WOW….. Thats all im going to say about that. Gotta Love Bilic running his mouth, saying "Are side is better and more talented, we will WIN" That guys gotta Go!!

Why would he use perisic on a group match but not a friendly? and i also think that Modric is overrated for the Croatian side,he is starting regluarly for us and mabye thinks that he is secure

Ziva,

I thought the same thing…in fact I figured it would be a maybe 1-0 win but a tie wouldn't have killed either.

But come on!!! a loss…that is my heart breaking slowly…no Georgia didnt play well or deserve to win either but we sure as hell didnt deserve to win.

THERE WAS NO SPIRIT until we went down. There was no urgency EVER! This is what bothers me…Bilic used to inspire and we seemed to fight a lot harder but now we dont seem to even fight until we are down….Bilic is not a bad coach but his time with Croatia I think is done for now…he has lost what he had here and now he is digging a big hole for his grave… I love him and I dont know who to replace him with but its not about this single result we just dont look inspired we have played better with far worse players…this is a good side better than how we are playing now…we show 0 consistency and 0 spirit

Ziva istina, although you may pass it off for pragmatism, what really is a bit too much self-defeatism is just as bad as the team's display tonight. Sure, the team definitely isn't top-tier. However, that has nothing to do with talent. I used to hate on Modric big time, but I can't deny that he is one of the top midfielders in the EPL. Rakitic is nothing special, but he's a solid midfielder folds above the opposition in our group. Kalinic? Don't know what he's doing either in the EPL or in this starting line-up… etc., etc., etc. My point is that we *can* be a top-tier team. Although I didn't want to admit it for a while, it does seem like one of the only ways to accomplish that possibility is with a change of staff. The players are there, but the infrastructure and management are not.

hate to say it, Croatia deserved what they got with Bilic's cautious tactics which we have been seeing since Euro 2008 and now it is biting us in the ass

What does the team do during the week? There are no excuses this time, all the players were in form. When will Modric wake up?

kalinic with another blinder. wanker!

Lol, this is much worse then the 4-1 Defeat to England,

You guys will recall from what I wrote yesterday, I did not think we would have an easy time. I didn't think we would lose. I though a draw was going to be the outcome. I said this would be the equivalent of a World Cup match for Georgia.

I laugh at some of the comments I was reading yesterday and even this morning…2-0 win, 4-0. Some of you guys seem to think we are a top-tier team…..We are not. We are an above-average side capable of being beaten by anyone. This is why I say the FIFA rankings are junk and don't mean anything, for those of you who actually pay attention to them.

Can't wait to hear Bilic's excuse for this.

I am also going to love reading the over-reactionary comments from some of you.

Sorry a tie I could deal with but a loss to Georgia? Come on….whats the excuse this time? We are at full health for the first time in forever. There is nothing you can say anymore Bilic you have used up every excuse…now this is one the most embarrassing days for croatia sports in a long time.

Bilic has to go. Terrible substitutions and tactics.

Dont really know what to say…i am quite a big dissappointed by this performance and its not even close to over.

In what position Petric is playing? Is kind of allover the pitch but nowhere too.

Kalinic needs support…he really is getting NONE. Petric is playing pretty bad but based of club form I understand why he got the start. I would say put on Jelavic at half we need some size and strength to get through them they are just very tight at the back…and really showing no sign of attacking. We need to take advantage of set pieces.

Hvala puno brat! 😉

http://www.livescorehunter.com/index.php?option=com_lsh&view=lsh&event_id=43061&tid=55194&channel=0&tmpl=component&layout=popup&Itemid=286

Lovren and Dujmovic starting:

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro2012/matches/season=2012/live/day=10/session=1/match=2002267/matchcenterlight/index.html?

4-1-4-1 system i agree with. jelavic up front good choice, corluka should be at RB + srna at RM, and petric should be riding the pine even thou his club form has been good. Its really hard to predict a match like this because croatia can be so unpredictable, and its so important if they do score early that they dont become complacent, as we all know they are susceptible to do so.
prediction 2-1 croatia

If Lovren starts instead of Simunic I won't mind, but I really hope that Jelavic gets the start. I would like to see Kalinic come on as a sub, though. I don't think it will be a cakewalk but I expect Croatia to win this one.