Final Time: 1-1. Absolutely unreal. You can’t make this stuff up. Croatia get bounced out of Euro conceding late goals in two straight matches– 95th minute goal against Albania and 98th minute strike versus Italy. This was the true Murphy’s law tournament for Croatia. There’s good luck. And then there’s bad luck. A disastrous 1st half against Spain. A disaster ending to Albania. Katastrofa ending against Italy on the last possible kick to the game. What are you going to do. That’s life. Jebiga.
80′: SUB. Modrić comes off. Majer in. 10 minutes left.
70′: Subs. Perišić in for Sučić. Ivanušec in for Kovačić. Kova must be out of gas for this move to be made. The Italians are coming hard for a goal. Can Croatia withstand for 20 minutes?
55′: 1-0 CROAAATIAAAAAA. Modrić cleans up the garbage in front of the net following a Sučić cross. He goes top shelf for the goal. Modrić is now the oldest goal scorer in Euro history!
55′: Modrić misses the PK. Donnarumma guesses right and saves it. Still 0-0.
50′: Handball in the Italian box. Ref going to VAR. Has to be a penalty shot.
46′: Subs. Budimir in for Pašalić. Budimir will play the #9. Krama will move to left wing.
HT: 0-0. Croatia still looking for the goal to put them into the next round. These are the subs we are looking for Dalić to make. Perišić in for Pašalić on the left wing. Majer in for Brozović. All is not lost yet. Vatreni simply need to figure out a way to break this Italian stronghold.
28′: Italy with a free header in the box. Livaković with a HUGE save!
25′: I’ve never seen a team start time wasting like the Italians have today. It’s still the 1st half.
Wow. Dalić really can’t get away from playing Broz as the CDM, can he? The only saving grace in this lineup is Sučić playing as he will run straight at the Italian defense and hopefully cause some trouble. This is his time to shine. But Brozović and Pongračić in this starting lineup in a must-win match against Italy…it’s a huge SMH. Sorry.
Here we go!
All the negativity from Croatia’s first two Euro 2024 results can be wiped away with a victory over reigning European champions, Italy, Monday night in Leipzig. The Vatreni can only punch their ticket to the Round of 16 with a win over Italy. There is an astronomically small chance Croatia can get through with a draw, but that’s a discussion to be had after the Italy match.
Official starting lineups will be announced one hour prior to kickoff. Would Dalić dare sit Broz for Sučić? We hope so!
This situation is unacceptable. Are we supposed to believe that half the teams in the current round of 16 have more talented players than Croatia? Anytime we fail to reach at least the quarter final in the Euro tournament, it’s clear that the coaching staff has made significant mistakes and should be replaced. It’s as simple as that.
Everybody has their own opinion, which I respect. That being said, here is mine:
– thank you Ante and Slavonac for the tix.
– thank you Luke for 2 more tix.
– the ref was comical and predictable. Married to an Ital ‘man’. AND Collina chooses the refs for the games….Italy 3 and 0 when Makkelie refs….hmmmmm
-but, we can’t beat Albania, that pretty much sums up our tournament. Spain is like Dinamo compared to ajduk.
– Dalić and crew have brought much joy to the Croatian Nation over 6 years. Thank you for that.
– BUT…I feel he misjudged the talent pool. Marko Pjaca and Baturina needed to see more time. Majer and Sučić out wide is not natural. They need to be in the middle to be effective.
– Budimir involved in all 3 HR goals. Yet people still criticize his involvement?
– I do feel Dalić too faithful to old guard. Perišić not at 30% capacity. Ineffective.
– Our fans at tournaments are second to none. The atmosphere in and outside the stadium was ridiculous. Malo nas je, al nas ima!
– The walk through the city in Leipzig was an event to not be forgotten. Only Croatians can pull that off. The police were taking pics with us!
– unfortunately, I predicted Luka would miss the pk. I have zero confidence in him. Great as a captain to take responsibility, but also as a captain know better and pass it off to someone better….Krama.
– the CB pairing was swiss cheese like vs Spain. Didn’t look much better vs Wops. Šutalo never won anything v striker. I never felt comfortable, especially with 1 zero lead. We were so naive on the last kick of the game.
– Italian fans are lame. One cheer ‘italia, italia, italia’. And that was drowned out instantly by us. Best was when we threw pasta at them. They put it in their pockets….cigani!
– I could go on and on. Bottom line…turnir is over and I can only hope Dalić can get away from walking football.
Remember when Dalic said he was the second best coach in the world after losing the world cup to France? What does he think his ranking is now?
HNS corruption. Buy a real coach.
It’s not the first time I read that for this tournament Vida should have played as a starter on D. He has years of experience and knows what it means to play in challenging group play. I bet his experience would have played out differently in 1 of the 3 matches
Come on without Dalić we don’t have this incredible run pass 2 WC.
This team is old and slow. Some of these players didn’t show up and shame on Vlasic for wasting a spot. Hopefully we have new talent and some upcoming strikers and that Dalić stays with team for at least the next WC.
Surprised to see any support for Dalic. He’s indecisive and can’t build young talent. Spend the big bucks and get a real coach. Dalic took a team to WC final and nobody wanted him- what did they know that Dalic supporters don’t know- he’s a better priest than coach. Nothing wrong with praying but for soccer, it can’t be a strategy
Most truthful post written on this thread
I am glad he is probably staying. He took us where nobody has taken us before and all we get from you is that he is a better priest than coach. The haters have come out. And props to him for giving good example to all Croatians out there for taking his Faith seriously. Viva Zlatko!
Stani Stanich, don’t hate Dalic just not the guy for where HNS is going. Let’s pray we get a good coach who can lead a very young team that we need to develop because we rode the great success too long-
Hallelujah & AMEN
@Stjepan Stanich
We need more people like Dalic taking up the cross. Amen Brother.
Dalic is just going to beg the vets to stay, the same way he begged Livaja to stay.
He already said that he’s going to apologize to Vida for not playing him this tournament, lol.
New coach, new ideas, Dalic got fat off a senior group who has run the team for him he is not the coach for the next period.Luka stays with a new better coach and staff.
@MR FIXIT
You hit the nail on the coffin. Excellent understanding but I would also like to add that most followers of sports and of the world suffer from Cognitive Dissonance.
For those who don’t know what it means, I’ll kindly explain.
Definition: “Cognitive dissonance is described as the mental disturbance people feel when their beliefs and actions are inconsistent and contradictory, ultimately encouraging some change (often either in their beliefs or actions) to align better and reduce this dissonance
The inconsistency between what people believe and how they behave motivates them to engage in actions that will help minimize feelings of discomfort.
People attempt to relieve this tension in different ways, such as by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding new information”.
So, most people’s reality of what they believe is true becomes under attack. Armada and others need to believe that the beautiful game is free of corruption and match fixing because it if that was true it would destroy their perceived reality and joy of the game.
Even though the evidence is stacked against them they will argue tooth and nail because the truth is a threat.
Italy being the most corrupt nation in the world, who established organized crime, who’s been match fixing countless sports tournaments throughout history, is still considered a conspiracy theory and not sufficient evidence.
On top of all that their antics are glorified and made public via movies from Hollywood.
As MR FIXIT mentioned in 2nd Thessalonians, this is also likened to those who follow God and those who choose the strong delusion.
Even though the supernatural evidence is before your very eyes, the giant ball of fire that gives life to this planet, the earth, that these bodies of flesh have life, yet people will still deny the existence of God.
They rather believe in the delusion, of science, aliens or whatever helps their cognitive dissonance continue in the their sinful lives.
Some of us are still able to watch sports knowing that the FIX is in because we hope and pray for justice.
As I stated in past posts, the ruler of this world is Satan, to expect justice and fairness is foolhardy that will only happen once Jesus returns and ushers in his Millennial Kingdom.
2nd Corinthians 4:4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
I pray we all of make it, until then my brothers, 2026 😉
Italy didn’t beat us but I’m sure they are celebrating the match as a win.
As for Modric, it’s his decision if he wants to stay or retire the shirt. I believe he should stay at least until the next world cup. He could come off the bench just like he does for Real Madrid. It was wonderful for him to score that goal and create a magical headline for us. However, think about this, why does he have to defend, create chances and even score for us when others cant? that is the sad part.Also, you can see him getting frustrated when he has the ball and no one makes the run forward. If only we could clone 10 of Modric on the field. We would win something.
For Brozovic, he should let someone else take his position until he gets to a more competitive league. He is starting to decline and it shows on the field. Its starting to get frustrating to watch him flop his arms for every situation.
Dalic should stay for another world cup, it would be interesting to see how he builds the team if some of the veterans decide to retire.
This tournament wasn’t lost because of the Italy game but because we didn’t get results in three matches. Yes, the referee for Italy match might have conflict of interest, the added time, yellow cards etc but we should have done better in other matches.
Also, too many injured players in the squad or not enough playing time. Vlasic screwed us and if he knew that he wasn’t 100% fit, he should have stayed home and Dalic could have called another cdm?
DALIC SHOULD LEAVE !!
FOR A BETTER FUTURE
DON’T BE SO DELUSIONAL!|
Y’all crazy wanting Dalic out, the man brought 3 medals to the cabinet, no Croatian coach will ever repeat that, sure he’s playing old men in his selected squad but surely next campaign he will have little option but to nurture some youth into the squad ,dalic didn’t lose against Italy ,sure his tactics v Spain and Albania were questionable but the Italy game only the players are to blame, they just reminded us Croatia are football minnows, football powerhouse teams don’t crumble in situations like that, they find a way to hang on , count your lucky stars because Croatia were extremely blessed to achieve what was achieved in last decade, I just wish we had that 1 star on the national jersey, I would have sacrificed not qualifying to any tournament for the next 20 years just to have that 1 star ⭐, really missed out the one end only chance in our lifetime at least to become champions of the world, would have been the greatest ever Cinderella story ,oh well , shii happens, the players on that day will think what it, what if
Whenever I see the kit I always imagine what it would look like with a star above the grb… sighhhhh
Next wave-Sucic, Baturina and who else in the attacking spots?
Vidovic, Simic, biuk, Beljo, LJUBIČIĆ
+Spikic and jankovic
Kovačić and Sučić need to start all games in central midfield immediately.
We can temporarily fill the third spot with one of Modrić (if he stays), Majer, Ivanušec, etc…
But we need to start giving regular backup minutes to Baturina, as the plan should be to eventually field a central midfield trio of Kovačič/Sučić/Baturina in the near future.
I’d keep an eye on Lovro Zvonrek as a candidate for that third spot as well (or for a second striker role). Call up Petar Sučić as backup CDM.
Left wing is Ivanušec (or Oršić once he’s back in form) and Right Wing is Marco Pašalić… But these are two areas where we have to scout and try different players.
We really missed Oršić this tournament. He’s such an impact player. Oršić along with Marco’s energy is exactly what we were missing on the wings.
Backline… we have quite a few good players, but we need to play the ones who are most in form and in their best positions. Gvardiol had a terrible tournament. I would start calling up Luka Vušković if he starts playing well at Westerlo.
Striker is still going to be Budimir/Petković as stop gaps.
Scout heavily for their replacements, as we have a bunch of youngsters and we need only one who’s having a good year (Matanović, Šimić, Ljubičić, Beljo, etc.) and start giving them minutes off the bench.
I agree but not sure what Ivanusec has brought. Feel like we should try and develop some youth at that position rather than someone who wont contribute much. Orsic could be a sub during these upcoming games if hes back in form and maybe move on from the strikers we have if one of the youngsters have a good start to their season.
What we need the most is to have a complete stoppage of major knees injuries to are youngest and most upcoming brightest stars.
I am so glad to see that Sučić is still very effective, and our one bright light in the tie.
Additionally, I hope Oršić can come back to 90-95% of his original prowess. If Dalic is with us for two more years, hopefully he will let go of that past a bit.
We had some great games when we were wandering in the desert for some years, including our 3-2 victory against England in 2007, with goals from Olic, Petric, and Kranjcar. We will make it eventful at any level we fly. We survived losing Suker, and DeSilva, and are still around.
if musa continues to find form and get better and comes back to Europe playing for big club he should be given a chance
The big question for me is what do we do at CDM? Brozović best days are behind him and he’s not going to be getting better in Saudi Arabia. We had some poor stretches without a proper CDM and when Broz came along he was such an amazing player for us that would cover the back line, bust up counters with great tactical fouls, and would free up space for the rest of our trident to push play forward.
To me it was unforgivable to not bring another natural CDM to this tournament yet we had 6 attacking mids in Baturina, Šušić, Vlašić, Ivanušeč, Mario Pašalić and Majer who all have somewhat similar skill sets and play their best in the same area of the pitch.
How we haven’t been giving chances to a Broz successor and having that player available for this tournament was indefensible.
For now it seems the logical choice would have been Jakić until either Petar Šušić, Hodža or someone else emerges.
Keep an eye on niko sigur for CDM
Some of the bitches need to quit the depressive whining on this site. We just had a bad Euro caused by Dalic not integrating more youth after the last world cup. We have got some decent future stars coming through. Some of the youth who were 12-16 years old in 2018 are now hungry and waiting their turn. Sucic is the first breakthrough and many more to come. Time to freshen up and play new players in their positions.
Wonder if kek would be interested in ever taking over??
Guys we could be England
They probably have more money in their Sunday leagues invested as we do in the HNL;)
With a potentially favourable side it will a what If forever
Jebi ga boys
Many of us have been on this site for years now, we have been here before and probably be here again
Here’s to future successes and the journey and to this site and of course to our ljiepa nasa!
Vee vill bi bak!
Slovenci are not as talented, but they were able to hold England to a tie, to see them through, and played organized defense. We could have used that coordinated total effort. I think SLO are 3rd, so they won’t go far, they needed a win to take that group, and had a few chances. Going to the final 16 is a big deal for them no matter.
Kek is under contract with Slovenia until World Cup 2026 qualifiers are done.
Slovenia will probably extend him after these Euros, especially if they manage to squeeze into the quarters.
FWIW, we are now officially eliminated with England only tying Slovenci 0-0.
Serbs also tie 0-0.
After watching these 3 games, we should have flown home last night regardless.
That ref is married to an Italian, his husband is Italian.
@ARMADA87
You really don’t understand match fixing. Of course they allowed us to the final.
They love the underdog storyline only until it’s fitting. Having us make it to the 2018 finals was intended so they could promote their woke France multi national agenda.
Mbappe who was dating a tranny and is their new poster boy. ( his broken knows wasn’t an accident, reap what you sow) was another reason to have France win.
Also in 2018 France was having political upheaval, the French yellow jackets were protesting for Macrons removal on a daily basis. Then they win the World Cup and the protests disappeared.
If you haven’t learned that sports is used to suppress discontent in a society or as distraction to the masses, then I can’t help you.
Also they have the world believing all the lies because they’ve trained everyone to think conspiracy theories are just from crazy people as opposed to people who have higher intellect and are less likely influenced by mass psychosis.
That’s why the Democrats in the United States spent 8 years calling Russian interference collusion because people are too stupid to realize its the same damn word.
Now here in Canada they are saying the same thing that China and India interfered with our elections through collusion.
People are trained through propaganda to never question anything. This really makes 2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12 even more important in the last days.
Thessalonians 2:9 This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles.
10 He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.
11 So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies.
12 Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth.
Nose, correction.
Dalic OUT!! New ideas coaching team clean out!
Correct . 100%
I want to illustrate my point. Forget the Italy-Croatia game. Let’s use American football as an example: Team A makes 15 mistakes during the game, Team B makes 30 mistakes. Team A has 7 bad ref calls go against them, Team B has 2 bad calls go against them. Team A is down by 4 points driving down the field, last play of the game their receiver gets CLEARLY interfered with in the endzone causing an incompletion and the end of the game since the refs missed the call. Now you’re really going to sit there, nit-pick ONLY Team A and say “oh well, you can’t blame the refs, Team A should have done this or that, stop making “excuses” ? Come on man, that’s the only point I’m making. Again, forget the Italy-Croatia game, I’m NOT talking about that. What I’m saying is how much does one team have to get robbed by the refs before YOU stop making excuses for the refs bad calls??
100% Agree Bogdan
I think the ref made some shitty and questionable calls, yes. I also think it shouldn’t be our main talking point. There is no denying you make a valid argument, but to what extent is it worth mentioning? We played badly this tournament. There are no refs robbing us, we made it to finals of 2018 WC, semis of 2022 WC and nation’s league final. I don’t think there’s a big conspiracy to rob Croatia of anything.
I don’t think that ref should have ever been allowed to officiate seeing as his spouse is Italian, there’s clearly a conflict of interest, even if subtle.
I think we would have won the match yesterday if we made better decisions on how to hold the ball without giving the ball away. Maybe Dalic shouldn’t have subbed out our best players, Sucic and Kovacic. Lots of things we could have done to make things go our way.
I think he had to sub them. They were looking gassed.
If the miracle happens, and Slovenia loses by 3 goals, Serbs, Czechs and Georgia lose, Croatia would be in the top half of the draw (the brutal half) and play Portugal. Next would be France in the QF, and the Germany/Spain winner in the SF. Sad thing is, if Croatia held on yesterday, they would have had a manageable path, with all of the above mentioned teams on the other side. Wouldn’t doubt Italy making a run to the finals now. I know, I know, they suck. But there aren’t any great teams on that side.
Italy are losing to Switzerland.
Best Slovenia blow them out. 0-0 @ half.
Dalic’s strategy in the first half was idiotic. Keep possession and generate no scoring opportunities in the first half when you need a win against a team that only required a draw to advance.
Also taking out Modric and Kova your two best ball handlers when you have the lead? Then he sub’s in the gimp Perisic who runs down the touch line and crosses the ball to the Italian keeper for a freebie.
Then when were holding onto the lead the team is incapable of playing bunker for 10mins. Broz decides it’s a good time to run around the whole field instead of holding his position in front of the two CB’s.
Italy deserved to get at least a point.
The main blame goes to Croatia for allowing that last second goal, I don’t think anybody here is disputing that. However, I get sick and tired of morons always saying no matter how egregious of a CRUCIAL bad call a ref makes, they say “you can’t use the refs as an “excuse”, the team that lost the close game should have done this or that. But had the other team suffered the bad call, you’d say the same f**king thing about them “oh, they could have done this or that to overcome the refs” CRUCIALLY bad call against them. You guys know about the 1985 World Series? The Cardinals got ROBBED, PERIOD. Sure they could have done better to overcome that egregiously crucial bad call, but why must they have the extra burden of overcoming an egregiously crucial bad call and not their opponent?
Totally agree. What happens if the ref doesn’t whistle Budimir for a nonexistent foul? Maybe Budimir scores a goal. Maybe he lays it back to Brozović or Modrić and one of them drills a rocket into the back of the net. Maybe Juranović charges down the field and rifles in goal number 2. Maybe the play results in nothing but more possession for Croatia in the final minute and the match ends 1–0. The point is that refereeing matters. How about Kovačić being brought down by an obvious yellow card foul on a counterattack when he singlehandedly (footedly?) broke through three lines of Italian players grabbing at his jersey and no foul being called? That play happened many many times in that match, no matter which Croatian had the ball. And 18 fouls whistled against Croatia compared to only 6 against Italy, a team whose only chance of winning the ball back is to foul? That’s a big difference and not even close to fair.
And what if Gvardiol made a better tackle when Italy had a counter, and what if Majer and Brozovic actually tracked back and marked someone instead of jogging and allowing them an open goal.
Enough excuses. We are full of them.
@minivatreni, no doubt Croatia is to blame for giving up a last second goal. Forget the Croatia-Italy game for a moment. Do you agree that the St. Louis Cardinals got f**king ROBBED in the ’85 World Series? Or is that just “making excuses”??
Yes the ref was bad, but is it even worth mentioning? He was handing yellows out like candy, to the Italian side also. I think we have bigger problems if we in two consecutive games manage to concede goals with seconds left in the game.
There were 8 yellows… 6 to Croatia and 2 to Italy
You’re misinterpreting my point. My point was not specific to the Croatia game. Again, my point is simply that excusing egregiously crucial bad calls against one team by saying that team should have done this or that to overcome it is silly b/c if egregiously bad calls cost the other team instead, you’d be saying the same thing about that team: that THEY should have done this or that to overcome the bad calls. If two teams play a relatively even game, and BOTH make a roughly equal amount of mistakes, but ONE team gets more crucial bad calls against them, you can’t say “oh, they shouldn’t have made so and so mistakes” b/c you’d be saying the same thing about the other team IF the bad calls went against them. THAT is the point I’m making.
I agree with minivatreni that a team always has to be that much better in a competitive sport because reffing is rarely good, but I think Bogdan’s point gets at something that has cost Croatia in matches they might well have dominated if the reffing had been fair. I’m not talking about a rough game in which the whistle isn’t blown much or one in which the whistle is blown too often. I’m talking about games in which the referees choices dictate plays on the field and who gets the ball regardless of a team’s quality of play. The Spain match was totally fair. The Albania and Italy matches were not, and the result was Croatia being robbed of possession at key points. 18 fouls to 6? It’s a joke. Most of those 18 fouls were unwarranted. You can watch a replay of the game to see it. Modrić knows it, Broz knows it, Kovačić knows it. That’s why you didn’t see them crying. Stanišić thinks it’s his fault they lost the game. He was clearly fouled at the touchline and instead of a whistle, goal kick for Italy. It was that kind of game. It was an even game in most respects, but Croatia was denied possession by the ref, and that affected their ability to create chances and gave Italy more opportunities to create chances. It’s not an excuse because veteran Croatian players know that’s the game they play, but it is something evident and is disappointing for us the fans and for the whole reprezentacija. I felt that the best players yesterday were Modrić, Kovačić, and Brozović (and actually Pongračić) because they actually knew the game they were playing. The young guys thought they were playing a normal game.
The Referees husband is Italian apparently… Cro Italy game ..
You’re late.
He’s not only got an Italian hubby, he’s also the VAR ref from our 2018 World Cup finals match who overruled the non-PK call (for the Perisic handball).
He was an assistant for the 2018 final. The head guy was Massimiliano Irrati. This scumbag also was a VAR guy for the Czech-Croatia Euro 2020 game where the Czechs were given a gift penalty by VAR. And he was also a VAR assistant for the Argentina semi two years ago, with an Italian ref. So that penalty was never getting reversed. I will never cheer for Italy. F them.
I’d be interested to know if UEFA knew of this conflict of interest.
While I’m not aware of any written rule specifically about being married to a citizen of the country you are officiating a match for, but the broader regulations and practices around avoiding conflicts of interests would generally cover such situations.
Referees are typically not assigned to matches that involves a team from their home country or countries with which they have strong personal connections.
his ” husband”?
Yes, he is gay
Of course
@ crocan
agreed that if you watch that final sequence, you can walk away being disappointed on the effort. it did not look like a full sprint back from many of the forward croatia players
additionally, the camera feed cuts away but from what I watched, you can only see 9 croatian defenders. I’m not sure if budimir was just lying on the ground forward or just coming back very slowly.
not quite a last minute bunker
@the truth2
Yeah it’s a shame that the feed cut away, as it could’ve further explained what went wrong. You would hope Budimir was at least trying to apply some pressure.
But another thing I noticed was why were Broz and Majer so far up the pitch? Were we trying to stupidly play a press? Broz in particular was only slightly past half on the previous play where Budimir was called for the foul. However, when the feed cuts back to when Italy is countering he was still beyond half, which was part of the reason why there was so much space in the middle and why gvardiaol was forced to step up.
Majer, an offensive player and rather slow, should never have been brought into the game. Like Ivanusec, he was thinking one thing, let me get a goal and be a hero. Neither are fast, so we had no counter attack. That is where opportunities come when your opponent is risking all to score. That is where you need wingers. Either bring in a defensive player and bunker or at least a fast offensive player who can capitalize on counter attacks. Dalia failed to do either.
2-1 lead against Albania…Dalic brings on Sosa and Baturina
1-0 lead on Italy…Dalic brings on Juranovic, Ivanusec and Majer (and takes out Kovacic, Modric, and Sucic)
The fact that he took our two best performers (Kovacic and Sucic) with 28 minutes left to play is unforgivable.
First Dalic comment:
“Moja je odgovornost za ovaj neuspjeh”
Meaning – I take responsiblity for this failure
Next Dalic comment:
“Ja sam izbornik koji sa svojim suradnicima odreduje taktike, igrace i nacin igre”
Meaning – It’s not only my fault, my merry band of cheerleaders on the bench are equally to blame.
You can’t make this shit up.
Like many of you said. We are going home for this reason:
It was an unacceptable break down that led to the italian goal.. Naive tackle by Gvardiol. If you go for that tackle then you must foul. Then lazy run back by Majer and Brozo. Then Stanisic doubles the man on the middle naively and JJ is in no mans land. Thing is this wasn’t unlucky. This happened vs Albania and Spain. Weak minded execution. Things got really hard and they folded.
Lets not fool ourselves with nostalgia. This team was flawed. Some of the blame falls on Dalic but at the same time we are learning the young back line isn’t up to the challenge at this stage. We also learned we have zero speed.
Teams now know to give Croatia the ball and watch them pass it with no danger for extended periods of time.
We said when Kovac left, his German disciplinary was not right for our culture. We owned the sword, and it was our choosing, I guess.
The team wasn’t flawed. The coach’s strategy was.
Teams see our lineup and just defend the middle. They know that Dalic plays with no wingers and sometimes no striker.
Dalic called up three wingers, 10 central midfielders, one false 9, and one striker…but he only played one (out of his three) wingers.
It’s very easy to defend when there are going to be ZERO crosses coming in from the flanks and (most of the time) no striker in the middle to get his head on them.
What’s worse is that both Albania and Italy’s fullbacks were mediocre this tournament. Even an average winger would have found success against them.
Dalic can be forgiven for the first game…as most of us thought that starting our strongest eleven would be best.
But it was pretty obvious as the tournament went on, that we needed Budimir out there (he created the most chances) and we needed to give at least some backup minutes to the wingers we called up.
The only winger we played (Perisic), ended up playing the majority of his minutes at LB (and not LW) anyway.
Dalic was criticized by the media, then played the victim over it.
He wanted to prove everyone wrong, and doubled down on Broz and the no winger/striker lineup.
Now that he was proved an imbecile, he’s pretending like the Euros didn’t happen and is just talking about Nations League preparations.
Oh man stop with your ridiculous comments. This team was flawed. Doesn’t matter who Dalić puts out. They are not winning. Slow, no pace and weak mentality. Get over it.
What’s ridiculous about putting in wingers to take advantage of the open space?
What’s ridiculous about leaving in players who were performing well (like Kovacic against Italy)?
The damn thing is Marko Pasalic is the man of the future right-wing side, with Sucic, and was ready to go. Orsic already proved his metal and deserved a spot no doubt. We had the engines to do well.
Marko received absolutely no international exposure even worst.
For those who want to go through the math rabbit hole, here are basic probabilities of the events needed for Croatia to remain alive. By themselves, none of them look too bad. But in constant parlay deception style, the odds of them all occurring are small
Denmark win 43 percent
England win 78 percent
Portugal win 72 percent
Turkey win 37 percent
Odds they all occur is 9 percent
But an England victory is not enough. They need to win by 3 goals out more which there is about a 15 percent chance of
Which brings cumulative odds to about 1.7 percent
Ain’t nothing i guess
Unfortunately, still higher odds than Dalic being fired.
Still lower odds, that some professional team on the outside will sign him for more, and the problem will go away.
I don’t even want to progress. Yesterday made me sick and Dalic’s whinging about uefa not respecting them and blah blah blah wah 8 minutes is just him pivoting away from where the blame lies and that’s in his team. Defensive formation fell apart second game in a row at the last minute to allow equalizers. When you tie albania you don’t progress simple as that. unless Dalic thinks UEFA favors Albania.
Stanisic lying down on the pitch, fans throwing cups. I get some tactical time wasting but that was disgusting and overkill and it came back to bite them in the ass. to me that’s not how croatians should play. Not to get too mystical but the pope’s “blessing” couldn’t have helped as im not so sure about this pope just saying.
im pissed right now and i still respect dalic and this team for what they’ve done in 18 and 22 and nations league but this tournament? they fked it and whining about respect/referrees/fix etc when you TWICE allow equalizers in the last minute back to back games give me a break.
I hope the slovenes whip england 4-0
For the guys that are saying stop the whining, it’s not the refs, we aren’t that good. I agree they didn’t play well. I’ve always said, to win it a tournament, you need three things – good play, some luck and the refs not to f- – – you. We had that in 2018, until the final, when FIFA obviously couldn’t have us win. Yesterday was partly we blew it, and partly the ref screwing us at every turn to help Italy. It was blatantly obvious. And because it happens every tournament, you get sick of it. 2012 – Corluka ambushed, 2014 – Lovren complete bs penalty plus three other bs calls, 2016 Spanish ref against Portugal, 2018 – don’t need to say anything, 2020 – bs penalty against the Czechs (same Italian VAR official as the 2018 final BTW), 2022 – Italian ref for Argentina and now this. It’s a joke. Again, we sucked this tournament, but still.
Rewatched that last sequence again and there are some many what-ifs/mistakes by our players. First off we have clear possession in the +6:45 minute however instead of pushing the ball up the right wing where we have numbers and keeping possession, Broz just turns around and passes it to Perisic? who just boots it up the field.
Budimir then questionably “fouls” his man.
On the counter, Gvardial makes a very poor tackle that puts him out of position.
But what makes matters worse is that Ivanusec, Majer, and Juranovic are all slowly jogging back. It’s the last play of the game and you have been brought on as fresh legs to defend! Ffs you would expect some urgency!
Everyone then completely collapses on Calafiori, which leaves Zaccagni wide open on the wing. A man that Juranovic should’ve been marking, however, he did not once turn his head and was solely ball-watching.
All in all another complete defensive breakdown. Makes you wonder how things would’ve turned out if we kept on Kova or had a real defensive mid to bring on from the bench…
Unacceptable mental breakdown on the field. Compounded by Dalic having the wrong personnel on the field in the last 20 minutes. Eerily similar to the defensive mental breakdowns in Euro 2020 against Spain, where he had forgotten that he had Brekalo playing defense. For example, he should’ve put in Erlic and Vida as extra CBs, not offensive wing backs Juranovic and Ivanusevic.
This year’s early exit is mostly on Dalic for his poor tactics, player selection, line-ups and substitutions. Even my Baka could’ve done a better job this tournament.
He made similar subs in the Albania game too.
Agreed, took enough defenders. There was a chance to use them
If we were gonna commit to defending we should have went all in
I’ve rewatched it more times than the Zapruder film. So many things went wrong on the final play.
The Italian blew right by Lovro Majer is the thing I take the most out of it in the middle of the play. Again, teams were blowing right by us through the middle in this entire tournament since we’re slow. I don’t agree with the age comments about the team suddenly getting old since it’s not like Lovro is in his late 30’s.
I don’t know what the love affair is with Majer. Marco Pasalic, and Luka Sucic, in current form, was a no brainer, but Majer is the only one Dalic seems to favor, while Orsic is cut, plays 30% above himself when he wears the Croatian jersey.
Why didn’t Marko play winger and Sucic play in his natural position.
Marco Pasalic is excitable energizer bunny on steroids, so fun to watch, never stops. Majer is the cool Frenchmen having a leisure lunch on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, with his slick back hair over his ears, hanging out with Kovac between modelling jobs. Everyone told we that Dalic knew best.
I am assuming the logic with Dalić is that with Majer he has a more experienced possession type player.
With Marco Pasalić, we would have had a fast guy who would have been a threat to make it a 2-0 match on a counter-attack. You’re not going to get that with Lovro.
hahahaha at the zapruder film comment.
i have watched it so many times and when you take into context that this is in the final minute of the game, zaccagna being so wide open with all the defenders tracking back behind him giving him space the size of rhode island its just ASTOUNDING. I love what this team has given us but my god what is that? these are elementary blunders that a high school team usually wouldn’t make right? whatever
Rhode Island…….try Texas.
That was almost the exact same lineup we used versus the Dutch in nations league semis. Sucic in for Ivanusec, Gvardiol in for Perisic, Pongracic in for Vida. What changed?
We are just old and showing age. We are riding off the success from 2018 it’s bound to run out eventually.
For 5 years, the regular contributors have been correctly saying that we never replaced Mandžukić and Rakitić.
After our Nations League loss last June, you can add 2 more names: Lovren and Perišić.
For all of the talk here about our so-called plethora of youngsters, the last 2-3 years have only produced Gvardiol and now Luka Sučić.
Add to that the issue of Luka clearly not being the same player (even though he’s still our best player) and this is the result you get.
I am disappointed in reading Dalić’s comments in his interview today about the referee purposely being “selected” for a purpose in their game.
Yes, it was a “soft” foul vs Gvardiol outside the penalty area, but he did push off and yes the foul vs Budimir I disagree with.
Having said that, are we now going to blame the referees for not having any wingers at midfield? Are they to blame for not having any legitimate scoring opportunities after taking a 1-0 lead?
Also, what’s up with our “fans” who were throwing plastic cups on corner kicks? You can afford the plane ticket, hotel and the expensive admission fee to show up to a game and behave like Serbians? Stop embarrassing us.
The answer to your two ‘blame the ref’ questions are: no, & no. We are blaming the ref for the soft call on Gvardiol and the phantom Budimir foul. You do understand if Budimir doesn’t get called for a phantom foul, Croatia wins the game, you do understand that right?
We also win the game if we can actually get shots on goal. It’s a loser mentality to blame the officiating every time things don’t go our way.
One of the posters went out of his way to give examples where officiating actually benefited us as well.
The Budimir play I believe we would also get the benefit of as well. They’re going to give the defender the benefit of a doubt that it wasn’t a dive and that it was a foul 99% of the time.
Gvardiol, despite his youth, is already experienced to know not to give any reason to shove. He was already marking his man well and had no reason to extend his arms.
No one’s more disappointed than me that we lost, but there are a million things to mention that contributed to us not advancing and the officiating is not even on that list.
Who gave you idea I blame officiating every time things don’t go our way? You do a lot of conflating. < that's what I was pointing out in my first response to you. And saying that anybody who points out a CRUCIAL bad call by a ref has a "losers mentality" himself has a losers mentality.
Benjamin Sesko, 20 years young, has been shooting the ball like Orisic on speed, ringing the goal posts. Brace for a couple to deflect in rather than out today. A Slovene victory, the likes we have never seen since Croatia beat England in 2007 is very possible. Standout goalie, Oblak might rain on our parade unfortunately, only allowing 1 goal. Slovenia loss on the last play as well to Serbia, otherwise they are tied with England for group C.
News update! Kek is going to play 30-year-old Ilic and will play for a draw. He said he will play Sesko, once he gets a little more experience, and proves himself.
Dalic’s strategy in the first half was idiotic. Keep possession and generate no scoring opportunities in the first half.
Also taking out Modric and Kova you two best ball handlers when you have the lead? Then he sub’s in the gimp Perisic who runs down the touch line and crosses the ball to the Italian keeper for a freebie.
Italy deserved to get at least a point.
It’s so ridiculous that every time we lose we can never look ourselves in the mirror and say we fucked it up. It’s always the red, bura, Mamic, the ghost of Tito, on and on.
Here’s a counterpoint to all you tin hat wearing guys; why did “they” let us get into a WC Final in the first place? I’m sure we were bad for ratings just being in that spot. Same goes for 2022 and Nations League? If we take all this conspiracy logic and apply to those tournaments – seems like the math isn’t mathing? We had numerous GLARING holes tactically and positionally – coupled with some massive brain farts in the dying seconds of two games.
At the end of the day, this system and players gave us a lifetime of memories but this system (Dalicball) and players have run its course and unfortunately we found that out in the most painful way possible.
To be fair, we didn’t play any better or worse this tournament than the previous tournaments. We tied twice and how many times did we tie in the previous tournaments? only difference is this was the group stage and we couldnt go to PKs and win it. I agree with you.
Slaven Bilic said it best in one of his interviews. “ocemu mi pricamo jebote? sta je vama jebote?”
Croatia dominated the group of death in ’18. Don’t forget Croatia completely stifled a good Nigerian team in that tournament. Denmark scored a lucky goal off a thrown in, the throw in from the sidelines were their only dangerous attacks in that game. Russia scored a once in a lifetime goal. Croatia was all over England in the 2nd half and extra time. And we know what happened with the dive and the “french” player moving out of the way of a cross sent in by his own teammate.
It’s never our fault, always someone else’s. If there was corruption we’d never have made it to the finals WC 2018, Semis WC 2022, or the nation’s league final. Issue is this euros we played terribly, and Dalic made poor decisions.
Prava istina
If you think the game/tournament is fixed against Croatia, why in God’s name would you watch it?? Why would Croatia even play in such a game/tournament?
I just don’t understand how you allow such an open look with less than a minute to kill, why you are scrambling back leaving one side of the field totally open?
For 5 years, the regular contributors have been correctly saying that we never replaced Mandžukić and Rakitić.
After our Nations League loss last June, you can add 2 more names: Lovren and Perišić.
For all of the talk here about our so-called plethora of youngsters, the last 2-3 years have only produced Gvardiol and now Luka Sučić.
Add to that the issue of Luka clearly not being the same player (even though he’s still our best player) and this is the result you get.
https://croatiansports.com/will-the-refs-be-kind-to-croatia-in-2024/
Here you go read up.
As you can see I called it back in December. I have the receipts
Does the Croatian team not know how to do a proper press? You challenge the opposing player as he receives the pass, because he doesn’t have full control of the ball yet. You don’t stand in front of him, watch him receive the ball, then try to block his progress. That’s more of a containment strategy and a good team will just pass around you. Or lob it over you so a speedy winger can run onto it (which happens to us all the time too). You put pressure on them by forcing them to do one touch passes. But the whole team has to do it together. Spain did this to us in the first ten minutes of the game. We almost never do this. Especially after the 90 minute mark. Just strolling around until the ref blows the whistle. Dalic should put a fire cracker up their ass as he subs them in. They are known as the “fiery ones” after all.
Over half the team was on a yellow card.
Good point.
Six goals against in 3 games? A U14 coach would get sacked for that at a good soccer program. We deserve nothing for this hot mess. How we played against Albania was appalling. We deserve every bad fate because the team was crappy. The mojo left from the first minute against Spain and ended against the Italians in the last minute. Nothing was good and we have a chance to start over. I agree on comments about effort . It wasn’t good and a shake up is the right time. It won’t happen , we have to go deeper into a hole . Dalic days are numbered but it will be some more losses in Nations League that run him out
Watch their goal in slow motion and watch majer and ivanusec tracking back half ass!
It’s a disgrace with the game on the line and seconds left.
Ivanusec is ball watching and leaves their goal scorer WIDE OPEN!
Put the blame on him not the ref!
What makes you think there were seconds left? Do you really think the ref was just about to blow his whistle? lol, Ya for a penalty shot.
60 seconds in a minute last time i looked queen bronk.keep making excuses for our piss poor effort.
Listen I’m not crying. I predicted this would happen so I am not surprised at all. Please read the two articles that I wrote. I called this back in December of 2023.
Having said that to say the ref did not influence the game by adding 8 minutes when maybe 3 or 4 minutes were warranted against the 10th-ranked team in the world is a joke. I’m not even going to get into the fact that he was handing out yellow cards like it was Halloween candy the whole match. Come on boys what are we talking about here? If you are on a yellow you have to play cautiously. Do you honestly none of that had an impact on the game and how our players approached the match?
Ask yourself this and please be honest. If Croatia was down 1-0 does the ref add 8 minutes?
In an age when every little thing is micro-analyzed for advanced stats, etc., I imagine someone can tell us what extra time should have been, in comparison to the other games in this tournament? Landon Donovan made an interesting statement when he saw 8 minutes was given, he said something to the effect of ‘using the 2022 WC standard’.
8 Minutes might have been a little too much – maybe more like 6 or 7 but no less than that. Croatians were overusing stall tactics (stanisic lying down on the pitch to name one) and it came back to bite them. That’s on them. The one thing i can agree with is that the ref was giddily handing out yellows way too much but at the end of the day WE lost the game. OUR guys were in a laughably stupid formation and left zaccagna wide wide open to score that goal – a mistake made for the second game in a row in the last minute of a crucial game.
They can’t beat Albania they deserve to be out of the tourney simple as.
And they were both late subs. Sad.
This same Pedar was a VAR cunt in 2018. The plot thickens.
I hate to tell you I told you so, but I told you so.
Refs favour the big nations and you all saw it once again.
Please read my article below. I specifically called what would happen in this group concerning the officials.
https://croatiansports.com/will-the-refs-be-kind-to-croatia-in-2024/
We were 0for2 on pk’s 0for2 on holding a last minute lead-we knew we needed 3 points against the albinos when the group was drawn-yet we bitch about who the ref is married to?You think the wops would have let a one goal lead slip in extra time ?
We have become a footballing nation of choke artists/mental midgets and Whiney bitch’s.
It happened to Italy before except it was against a big country.
France beat them in a comeback win in Euro Final.
Just saw this note on yesterday’s ref from Wikipedia: Makkelie was criticised for a decision in the Euro 2020 semi-final between England and Denmark. He awarded England a penalty in extra time for a foul on Raheem Sterling. Makkelie’s decision was backed by Roberto Rosetti, the chairman of the UEFA referees’ committee, who pointed out that the match VAR officials told Makkelie the penalty was “correct”.
So he called the penalty that was a 100% dive by Sterling, and upon VAR review should have been reversed and wasn’t, and then this is backed by the UEFA Italian head of the referees committee. You can’t make this shit up.
And his husband is Italian. Again, you can’t make this shit up.
Not sure what to make of today’s Dalic interview. Reading between the lines I think he plans to stay on? I do not think that HNS will sack him, and they should not, however he needs to be told that we need to bring in younger players into the starting 11 and some of the veterans should retire or be prepared to sit on the bench.
I haven’t seen the interview yet, but this was my take before even seeing it. I did see last night one Croatian media poll of whether he should be fired was 50% for firing, 50% against.
I think if the court of public opinion was more in the 75% range in favor of firing him, then you may see some action. But at this point I think Dalić stays and you have to hope he’s learned a lesson. That’s a big ask based on his track record of stubbornness.
Dalic is a likeable guy and politician. He knows how to work the media, fans and HNS.
He’s already talking about Nations League and World Cup, and saying all the right things.
He’s trying to draw attention away from this failure of a tournament, and get everyone focused on the next steps to build a winner (with him at the helm).
Usually there is an “evaluation period” after every initiative to see what went wrong and what needs to change, but Dalic is trying to avoid this because he was the biggest problem.
Also, he probably knows that guys like Modric and Krama won’t retire and the worst thing for his legacy would be if a new coach (like Juric or Terzic) were to take over and have immediate success with the team.
It’s in Dalic’s best interest to milk the veteran players to their last drop, then move on after they all retire (leaving the rebuilding phase to the next coach).
Why are we paying a guy 1.6 million euros a year then, if he has to be told what players to play?
Everyone from average fans and media saw what was working out there and what wasn’t working.
Dalic was either dumb and couldn’t see it…or he has an ego problem and wanted to show us all up (both reasons to be fired).
You can have a puppet for a head coach if you want…but why pay that puppet so much money?
Just put a likeable former player (like Corluka) in there if you want a puppet who makes everyone happy. You’ll save several million euros and he can even wear a waterpolo hat on the sidelines for fun.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C8oyJqHs5mq/?igsh=MXF1YXl0ejc1NHUwcA==
What’s everyone’s interpretation here? Does this sound like someone who will quit?
Sounds like a guy who wants the 3.2 million euro left on his deal
If the score was 0-0 at 90 minutes there would have been maybe 3or4 minutes of added time.he knew the situation and adjusted it accordingly.
We have seen this song and dance before and it shall continue.
I’m honestly shocked we actually got the hand ball decision in our favor.
No worries – Dalic got the Vatican trip in case…it’s in the bag
That wasn’t the ref decision. It was the VAR that was a clear handball. They couldn’t let that go. If they would’ve let that go that would’ve been a big stink over it so they gave us one call.
Ref tried to ignore it too…but all the players and fans in the stadium were roaring because of how obvious a handball it was.
Of course it was. He saw it . He knew it was a penalty. He got the call and as you said the players the fans it was to much he had no choice . If it was up to him be no penalty. He is not the reason we lost . But it’s clear he was bias . We lost the game . We had no urgency. And gave the game away like we did Albania . Dalic needs to go . And we need every young up and coming prospect to start on the national team or be given an opportunity. Curious as to when roko simic will start for the team and hopefully we will be what people say he is going to be
3 goals that ruined our tournament. 95′ goal v Albania, 100′ goal Hungary and 98′ goal v Italy. Let’s not mention how the PK miss by Petkovic might just be another??
The selection of Modric to take the penalty kick is emblematic of the issue with Dalic selecting the right people for the right job. of which when it comes to PKs Majer and Modric are not particularly good, relatively speaking. Throughout his career, Modric PKs, the margin of error was always paper thin, not that he has been so bad per se.
After the Rebic, Kalinic incidents, Dalic is interested in staying tight with the players that hold sway with management and getting rid of troublemakers. Kramaric should have executed the penalty shot., or Orsic, his studied statistics would have told him.
In baseball the Oaland A’s survived as a low budget franchise, through their history by sticking with statistics, and finding value in the right people.
I still can’t believe that Marko Pasalic never even received a single chance to play, blows me away.
Dalic playing Machiavellian politics to not lose his job, is used on role selection as well, based on not losing at any cost. Statistics be damned, regarding figuring out a way to actually win.
The fans acted like gypsies what a disgrace and we got what we deserved.
Booing and whistling other teams national anthems,flares,throwing bottles at the Italian players SRAMOTA!!
We are making the Serbs look like class acts how pathetic!!
We let a guy waltz into the box UNMARKED with 30 seconds left we DESERVE to lose and perisic there is hardly any time left HOLD ON TO THE DAMN BALL!!
I told you guys exactly what was going to happen way back in December. Read the article below. I also warned you before the game was played. Read the second article below. When will you guys start giving me a little credit here? How many times have we seen this happen? You really think it’s just bad luck?
We had 6 yellow cards shown to us and 8 minutes of mysterious “injury time” added even though no one was injured lol ???? and some of you think the result was “bad luck.” ???? Time to wake up.
https://croatiansports.com/will-the-refs-be-kind-to-croatia-in-2024/
https://croatiansports.com/the-fix-is-in-when-will-smaller-nations-get-a-fair-shot/
Apparently, from what my cousin sent me, the referee is married.to an Italian woman.
Suprise surprise. So much bias with Fifa, don’t get me wrong we needed to produce a team to score but when the odds are stacked against you like this how does one win?
Always an excuse man we fuckinng suck man we’re old Dalić sux ass had a GOLDEN generation of talent going back to mandza and the boys.
Now we’re in 24 man time for the young guns to also step up and play with some ❤️ like that little #10 always did love U luka LEGENDO
FYI, the ref Danny Makkelie is also married to an Italian GUY. No wonder the calls and time added.
he did look a little polished for a man. Bizarro.
Sorry you beat me to the punch yeah Italian guy I mean.
I wrote previously that if we could not hold the lead against Albania we would not against Italy.
My only pleasant take away from Dalic’ coaching in this game is that he said in the first half “look at the skill this team has you will not touch the ball.” I like that, I liked seeing the last of MBK, I liked our dominant possession as I am sure Spaniards loved their dominance once upon a time. And I don’t mind losing that way because that is our style and we were true to it. We had the best midfield in the world and we gave them a last limelight.
The problem of course is the game has moved on. It is all about speed, counter attacks, young wingers who threaten all the time. Possession does not predict success nor is it desired necessarily. And we have just not developed those players. And when Dalic tried to move away from the dominant midfield model just look at his crazy substitutions, Baturina late against Albania, Ivanusec, who also had not seen a minute yet, late against Italy, Kovacic taken out and Juranovic a defensive liability brought in. Perisic also should not have played whereas Erlic could have been brought in or we could have brought another DM to the roster, while the high press should have been tempered. Instead it was accelerated late against Italy etc.. It’s high time for Dalic to go.
And finally to the people who said Modric would be all fresh after sitting so much this year in Madrid. He himself said he plays best when he plays a lot, but what does Luka Modric know and Luka Modric? He had his worst tournament in memory.
Get rid of 45 minute halves with discretionary stoppage time. Make it 35 minute halves with a time keeper. When the ball goes out time stops until it’s back in play, corner time stops, free kick time stops, goal scored time stops, a player injured time stops, substitutions time stops and so on. No time wasting so nobody can feel duped. In fact a 30 minute half would probably be equivalent to the current 45.
Let’s be honest folks…we fell in the group of death because we couldn’t win an easy group in qualifying. We didn’t dominate a single game.
Our decline started right after the Nations Leage final. What have we done since then in the past year?
Yes, you are spot on. We struggled in a group that we should have won easily on paper at least. Out of 24 possible points we got 16 and as runners up ended in Pot 3. We really should have been aiming for 22 points and as such would have been in Pot 1 and avoided Spain.
We Croatians need to be honest and stop playing the blame game. The moment one suggests 8 minutes of extra time is a scandal, is the moment I know you probably never played football, understand the game, or even watched this game. Let me break it down for you . . .
1. There were 9 subs in the 2nd half. 5 Croatia and 4 Italy. Referees are trained that each substitution is more or less a 30 second procedure if not longer. That’s automatically 4 minutes and 30 seconds for the 9 substitutions.
2. There was 7 second half yellow cards. 2 for Italy and 5 for Croatia. Again a 30 second process and in some cases a little player protest and arguing. That’s 3 minutes and 30 seconds min.
3. The VAR penalty decision literally eats up nearly 4 minutes. Watch again from moment of incident to when Luka takes the penalty.
4. After Modric scores we celebrate over the top for 2 minutes. Don’t believe me, rewatch it.
5. We had 3 muscle cramp stops. Stanisic one was nearly 1 minute 18 seconds. Yup I timed it. All together at least 3 minutes.
6. Some say more, but twice, the game was stopped to remove stuff Croatian fans threw on the pitch. Add 1 minute even though it was a bit more.
THATS 18 minutes TOTAL. We were lucky it was 8 minutes and not 12 because the way we were playing with a few extra minutes it wouldn’t be surprising if we lost 2-1.
The referee has a good game. Didn’t get anything wrong. All the yellow cards were deserved for both sides. We committed clumsy reckless tackles.
The reason we lost is NOT because of the referee but because of our mentality. We dominated the game for 55 minutes. Then we scored! 1-0! Instead of playing football and try score goal 2 . . . Dalic, decided to defend our 1-0 lead, because we don’t trust us to score another, and so he changed the tactics and pushed the players back. Italy started attacking more and gained confidence, we even committed the crime of playing 5-5-0. In 90th minute we subbed Kranmaric for Juranovic. It was then 8 minutes of Italian attacks, us lost, and sadly eventually they scored. It’s us, not 8 mins, and Dalic’s tactics that cost the win. Let’s be real! Losers play the blame game. Attack is the best defence.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8npHWfiAo5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Yes, I agree with your summation. I don’t think the ref was to blame for the time added on or for the yellow cards.
Our defence was the biggest problem at this EURO especially in the first two matches. Today I thought that Sutalo and Pongracic were two of our better players. Brozovic also had a decent game today as did most of our players. Pasalic and Kramaric were sacrificed and played in the wrong positions. Budimir when he came on was also solid and did a lot of hard work, often alone in and around the Italian penalty box.
Dalic was the biggest problem for us this EURO with his tactics or should I say lack of them. He does not trust the young players and relied too much on our senators. Big mistake in subbing Kovacic today.
I feel sorry for players that never got a chance to play at this EURO; in particular Erlic, Pjaca and Marco Pasalic. No idea why some of them did not get a run against Albania? or even late on today against Italy. Would have liked to see what Pjaca would have done on the left side instead of the unfit Perisic.
Hey MART, yeah you’re right. The ref is not to blame, but he wasn’t on our side either.
I would be okay with that explanation if…. they did it for every game in this tournament.
But only Hrvatska got 8 extra minutes. Only one game had more: Hungary-Scotland but they had a player who seemed to be heavily wounded.
And one more thing. From minute 70, the ref barely stopped the game for Italian faults while Croatia got yellows for everything they did. This way it was easy for the Italians to dominate.
I hate you say it, but Croatia needs to be twice as strong against Germany, Italy, France or England.
And it is not only Croatia who gets screwed. Google Makkelie, Danmark. Penalty. 3 years ago he eliminated Danmark in the semi final against England.
I was at the game and all I can say is that I agree with this ref having an Italian agenda. He was pretty inconsistent from what I saw. The fouls called were very one sided. Everyone in the stadium could see the hand ball except the ref who HAD to go to VAR. We just can’t blame the ref for our play.
We are to blame for our late defensive lapses two games in a row. Dalic got the lineup wrong 3 games in a row. We were outplayed in the first half but with the introduction of Budimir we picked it up. The Kovacic sub was strange. We all love Luka but Krama should have 100% taken that PK. Thankfully Luka pounced on the ball shortly after for his goal.
The atmosphere before and at the game was unbelievable. We had about 70% of the crowd which made it feel like a home game.
Someone said we should be ashamed of our behavior for whistling and throwing stuff…I agree with not whistling at the national anthem, very disrespectful. But fans were throwing stuff on the field because of the refs decision’s and the Italians making a meal of every foul.
Hopefully Modric is ok to take a bench role and we can introduce our young players. More improvise need to figure out our D or nothing matters.
No need to blame the ref for this one. A team which cannot win a single game in group stages does not DESERVE to advance. Secondly, we could not even beat Albania, but we would have been able to beat Switzerland?
Taking off Kovacic BIG MISTAKE. Next, constantly making poor decisions in injury time? Why are you playing a high line when winning and there’s seconds left in the game, why are you giving up the ball so freely to allow a last minute counter attack and why are you leaving players unmarked with 40 seconds left in the game.
Dalic should have entrusted our younger players sooner. Just look at Sucic, Baturina, Pasalic what they can do. He should have played them earlier maybe we’d have a win by now, who knows.
Forza Italia! The Croatian fan that were littering the field with garbage, got the result they deserved.
Incredible last ditched effort by the Italians, beautiful shot on the last touch of the ball.
8 mins were justifiable.
Penalty shot.
8 cards handed out.
10 subs made.
Ciao ciao Luka.
There were 4 yellow cards handed out between halftime and 90mins. The last however many did NOT contribute to the 8 mins added on. 4 yellow cards and 8 subs made(45-90mins) do not add up to 8 mins.
your gouvna team goes out next game
What a sad, pathetic individual you have to be to go on another team’s website to gloat over tying them. This Italy team is embarrassing. Spain made them look like Estonia. Croatia is just old and past their prime. Croatia has 4 million people, Italy has 60 million. Italy missed 2 World Cups that Croatia got 2nd and 3rd place in. And Italy has still not beaten Croatia, even though they played two versions (2002 and 2024) that were two of the worst Croatian teams. Italy plays boring, defensive, anti-soccer, and make diving an art. And you needed the ref’s help today before the tying goal. Too bad Germany tied yesterday. It would have been beautiful to watch them throttle Italy. But as usual, Italy lucks out, like they did at the last Euro, where they won with a shitty team.
Funny how those comments stand and others here are removed. This is site is for our own and should be kept that way
Croatia is to Euro 2024 what Belgium was to WC 2022, what Italy and Spain and England were to WC 2014, and what Croatia was to Euro 2012 and World Cup 2002. This was a team stacked with good players that just did not find the winning solution. Next qualifying cycle is a new story, and while we will all miss the era of Modrić, Perišić, and Brozović, it is clear that the team needs to develop a new identity. The new generation has a lot of skill, and this underperformance will just give them a starting point the way 2008, 2012, and 2014 gave the Modrić/Rakitić era a path to world-class.
Sorry… Did you just say that our 2002 World Cup team was stacked with good players?
This was one really hurt (in some ways more than 2008) but I think it is time to at last appreciate what we had going for 6 years. Memories that will not be forgotten. We were the envy of many nations!
Luka is a legend man for Hrvatska, and can’t go out like this. A true captain man that even though gets a PK blocked, comes right back to store a goal. WOW WHAT LEADERSHIP!
Ref sucked to allow 8′ of stoppage time, PLAIN & SIMPLE!
Additionally, there is no way a squad of this caliber can have these types of last minute folly blunders. I am still convinced a lot of these games were fixed as prior comments said.
Let’s see what happens with the next few games in the other groups, and then from there the future of this squad.
It was not fixed. We were just terrible. There is no giant conspiracy. Giving up two last minute goals with seconds left in the game, in consecutive games is not a coincidence.
We didn’t lose because of the ref the ref was not on our side. That’s clear we bought this loss upon ourselves..
I’m just sad. For us fans but equally for Luka. He has made all of us so proud over the years. His story is incredible and his inspiration is immeasurable. Not only through his obvious skill on the pitch but the fact that he is a superstar who didn’t let the fame change him. Always humble, always putting in the work and never puts himself above the team. His legacy will continue for long after he retires. Today and always I want to say Hvala Luka za sve. Ti so sve nas ponos. Nikada nece but drugog Luka
Well at least i dont have to get up at some ungodly hour in the freezing cold to watch anymore games i guess
3+ goals from England tmrw and we’re through. It could happen
If Hungary didn’t score a 99th minute goal yesterday, i think there would be an actual prospect for us to get through. But that is yet another 9xth minute goal that killed us to go with the other two this tourney.
The way this tournament is going, watch Serbia win tomorrow, and then we’re officially out.
Cmon England!
Subbing out Kovačić was absolute insanity.
Then he doubled and tripled down.
I did not understand this either. For me, Kovačić has been consistently one of our best performers over the past several games. He made some crucial interceptions, controlled the ball well and pushed play forward. He has the ability to play defensively when needed and we needed our best possession players on the pitch. To sub him off didn’t make any sense.
He the one guy that can run opponents in circles, control the ball, and play keep away with the best.
Usually, we are making substitutions because we need more fire power. Dalic really got confused most likely.
Maybe Dalic misread Modric disgust @ 70th minute, when they were getting pummeled, and he tried to figure out what Modric wanted.
Was Sucic, Kovacic, Modric, the right people to move off the field, people who stabilize possession?
Looked liked Croatia was playing down three men, once Modric scored. If we had true wingers like Orsic and Marko Pasalic, we might have scored another on a counter.
Italy did to us, what we did to Brazil. Nothing has made sense to me once Orsic was not considered for the team.
We seem to have litmus test, that a player must be playing in a foreign league to be of any value. But if he gets out of the league, and does not get playing time, he is dirt.
He was looking past that game at that point, Sucic had a yellow, and he wanted to give modric and kovacic there rest for round 16, quite possibly? Understood if it is 2-0.
I think we have a foreign league qualifications requirement, that we justify, not playing players out of position, because we have a great young player actually making a living playing soccer in Croatia, so he can’t certainly be good.
So many knee injuries these last two years just killed us, Sucic, Orisic, Perisic, etc.
We Moan about bad luck but nobody talks about petkovics lucky bounce off the thigh of a Brazil defender…our lucky bounces in PK’sin the WC’s …it all evens out quit your whining you MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK…Italy deserved at least a draw and probably a win ..so take off your homer glasses for a change!!
italy are $%^^ if you watch that goal our defender came out and stopped the run but the ball wasnt controlled after that they will.go out next decent opponent ,their media are bagging the coach they know they were lucky as fk,dutch referee he was as bad as that pede Daniella pusikuracatini from the Qatar argentine game.
Eat a dick you little faggot
I don’t like to blame too much on dalic but he should’ve followed my advice to start budimir
That was one of the worst starting line ups I’ve seen since stimacs vs Serbia
Yeah this was a major blunder. Deciding to play the whole tournament without wingers was comically poor planning as well.
There’s no way people are convinced we are moving in with two pathetic points. We don’t deserve to move on with this squad. They had a rough start against Spain, went down against Albania early and left it late to score two goals. Then we can’t even hold the lead by not marking players. It happened again today against Italy. 2 goals in six games… and allowed two late goals in the same fashion. It’s unreal that people think we deserve to make round of 16. We were relying on a 38 year old to carry us. That itself says it all. Our goaltending was good was the only key takeaway. The defending was the worst I’ve ever seen. We had a considerable amount of chances in all games but no top notch forward to carry us. Let this be lesson we need a change up in every aspect. The last two Euros have been very disappointing. Someone made a accurate comment. We’ve conceded and scored many late goals in the knockout stages or group games. We can’t never maintain a steady pace throughout the entire game. Today it was evident after leading when Italy were all over us. Not good enough and retirements have to be made, coaching, tactics, management, everything top to bottom. This generation is completely finished.
Conceded late against
Albania & Italy 2024
Russia 2018
Portugal 2016
Czech 2016
Spain 2012
Scored late against
Brazil 2022
Iceland 2018
Spain 2016
Facts. People saying this shit is rigged. If it was, our entire team was in on it allowing two last minute goals.
I think my comments are not coming through so apologise if this is the second-like comment that appears on this from me but..
i’ll bet no team has ever been eliminated due to 96th, 98th and 99th (Hungary v Scotland) minute goals before, no?
That has to be one of the unluckiest runs imaginable. It’s like some gypsy put a curse on us or something.
Dalic had a chance to slightly redeem himself by benching brozo and including budimir. DALIC OUT!!! Just refuse to watch anymore if actual wingers aren’t in the starting lineup.
Anyways the fix was in. Blatant corruption. Any ounce of contact was a foul, and almost every foul resulted in a yellow, haha. Meanwhile Italians fouling us and no whistle ffs. Uefa was never gonna lose money tonight.
I think that was generally a great game and that Dalić did everything that he needed to do except maybe subbing out Stanišić for Erlić at the end when Stanišić was clearly hurt. But the game was good. Croatia managed to score against the world’s best keeper. Croatia was close to having a second goal to seal the match. Think about it, if Budimir hadn’t been called for a phantom foul at the end there, we would be calling Dalić a great success, and the scoreline would have been different. Juranović must have not been watching the game to not see that Italy was using the same play over and over again to try to score from the left side. I enjoyed watching the Italy match, and I hope England beats Slovenia by 3-4 goals so that we can see more. Otherwise, let’s at least look forward to a new era of excellent Croatian football led by Andrej Kramarić and Mateo Kovačić, accompanied by a group of highly skilled young players who will only get better.
I like the optimism at the end there but krama is 33 and will have like 1 more tournament
Forget the ref’s, UEFA, Dalic’s terrible tactics, we lost because of Nike. This year’s kits are horrible and it was tough watching the boys play in those ugly kits. These were bad luck kits, similar to the 2020 Euro kits. Need to move on from Nike at some point.
I agree! These kits were too far from a classic home kit that always looks the same! Simple and beautiful. This kit simply veers too far from our world renowned classic checkerboard.
I have a question, is it really Dalic’s fault?
Is there a puppet master behind the scenes that caused this debacle in tactics and substitutions?
Is the great and all knowing Anonymous?
Here’s the quote from the self proclaimed ring leader.
“It’s good to see Dalic has been scrapping Anonymous and decided to implement each and every single one of his wise recommendation
#9 – as a reminder, my observation during Portugal friendly, was that bc Krama and Majer kept cutting into the middle – and this rendered Bambi Budimir completely useless – it was clear they didn’t want to pass to him and he was just getting in the way – as such, I was the one (the only person on this site), who said we don’t need either Budimir nor Petko – they don’t fit into the system – so voila Dalic listens to me and puts Krama as the “#9” – ur welcome
Bambi Budimir – he was terrible against Spain – zero pressing threat – ur delusional to think he should start – so voila he sits on the bench
Pongracic – as a reminder, I told u all in lead up (when he called with Pong and DCC) that he wasn’t happy w/ Erlic and wanted another player. Nobody believed me – so voila Pong starts his 2nd game (he was better than Sutalo vs. Spain) – he will do well tomorrow if he plays the same as he did vs. Spain (save the 3rd goal b4 half-time, but Carvajal was Majer’s man, so that’s on him)
Erlic – ur delusional – if u thought Dalic was randomly going to bring him in (the pecking order was set ahead of the tournament – and in fact Pong was better than Sutalo vs. Spain) lol – so naive – should I tell u the sky is actually pink ?
Broz – as a reminder, I told u all he hasn’t been that bad. His work rate on defensive end has been very good – so voila he starts tomorrow – the Butcher’s Son will not let us down in front of his former Italian colleagues / teammates
Gvardiol – his role as “LB” will be more a la Man City – i.e. he won’t be glued to the touchline tomorrow – he will have instruction to invert into the midfield as we go forward – as such, we will be playing a back 3 in attack (with Stanisic given instructions to hold back, unless he has a clear opportunity to get fwd) – furthermore, Broz will be parked directly in front of this front 3 to provide defensive support / cover (and/or fill in directly into the defensive line if as e.g. one of the CBs drive forward)
Majer – remember when everyone got excited bc he scored in a meaningless friendly against Portugal ? lol – so naive – as I’ve been saying for over a yr – he’s just a make-shift until the next kids ready to go – Sucic rightfully has taken his place
Automatic Baseball pitching machine – as a reminder, I told u he would be sitting for the Italy game
Sucic – I don’t have a view beyond limited stuff I’ve seen from him – I hope he has seen the stats that he is the 2nd slowest after Petko – and shows us he can sprint on some defensive runs / cover back – I would be shocked if he’s still 2nd slowest after tomorrow’s game – based on what I’ve seen / heard on here – I think he could actually (and ironically) do well playing on the wing i.e. taken on the FBs with his skill and dribbling thru them and/or using his left-foot to put in a Marco Pasalic strike
What’s intriguing about our formation (and why Krama is playing as the “#9”) is we will see significant inter-change from the front 5 all games – this will be extremely difficult for Italy to defend against (esp. given new personnel coming in on defensive for Italy) – they will have to have impeccable communication who takes who / who follows who, etc – as our players cut across the field and fill into each other’s just left spaces, etc
In Anonymous we trust”
Lillian Thuram – never scored a goal for France – and scores 2 against Croatia in 98 to kill the run.
Mattia Zaccagni – 29 year old with 7 appearances for italy probably scored his only international goal ever to kill croatias run.
Dalić with a masterclass…..plays 6 midfielders in the first half. 2nd half subs in a defender to play right wing. Leaves Broz in to run around aimlessly for the entire game.
That’s the best comment I’ve ever read
Have a good summer boys!
I’m devastated. Until we meet again!!
Did Perisic need to be introduced today? Dude is not well. Wtf
Dalić’s tactics were a disaster this whole tournament. There’s a lot that can be said about the past 3 games, but the most controllable aspect was our starting lineup. Dalić just never got it right and we ended every half in a rough position.
With that said, I’d still like to see Dalić stay and start fresh. But some of our younger guys really need to step up and show why they deserve to start over players like Kramarić and Brozović.
Agreed, Not a fan of Majer, but Luka Sucic, Marco Pasalic, and Miroslav Orsic should have had at least 180 minutes each in this tournament minimum, if we wanted success.
I agreed with his starting lineup for Spain. It would have been hard to deviate from that lineup after the Portugal match. But he botched it the following two games. And his subs were late and mostly nonsensical.
Two games in a row to be prompted by your player on the field about who to sub on and when, does not send a good message to the rest of the team. One has to question whether he has lost the locker room. I don’t see Dalić stepping down as it’s too much money to leave on the table. But will he be asked to leave? You have to factor in HNS still being cheap as they would still have to pay him. If Modrić decides to stay on, he may have some say in that decision.
Dalic subs were nuts- he left Broz in- and took two ball handlers out- get that bucket of no brain out- spend the money and get a real coach
I agree to an extent. There really arent many other options on the bench though. Mario Pas wouldve been a good sub at the end, but for some reason he had to start
Part of the problem of not having a lot of options off the bench was Dalić own doing with poor team selection. He brought an over abundance of CAM’s in Mario Pašalić, Vlašić, Majer, Ivanušeč, Baturina & Šučić. Did we really need SIX players that play the same position and have very similar skill sets?
This is almost as painful as the turkey equalizer many moons ago …1-1 was a fair score livakovic kept us in the game early.
I see us being a middling soccer nation for the next decade I hope I’m wrong
middling soccer nation go have a cold shower thats england .
When i think about all the last second or injury time goals we’ve conceded in tourneys…
turkey 08
portugal 16
russia 18
holland 23
albania 24
italy 24
and i think the one for was
brazil 22
is that about right? i may be forgetting some.. someone said we have had luck and that’s true but not with late goals.. when it comes to late goals we are the ones conceding… ALWAYS.. when did we ever score a late goal to get through other than brazil 22?
Let’s see if Dalic trip to Vatican pays off with an unlikely quadfecta of results lol
Yeah I am no expert like some of you guys on here but after watching zaccagni’s goal in slow motion why wasn’t Juranovic marking him? Or if that wasn’t who he was supposed to be marking why did their strategy get so f’d up to let zaccagni occupy such wide open space? Matter of fact why aren’t more of our guys back there?
This wasn’t their tournament that’s for sure. The dramatic goal by Modric in such a crucial game in his last tournament would have been legendary and to have Italy score an equalizer in the last seconds just like Albania did against them is just demoralizing.
8 minutes awarded to Italy is a bit much but the ref didn’t cause Croatia’s defensive formation to collapse so I can’t blame that. The refs always lean on the side of the big teams so its to be expected. Fkin hell.
Can’t hate on these guys too much they have provided us with lots of success over these last 7 years but losing points two games in a row at the last minute of stoppage time? thats gotta be some kind of first.
Experts!?!? That’s rich.
Devastating result, and puts us in the unenviable position of cheering for England. I’m going to be sick.
I’m not going to complain too much about external factors. They came up short again of their own volition, primarily because they were late to close down the man carrying the ball straight into our box. A second better reaction time and the pass would be wider, forcing Zaccagni to take his shot from a desperate angle.
I don’t have the heart to rewatch and ascribe blame yet, but Brozo was not in his usual position, and neither CB appeared to be looking for work during that movement. A big shame.
What the most challenging part of this loss may be is that Croatia may not play in another major tournament for 4 to 6 years.
If i look correctly, Croatia is ranked 8th by FIFA in Europe right now, with countries like Germany and swiss ranked lower. I’d imagine that could change after this tournament knocking Croatia into pot b for wc qualifying .. although I’m not totally familiar with how they do the seeding right now
i think the fall nations league will determine seeding
There are 12 groups for qualifying so Croatia should still be a #1 seed. But they will have trouble qualifying. They always make it difficult. And only the group winner makes it directly. Second place goes into a playoff, where you need to win two games.
Actually, our best qualification cycles came when a new coach came in and cleaned out the older vets.
Luka Sucic is legit. Kovacic has stepped up. Baturina will probably be a fringe starter.
We could still keep a vet or two for a stable transition (like Modric and Krama), but there would be no consortium of “senators” that run the team.
What’s the over/under on Dalic getting fired (and the HNS having to pay him out for those two years)?
Dalic will not get sacked, however I think that he will do the right thing and step down. It is time to move on with a new coach and a new bunch of players for the upcoming NL matches in September.
Another frustrating and heartbreaking tournament exit loss. Another what could have been.
On balance of play you have to say fair result, however when you concede in the last minute in consecutive matches its gut wrenching. In today’s match the team gave it all but unfortunately it was not enough, and luck was not on our side like in some previous tournaments.
We need a miracle to progress i.e. 4 results need to happen;
England need to beat Slovenia by 3 goals and keep Slovenia goalless.
Denmark must beat Serbia
Portugal has to beat Georgia
Turkey to beat Czech Rep.
Keeping Benjamin Sesko scoreless a third straight game, maybe a bridge to far. We will see. The other seem to be reasonable results.
thats still possible believe
Speechless.. to go down in two last games like that is shameful.. if you don’t hold the ball at key moments in the match then well your asking for something to happen.. and it happened… questionable foul in middle of pitch no excuse our guys should be ready for the last hurrah that Italy would throw and we got caught.. jebi ga tako nam je sudbina
They deserved the result. They looked old and looking for answers. Hrvatska needs new blood. Vrijeme je za promjenu.
Did Dalić bring anyone this tournament that is a natural CDM other than Broz? He was better in the second half against Italy, but overall the worst player of the tournament for me. Would have been nice to have someone to come in to help hold down the lead in both the Albania and Italy matches. And what was the point in bringing on Juranovic today?
i have to agree Modric gave everything this game including the solitary goal ( he goes out on hod shield)Dalic pays with his head for his bad decisions.
To keep the Juranovic injury-time equaliser streak going
The referee was the only one in the stadium who supposedly didn’t see that handball.
If he had blown it immediately – there wouldn’t have been 8 minutes added for VAR.
I know he saw it – just didn’t have the guts to call it against a top nation.
We had the right idea of fouling the Italians and taking the ball into corner to kill time, which we didn’t do against Albania, but Brozovic decided to chip the ball to the goalie, Stanisic dribbled it across the goal line and Perisic tried a cross along the ground – if the three of them just hung on to the ball…..
Every time we pressed Italy in their own half, we won the ball. Didn’t do it enough.
Stanisic was leaving the Italian winger wide open all game long. Italians picked on him throughout.
Subbing 2 players at a time cost Dalic. If we had one more sub available for those last moments- it would have killed time.
Sad to see Modric have to put his hands in the air to remind him about subbing.
One more comment about the referee – twice Italian players kicking the ball away received a talking to – Croatian players received yellow cards.
Had we time wasted properly in the Albania game like we did today, we’d be through.
There was no reason, penalty or no penalty to put eight minutes on the clock . 4 minutes say 5 tops . Those Italians push around the whole game just like the Portuguese did to us . Neither ref did anything. Anytime we had the slightest inch of contact it was foul and a yellow card. With one minute left we had the ball. We could not play keep away for one minute? Had we won no way we beat the Swiss . I don’t think we have legs to go the distance
I was so happy when Dalic was going to replace Stanisic, and then of course, he did not.
We all felt it coming, where was the old Croatia of yore, where we would control the ball. You would have thought we were down by two players those last 20 minutes. We had the Albania tie, in our recent past to educate ourselves, how could we possibly mess up again.
The last goal reminded me of a total Orsic goal, in so many ways. First the layoff pass, and then the final shot, in the farthest corner. So sadly, poetically tragic is our loss.
Sadly, that will be the last time I say,” Please don’t let Modric take the penalty kick.”
The fans throwing bottles were a disgrace
Dubrovnik is sad tonight. I may not even hang around. Just jump on the boat and head to hvar
As i have long said but been heavily condemned for…it is lady Lady Luck that rules the day
Croatia didn’t appear to play too badly this tournament. Today was arguably their worst game. But they played good enough to go through with luck on their side…. But it wasn’t.
I’m glad dalic listened to me and put in budumir in the second half. All the goals in the tourney came through him
Croatia did the same thing they did against Albania in the previous match. Lost it in the dying seconds. Can’t really complain they screwed themselves. The added time was there. You can’t have players rolling around on the ground time wasting and not expect to get more added time. It is what it is.
Croatia wasn’t rolling around on the ground wasting time.
We lost this game because Dalic (again) got it wrong in the first half by leaving out Budimir…causing us to waste yet another first half trying to figure things out. We were lucky not to be down 0-1 at the half.
Then when he finally subbed in Budimir, the goal comes.
Of course, Dalic needed to show to everyone that Broz was never the problem and he decides to sub out our best performing players (Sucic, Modric, Kovacic)…yet leaves our worst one in there.
Just like in the Albania game, Dalic gets cocky and puts in the purely offensive guys (Ivanusec, Majer, Juranovic) and (like clockwork) Juranovic leaves his man open, and Italy wins the game.
I had no idea what position Juranovic was playing near the end. He was all over the place.
This was a very unsatisfying tournament. All the same, thanks for the great input during the whole affair.
My thought exactly, that Dalic only wanted to prove us wrong about Broz.
I was also astonished about the subs…
100%
Exactly. Dalic lost the game. Enough of him.
guess we still havent lost to italy
Modric and perisic announced their retirement
Soo many crybaby complaining about the injury time after all Croatians spent most of second half wasting time: players throwing themself on the floor having “cramps” then suspiciously sprinting immediately after… substituted players going out walking as slowely as they could… even the fans unsportively throwing cups on the pitch at every corner kick!
I see many people are questioning the refs giving the Italians 8 minutes of extra time. Maybe FIFA president Gianni Infantino made a phone call before the match was over. I don’t know why 8 minutes was given.
8 minutes is egregious but still, there was a penalty review/VAR review, fans throwing trash on the field, time wasting by both sides and then Croatia celebrated the goal for like 2 mins… If anything still it should have been like 5-6 mins of added time maximum.
That’s not why Italy scored though, they scored because we let them walk into an open space with no defenders, nothing the keeper can do.
Don’t complain about the ref, we are just too old and toothless. Allowed someone to score completely unmarked in the last seconds of the game. Why not just hold the ball and waste time until the ref blew the whistle?
This is correct.. and we did it twice in a row! First time call it bad luck, but this is just bad fundamentals.
Dont complain about 8 minutes people, last two world cups we went twice to penalties, complain about how Dalic has no idea of tactics, whether you’re leading or trailing
I really don’t think we need to overanalyze. Stanisic doubled down and pinched into the middle when it was unnecessary and completely left his player for a shot. A wide open shot. If simply marks a blue shirt no one would be questioning Dalic.
Very true
So England has to destroy Slovenia by 4 goals, Czech, Serbia and Georgia all need to lose, am I correct?
3 goals not 4
3 Goals and we need other game results, so unlikely dont even care
Great goal by the Italian – but come on now, 8 minutes stoppage is real BS – can’t change things now, but the refs need to be reprimanded
Dude, the ref is getting a bonus. They don’t want Croatia in the playoffs. Hence a d-bag Dutch ref. Like 2018, let’s put a ref in that we can buy off, that nobody has ever heard of, from South America, for a final with two European teams. Nothing fishy about that.
Time for say goodbye to Modric and also to dismiss Dalic and his staff. Move forward with the youth and organize the team in a way which compliments the younger players. I don’t want to accept WC 2018 and 2022 as the high points and then we go back into obscurity. I do feel bad Modric never got a trophy. Hopefully we can have some better days ahead.
I’m also not going to forget that last minute though. Italy walked right in and that guy was unmarked.
Can’t imagine, correction.
What are our chances to squeak in on 2pts. I can imagine with our goal differential but is it possible if certain teams destroy someone that we can squeak in?
Serbia has to lose
Slovenia has to lose by 3 goals
Czech have to lose or draw
Georgia have to lose or draw
It would be pretty humiliating if we advanced to the next round as the worst ever team to advance to the Round of 16 at a Euro.
Would be pretty funny to match up against Portugal who was our pre-tournament friendly.
Czechs and Georgia both have to lose, as they each have a point now and better goal difference than Croatia, so if either tie, they bump Croatia out.
Nema srece i pameti. Can’t close the game and get players back in position. A team of good passers but not scorers.
Let’s not forget this was not a quarterfinal but a game to get out of group after a loss and a tie. We lost the luck this time around and don’t really deserve better. Kovacic should have stayed in, Modric too. Perisic had no business being on the field. I’m upset for Modric.
Luka could not run . He needed to go out
Where did the 8 minutes come from? Qatar was a terrible dishonest tournament and apparently we continue like this.
All the games had like only 4 minutes extra times. One game had ten minutes: Hungary-Scotland. But in that game there was a critical medical situaton which took more than 7 or 8 mintes.
Nonethless, the guys gave everything. It wan’t meant to be.
What were Juranovic and Stanisic doing leaving him wide open like that. My god, what a way to lose. And 8 minutes stoppage was a joke.
Dalic and that Mickey Mouse staff should step aside. Tactical stupidity this tournament.
Basically had this feeling we were ill-fated this whole tourney, very similar to every single tourney we played in prior to 2016. Hope we aren’t returning to the times of near-misses and general ill-fatedness again.
We always play defense at the end of these close games and it leads to an incredible number of shots against us. We refuse to try to score. We deserve these shots against us. Sad ending for Modric..
Total garbage!!!! Blame the ref as commentators said. WHO THE HECK ALLOWS 8’ OF STOPPAGE TIME?
This is the same Dutch ref that gave England that questionable penalty against Denmark at the last Euro. Not only did Sterling dive but there was a second ball on the field which caused half of the players to stop.
@The Great Anonymous Doom
Reminiscent of the non offside call against Turkey for Euro 08. Rakitic long ball was onside to Klasnic, it would had been a perfect through ball for a break away or sealed the game but no, no, no, free kick awarded.
1min injury time first half and then 8mins in the 2nd is beyond insane. Elite teams for the win.
We did not gets the calls your right correct. That’s not why we lost. We scored the goal and played defense we let the Italy have possession. It was only a matter of time . We had the ball at the end of the game. It’s a disgrace we could not hold the ball for minute .
We ended where we belong- out. Time has come. Best hope is Modric retires, Dalic resigns today and we get a coach who knows players and systems
I think Dalic should resign today too. Unbelievable that he made Broz play at all, but also I’m skeptical with the changes he did in the 2nd half, but also the timing of the changes… he waited too long for some players who were obviously tired + had a yellow
We absolutely deserve to go home. We are toothless.
Wow! Two games, we lose on the last play. Unbelievable! Too much to handle.
Ya we have had our fair share of the good side of that…. Fucking hurts tho
Got that 08 Turkey feel to it
Absolutely brutal.
Deserving to be going home.
True. We were shite this whole tournament.
So a 96th minute goal and a 98th minute goal against to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. What is it with us and being unable to hold on in injury time?
Gvarduil made a stupid risky challenge at the end and it cost us the game.
Where the fuck did the ref get 8 minutes from?
Unfortunately I was not able to watch any of the matches live this year, but. I find it odd that two straight games with a one goal lead have ten minutes stoppages that allow the opposing team to equalize. What gives?
It’s always been this way, each time Croatia is leading 6 to 8 minutes appear. Not the first time
Another phantom foul does Croatia in. No way was that a foul by Budimir that gave Italy the ball back.
It happened the entire game. The referee did everything possible to get Italy through. 8 minutes and the free to Italy that was Brozovics free that led the goal. It’s robber’s the highest again!!
8 goddamn minutes!!!!!!!! Regardless, they let Italy straight through.
8 minutes. Absolutely ludicrous.
Yup! Total garbage. And to think UEFA said prior to tourney our goal is not to extend stoppage time past 3-5 mins
Croatia make terrible decisions in injury time. Playing a high line against Albania when we were in the lead, and with Italy abandoning a counter to give the ball away when we had numbers up front, we could have just wasted time but no…
We just don’t deserve to win.
8 minutes extra time? Honestly and terrible substitution.
Ya I would have left luka in. I don’t know how you put ivanusec who hasn’t seen any time.
I would have even put petko instead as he is that big body if you really needed a forward
I love Luca as we all do, but he couldn’t run anymore. It was clear he was gassed.
I wont say much
But 8 mins???!
They wasted so much of the first half
This one will be a hard one to stomach
Didn’t Italy get booked at the end and they got to play it
Maybe I’m wrong
It was in their half
8mins injury time???
Unfuckingbelievable!
The ref is clearly favoring Italy!
Ahhahahahahhahahha
Another yellow?!?!?!? They need to do something because they are going to get scored on. Come on!
El Maestro coming off.
Why are we finally pressing when we need to bunker???
Kovacic got a winger who has not played all year?
This is a mess. We’d be lucky if Italy don’t score. Why keep Modric on? Take him out instead of Kovacic, and put in Baturina, maybe even marco pasalic
Why take Kova out instead of Modric? We need the younger legs in to defend
Croatia have no defense. Italy are picking and choosing where to go.
We look horrendous in the back. Gvardiol is making his best argument get labeled as overrated.
only a matter of time until we concede.
YES!!!! Way to go Budimir and Modric!!!!!!
Holy Fuck. Luka the redeemer! Now please lets lock in and not fall apart like we did against albania
I’ve got bad news…
why. did. Kramaric. not. take. that penalty. lol okay modric just scored
Way too many passengers on this team, not enough dynamism.
Marco Pasalic please
As someone that now lives in Croatia, I really don’t give a fuck about the game. I’d like to see Franjo Tuđman’s grave destroyed and HDZ politicians put in prison. Croatia going forward means NOTHING for the people of Croatia.
Eat shit commie.
Commie? Eat dick faggot
You are pissed cause juga broke up? Get over it.
@Rondell
Tudjman (Tito’s youngest general) was a commie, and if he didn’t die when he did he would’ve been found to be a war criminal.
The way I see it is that you’re the commie, and you’re eating the sh*t HDZ, SDP, Mozemo etc. are serving up in the sabor.
If you think Tudjman is a war criminal then you are a clown. I get HDZ now has many problems but you really think he is a war criminal? You can eat shit as well.
You probably think that Praljak, whose ultimate purpose Tudjman the communist shared, wasn’t a war criminal either lol, you just keep eating sh*t you f****** meathead.
If commie Tudjman didn’t die he would’ve been found to be a war criminal, and that’s a fact, so it’s clear that you’re a commie stupidly calling someone else a commie (projection), eventhough it’s obvious that you are a commie shit eating loser lol!
How do you feel about a museum in Croatia for the victims of communism (Tudjman was a commie) ya f****** minority c***?
HATES TUDJMAN AND PRALJAK….MUST BE A SLOVENE.????
@Rondell
Both my parents are Croats.
Slovenes are great people, people like Roman Leljak I’d gladly make Croatia’s president, while you commies shit on and lie about Croats that Slovene is exposing your peoples lies.
I’m done here, I think I’ve adequately shown that you’re a commie pretending to be a Croat.
Are you really? Like I said,let the people who read this site know who you think is a war criminal.
For your next article you should write all about our so called war criminals. Go ahead and do it, you know you want to.
Surprised how bad the Italians are today. Thankfully!
If Dalić came out with the right lineup we could be winning by now
And Albania with the go ahead goal.
huh? they are losing
Oops! Meant Spain. Spain with the go ahead goal.
Brozovic and Pasalic out
Budimir and Perisic in
Another putrid first half as we’ve become accustomed to. For those saying we were gonna win 4-1 and 3-0 and stuff, looks like a better question will be whether we can create one single chance even or have a solitary shot on goal.
Perišić
Marco P
Brozović and Pasalic off right Now.
Need two subs in to start the second half.
Cro too slow, Brozo losing possession regularly.
Realistically speaking even if Cro wins, another team will exploit those free headers and shots front just outside the box. Also It’s obvious teams attack us down the middle of our D with balls over the top the same way Wales and Turkey did in qualifying.
It took only 45 minutes and Brozovic finally makes a run behind the Italian defense. There is no movement and a lot of standing around. Therefore, there is no penetrating passes and chances at goal. Italy has far less skill than we do and yet they have created some chances with just a bit of movement. Either we are lazy or very tired because the lack of movement when we have the ball is not going to create anything offensively.
Let’s go!!
This is similar to the first two games but with less offense. And thank Livaković for not being down at the half.
1 shot on goal with that lineup.
6 midfielders aimlessly wandering around.
This is frustrating to watch.
get brozovic out he loses the ball he’s slow, and this last run he did he was so behind lol.
dalic tried him again and he’s not delivering again. stop pushing it
We play how we play. They aren’t magically going to change the style during the tournament. Dalic’s lineup choices are questionable. Marco P/ Ivanusec/ Pjaca would be better than Mario P. Brozo has been shit. Too many people mock the MLS, but the Saudi league is more of a retirement league in my opinion.
These guys suck and have so all tournament. Deserving of elimination.
Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Italy is more than happy to allow an old, slow team to just pass the ball around. And cheers to the guy below who said this lineup is perfect, lol.
Never should have started Modric or Brozovic. They’re too old and Italy are not surprised by anything we have to offer. We need to catch them when they’re out of formation, because they get back into formation very quickly when we pass and we’re not skilled enough on the offensive side to score against Italy’s defense when it’s in formation.
No production at all from Stanisic and Pasalic. We need to move the ball a lot faster and show some urgency
We need Budimir.
Sorry to see Modric so marginalized. I guess it’s only to be expected at his age but he’s not the player we were used and not running much at all.
They put a stat up which had that Sucic strike going at 75 mph. Too bad it didn’t find the back of the net. Need more of that.
Love to see that from Sucic at least he’s not afraid to go for goal
The positive about this lineup is that it has a lot of really good finishers in it. Think about it: Croatia has been 2nd in created chances and expected goals at the tournament so far while playing against arguably the team’s best tournament and a complete bunker defense by Albania. The team’s two big problems are back line defending and finishing. There is no evident way to improve the back line, but improving finishing is easy: replace the players who have blown chances in front of goal (Majer, Petković, Budimir) with players who are excellent finishers and attack the goal. Plus, the best way to beat a world-class shot stopper like Donarumma is to tikitaka the ball practically into the box. The guys in this starting lineup can pull that off in a way that other combinations would not. Perišić lacks the fitness to start the match, Budimir lacks the touch, Petković lacks the speed and aggressiveness… What else are you going to do if you’re the coaching staff? We have to trust Kova, Krama, Broz, Gvardiol, Stanišić and the Lukas to make the win happen. These guys will want to stay in the tournament out of pride.
This has been Modric bulletin board material all wk long
442oons 3-0! SPAIN vs CROATIA????
***.youtube.com/watch?v=D0aZtHYWmVY
I am surprised budimir isn’t being shown more love from dalic. He did have both assists last game and they weren’t necessarily easy
Scared! Think we’re in deep shit. How long till we make a bad pass, and here’s what will likely happen:
one simple ball from them over the top and guess what, it’s 1 on 1 time all over again
hope to be wrong but not at all confident
Croatia starting with the same shit old line up of geriatric people
Idemo kuci, time to fire that moron Dalic
agree
I’m ok with this lineup except I would have had Pjaca on the left wing.
Perfect line-up
This would have been an outstanding lineup in 2014.
Hopefully for Croatian victory but wouldn’t bet money on it.
2-1 for Italy
I don’t know, Gvardiol was 12 at the time, I don’t think he would have been much of a factor, lol
Pressure is off for me, since I don’t expect much. This is different than say 2002 or 2014. I expected a result against Ecuador (after beating Italy) and Mexico (after playing well against Brazil and Cameroon).
Yeah i feel the same way. Watching it with the old man but we both expect to lose/draw for sure so my heartrate isnt as high as it usually is for these games either.
We lost before the game started.
Budimir should be starting.
We are playing with no striker, but we need a win to advance.
When you throw shit at the wall something will eventually stick. Let’s just hope today is one of those days.
As I said prior to Albania, this has a bit of the feel of euro 2021 when dalic is just kind of grasping for straws and constantly tinkering with the line up
Maybe the chemist magically finds the recipe, but more likely things tend to blow up
It is kind of funny though cause it’s damned if you do damned if you don’t. You see these line up changes and they reek of desperation and a team without identity but if he just sticks with the same old, people would criticize for not adapting..
Seriously… also, it’s certain that all the comments about him play in broz’s head and in the team’s head about broz.
Hopefully Dalic at least relieves broz at half time and get Baturina or anyone else in there lol.
The only reason i can think of of how he could possibility justify this is the fact that broz played in italy for so long… but erlić also plays there and apparently he still prefers pongracic (who’s also playing in italia no?)
i think that if we lose this match, especially if we lose by a lot, this decision of making broz play will be what decided the end of dalic’s reign as croatia’s coach
I think we shouldve played a back 3 of stanisic, sutalo, and gvardiol. Add a 7th midfielder?
I would have loved to seen Marco Pasalic on the right wing and Miroslav Orisic on the left, just to see what that would have been like.
Even if Miroslav was a step slower, he always shoots and passes with a purpose
I was hoping, Dalic had some stronger ideas in mind, and I was wrong. Seems he is just throwing things at the wall, and hoping something will stick at this point.
I am along for the ride, but not liking it too much, with 1 point to speak of. Would like to see them win today
Livaković – Stanišić, Šutalo, Pongračić, Gvardiol – Modrić, Brozović, Kovačić – Mario Pašalić, Kramarić, Sučić.
Wtf?
awful awful
You know what I would really like to see?
Modric make a beautiful pass up the field to Kova. Then kova does that cool dribble thing through some defenders at the box and instead of blowing it he makes a smooth pass/assist to (Buddha/Krama/Petko) for the nice finish..
Like a play that Dalic drew up on the damn chalkboard for once. It shouldn’t be that hard?
It’s really seems like it’s gotten way over complicated??
I really hope this game brings us back from insanity!!
Would love to score first and maybe twice and win ???? against Italy!
Next round let’s go!!
Changing formations every game, changing starting lineups every game, is not a recipe for success in a tournament. It will lead to players being out of position at crucial times. I am not expecting much today.
England kept the same line-up vs. Denmark, that they had vs. Serbia, and they got worst
What’s your point? One example of a team playing worse with the same lineup, and against a better team than the previous game, yeah you never see that happen, right? Except most of the time. If you think these changes every game are a good sign, more power to you.
All these different tactics and formations OVER THE YEARS NOW have my brain fried? I still don’t understand why Dalic still doesn’t understand how to best utilize his team and use his players most effectively with a correct and proven system. I’m going to start calling Dalic a
Mad Scientist instead of a coach because every game is a crazy experiment with stressful results.
It’s as if Dalic woke up game day this morning and had 3 yellow sticky notes on his bathroom mirror….
#1 Who is going to be your striker and who are your wingers?????
#2 what midfield should you put together???
#3 who do you play on defensive and in what positions???
The whole team is a rubix cube?????
We have talent we have youth we have experience we have a strong team.. it just seems like it’s being mismanaged. We should be really good. Very frustrating to see blundermania.
I still can’t believe we didn’t at least bring Orsic?
Let’s just beat Italy and regroup and hopefully something will click.
I will take the mad scientist, Coach Dalić, tatherthan the previous 18 years before him any day! Viva Zlatko! Go Croatia!
Pandemonium on the streets of Leipzig. Tens of thousand of Hrvati, fired up, chanting “We want Victory!” Locals have never seen anything like it.
At this point, the line up is what it is…just hoping Dalic’s insane 4-6-0 strategy actually works. If changes are necessary, would like to see a winger subbed in for one of the midfielders…Pjaca, M. Pasalic, and Ivanuvec are you even at the tourney!?
We’re going ALL IN on the Barcelona tika taka strategy
It’s a 4-1-5
Broz is the “1” – parked in front of back 4 (and slotting back into the defensive line if one of the CBs make a run fwd, etc)
The “5” is all fwd players – interchanging positions all game – will be difficult to defend against
This line-up gives us the best chance of winning (given the personnel we have / Dalic is willing to actually play)
Fuži are better than ravioli
If they win I’m getting 6-4-0 tattooed on me.
Dalic going for Barcelona tika taka 4-6-0 strategy
Mali nogomet through the crowded middle. Flanks and crosses are for losers. Hoping we don’t get burned badly on counters.
How many goals at Euro 2024 have been from actual “crosses” ?
Aside from Yamal 3rd goal – can’t think of any others (there must be but can’t remember and definitely not many)
Apparently, no team does crosses anymore
#SayNoToCrosses
so what is the projected line up?
If we win and Albania wins also, will we still move through in that 3rd place spot?
Yes, unless Slovenia beats England, Denmark and Serbia isn’t a tie, Austria at least ties France, one of the group E matches is a tie, Georgia beats Portugal and Czechs tie or beat Turkey. And if Croatia does get third place, they would play either the group E winner (Belgium?) or Portugal.
Sorry I meant Austria ties Netherlands.
OK nice. I wasnt trying to analyze the groups like you did so hvala puno brate
depends on goal differential, but the chances are very good
@ Miki
1000 percent agree, if Spain can play a 16 year old then why on Gods green earth do we have this love affair with starting players in their late 20’s or early 30’s???
Regarding Pjaca, his debut was in 2014 now he’s 29 years old. I know he had some injuries but if we can literally stretcher Perisic onto field after ACL reconstruction, Pjaca wasn’t able to be used in the last decade?
Anyway, I’ve had this debate so many times. Players playing abroad and riding the pine and then we think they are late bloomers only because they hadn’t had chance to develop.
Scary 4-6-0 formation.
Just going to try and burrow through the middle against two excellent CBs and keeper.
Gvardiol will probably be our only player taking on the Italian fullbacks on the flank, but then it will leave us exposed defensively again.
Broz slots into Gvardiol spot when he runs fwd (or any of the CBs slots)
Stanisic no license to get fwd (unless there is a real opening)
Solved
Markus, I’m gonna pick on you a little.
earlier in the video you mentioned how significantly Borzovic’s stats have dropped and then later in the video you mention how our stats demonstrated our creativity BUT we have had the most goalkeeper saves against.
when you reviewed Broz’s stats did you also look at how often we turned the ball over as a team? I agree Broz hasn’t been himself but without looking, I also get the impression we as a team have made several attempts to make a pass but the pass got cut off. thats a team issue, not a Broz issue.
Modric keeps getting decent sofa score reviews but in my opinion, he’s been silent and nowhere near as good as he needs to be.
Next generation new coach beacuse Dalic is like a father figure rather than a coach with no emotions.
He takes things too personally.
We dont take risks and play young team last few years its the same core since 2018 with a different supporting cast
Why dont we put younger guys who deserve it to play and have time and build we are fucking up the future with this imo
Sucic is a stud imo
What happen to pasalic pjaca ivanusec? Why call sosa if you dont like him
Also reading pongracic will play
For the morons criticizing Broz over the first two games
Friendly reminder, care of his team-mate, how he approaches training/running
U can’t / wont’ stop Epic Broz
We will see the “real Broz” today
***.tiktok.com/@theunclesharma/video/7311338274595884321
How could we have ever dared presume differently, for indubitably it was always going to be Dalic’s holy grail trademark 4-6-0 formation; 4 CBs, 6 CMs, 0 wingbacks, 0 wingers, and 0 strikers. The epitome of dalics tactical intellect. Cross your fingers, pray to gospa, pack the middle, and hope for a 1-0 deflection or own goal.
Dalic is the type of guy who put 200 kunas under his mattress because he will “always have it”, rather than having balls taking a risk and investing it. Not realizing its now worthless before its too late. MBK is dead, time to move on.
I like Dalić, but I cannot believe the INSANE lineup he allegedly plans to use.
What motivation will our players have going into this game with this lineup?
The only hope we have is being scoreless at halftime and Dalić making changes in an attempt to score a goal.
Italy worst team to play only needing a draw,
Croatia worst team to play when back against the wall.
Biggest, & best game of tournament about to be played
We have never had 3 stinkers in a row in group stage …we are DUE!!
In the 2006 WC, we lost 1-0, tied 0-0, and tied 2-2. But I hope you are right.
We actually played really well vs Brazil in that tourney.
Euro 2004 we also finished with just 2 points.. admittedly a tough group (England and France) and we were kinda cheated vs France.
Krama has to play even if he needs to play goalkeeper.
I tip my hat off if we sink sink with the boys who made you famous.
If he had balls i would go with
Livi Stanisic Sutalo Gvardiol Sosa.
Modric Kova Sucic Pasalic Budimir Ivanusec
If the leaked line-up is true, I hope they sub-in Budimir in second half, sub-in Sosa for Broz (to provide crosses), and have Gvardiol move into the midfield-proper (giving both offence and defence) with either Kovacic or Gvardiol covering, depending on the situation. You can then bring in Juranovic on the right side (if you need offence) and have two more subs for Modric/Sucic/Pasalic.
I have followed Croatia since the ‘98 WC. Coach Dalić definitely has been the best. But I just don’t feel like this tournament has been right for us. Just not the same feel of confidence. Maybe some things behind the scenes? But a little break could change things. Win or lose, I think Coach Dalić should be given one more chance for the ‘26 WC. Viva Zlatko!
you are delusional!!!
Thanks for the compliment
Shit you left out an !
@Mile and Maminjo
https://croatiansports.com/the-fix-is-in-when-will-smaller-nations-get-a-fair-shot/#comments/508902
Thanks fellas, that was enlightening 🙂
***
U boj u boj!!
It’s good to see Dalic has been scrapping Anonymous and decided to implement each and every single one of his wise recommendation
#9 – as a reminder, my observation during Portugal friendly, was that bc Krama and Majer kept cutting into the middle – and this rendered Bambi Budimir completely useless – it was clear they didn’t want to pass to him and he was just getting in the way – as such, I was the one (the only person on this site), who said we don’t need either Budimir nor Petko – they don’t fit into the system – so voila Dalic listens to me and puts Krama as the “#9” – ur welcome
Bambi Budimir – he was terrible against Spain – zero pressing threat – ur delusional to think he should start – so voila he sits on the bench
Pongracic – as a reminder, I told u all in lead up (when he called with Pong and DCC) that he wasn’t happy w/ Erlic and wanted another player. Nobody believed me – so voila Pong starts his 2nd game (he was better than Sutalo vs. Spain) – he will do well tomorrow if he plays the same as he did vs. Spain (save the 3rd goal b4 half-time, but Carvajal was Majer’s man, so that’s on him)
Erlic – ur delusional – if u thought Dalic was randomly going to bring him in (the pecking order was set ahead of the tournament – and in fact Pong was better than Sutalo vs. Spain) lol – so naive – should I tell u the sky is actually pink ?
Broz – as a reminder, I told u all he hasn’t been that bad. His work rate on defensive end has been very good – so voila he starts tomorrow – the Butcher’s Son will not let us down in front of his former Italian colleagues / teammates
Gvardiol – his role as “LB” will be more a la Man City – i.e. he won’t be glued to the touchline tomorrow – he will have instruction to invert into the midfield as we go forward – as such, we will be playing a back 3 in attack (with Stanisic given instructions to hold back, unless he has a clear opportunity to get fwd) – furthermore, Broz will be parked directly in front of this front 3 to provide defensive support / cover (and/or fill in directly into the defensive line if as e.g. one of the CBs drive forward)
Majer – remember when everyone got excited bc he scored in a meaningless friendly against Portugal ? lol – so naive – as I’ve been saying for over a yr – he’s just a make-shift until the next kids ready to go – Sucic rightfully has taken his place
Automatic Baseball pitching machine – as a reminder, I told u he would be sitting for the Italy game
Sucic – I don’t have a view beyond limited stuff I’ve seen from him – I hope he has seen the stats that he is the 2nd slowest after Petko – and shows us he can sprint on some defensive runs / cover back – I would be shocked if he’s still 2nd slowest after tomorrow’s game – based on what I’ve seen / heard on here – I think he could actually (and ironically) do well playing on the wing i.e. taken on the FBs with his skill and dribbling thru them and/or using his left-foot to put in a Marco Pasalic strike
What’s intriguing about our formation (and why Krama is playing as the “#9”) is we will see significant inter-change from the front 5 all games – this will be extremely difficult for Italy to defend against (esp. given new personnel coming in on defensive for Italy) – they will have to have impeccable communication who takes who / who follows who, etc – as our players cut across the field and fill into each other’s just left spaces, etc
In Anonymous we trust
I guess we’ll see what happens, but Krama playing as a #9 will have a lot of problems competing with the tall Italian CB’s. If it does not work out, second half we can bring on Budimir who in my opinion had a good match v Albania with two assists.
I do not have a problem with Pongracic playing as a CB the guy was unfairly made a scapegoat for our loss to Spain. I would never play Gvardiol as a CB again until he starts playing that position regularly for his club side.
The first goal that Albania scored, you have to question Gvardiols positioning? where was he? he should have been there to intercept that cross, instead he got dragged out of position by following an Albanian player towards the byline/corner flag leaving a huge hole in our defence which resulted in the goal.
Brozovic still does a lot of running; however, it is at a reduced pace and as such he no longer is able to cover for other players or make intercepts.
Some examples: Friendly match v Portugal – the cross comes in from the flank and Portugal score. A fraction after the cross is made you see Brozovic sliding in trying to intercept the ball but too late.
Spain second goal the guy dribbles past Modric on the edge of the box, Brozovic also rushes in gets turned and Spain score through the legs of Sutalo.
Albanian first goal, Gvardiol gets caught out of position and the cross comes in and they score with a header. Guess who was 2/3 meters behind the Albanian goal scorer? it was Brozovic, again late on the scene.
First half v Albania – they catch us on a quick break and play a through ball towards their left side. Brozovic comes late on the scene and goes in with a slide tackle, gets a touch on the ball and redirects it away from Sutalo into the path of the Albanain attacker for 1 on 1 with Livakovic which luckily for us Livakovic saves.
Dalic is stubborn and he feels indebted to our senior players for all the achievements over the years and he is reluctant to drop them. Hopefully we can win against Italy and that Brozovic has a good match.
Regardless of our result at the EURO, I think that Dalic will step down and some of the senior players will go with him such as Modric, Vida and in all probability Perisic.
Krama @ “#9” works bc Mario cuts inside – Krama goes wide – Sucic cuts inside Krama goes wide – Kova comes forward – Krama goes back etc etc – for corners w have Pong and Stanisic – not worried about height – we need to find a way to exploit these 2 young CBs
I know what ur saying about Broz – seeming to be “one step late” in some of the challenges (I agree he has seemed just one step late a few times) – but I think it’s binary – if he’s playing today it’s bc (after discussion with Modric) he thinks he can be v close to “old Broz” – if that’s not possible (and I’m sure Modric has pressed him) – than he won’t play – so if we see him starting – we should expect “old Broz” – he doesn’t want to embarrass himself against his old Inter coach (dido Perisic when he comes on in 2nd half) – and deep down inside the guys a crazy fighter (check out interviews when they training camps at Inter and Broz wouldn’t stop running in training, they had to drag him off the field) – Modric just needs to bring that to the surface and he’ll be good – he’s had the 4 games now (2x friendlies plus first two games)
Forums are the not easiest place for a thorough discussion or being able to relay one’s opinion on a certain subject.
I’ve often said things after proof reading a million times and still regretted the submission but once it’s been posted theirs no opportunity to edit.
As many of us watched Ante and his crew spend over an hour discussing Hrvatska it still wasn’t enough to cover everything.
Now if the Cro Soccer team called each other a Peder for every disagreement, that’s grounds to break someone’s jaw.
My number rule online is never to insult someone’s manhood while hiding at home in the safety of Mamas Kangaroo Pouch.
Furthermore, if anyone (Truth & Iggy) on this site truly believes any of us wouldn’t want to scrape into the knockout phase then you’re crazy.
Maybe some of our posts were due to frustration at moment or from decades of disappointment. We all have our sports cross to bear and have many cardiac attacks to match.
I’ve said for years, every time Croatia gets a group of death, that I cherish the challenge. I’m always wanting France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, etc because to have bragging rights we must beat the best.
Lastly, those who lack wisdom in life will follow the keyboard cowboys. I’ve watched this virus in society for decades. Either in gaming or forums such as these.
If want to be a real man then keep your trap shut, show some damn respect when writing your Croat Brothers.
One of the worst offenders in that regard that I have seen over the last 10 years would be old Slavonac from Canada (keyboard cowboy). I recall him saying your mother this, your father that and the nabijem one too. It was very vulgar. Although the person did bring up Slavonac’s self admitted Serb lineage.
@Bila Lasica
Lol, to funny. Ya, I actually stayed away from forums for 5-10 years because I cant stand internet disrespect, which might revisited after this tournament.
God Bless Bila
@ Slavic sniper
I have good news for you. The yatch made it to Dubrovnik that i can go watch the game there tomorrow amongst the people
Dubrovnik does truly remain a gem, although i get annoyed by tourists walking through the stari grad with shirts off. I feel like buza bar is often to blame for those because tourists go cliff diving there and then go back into the city shirtless
Hey dumbass. If you actually had a yacht, you would probably know how to spell the word ‘yacht’.
@the truth 2
Your boastful yacht rhetoric and philanthropy is enough to make everyone vomit on this site topped by your insane bunker theory but I digress.
@iggy
Anyone commenting on stupid comments and calling their Croatian Brothers wankers while hiding behind a keyboard speaks volumes.
I’m feeling positive about tomorrow. It’s never been easy being a Croatian fan that’s the way it’s been for years. The heart is always pounding. The tournament starts tomorrow and we forget about what happened or should have been done. Big Win ????????????????⚽️????
Let’s go night game Modrić on fire
For all the Kovačić supporters out there.
We have been waiting for years for our boy to come good.
Tomorrow is the day.
Kovačić with a dominant performance tomorrow.
He will free up Modrić and Sučić to do there thing.
2-0 Croatia
Waiting for the day that never comes. LOL
what a delusional guy,
under Dalic we suffer from shit!
I have a good feeling as Croatians we can never take the easy route but I have faith we can still do good this tournament. I predict 3-1 Croatia with a brace from Budimir and Kovacic rocket early on in the game. As much as I hate the way this tournament is going I think this is finally the time we get in check
Would be interesting if we won, Albania won, we get one of the third place places, and we draw Portugal. It would be a reverse 2016, where we won our group and they got third place. The only problem with this is we would be on the heavy side of the draw, with Germany and Spain. And if Netherlands beats out France for first place, the path to the finals would be Portugal, France and the semis would be vs the winner of Spain/Germany. It appears Germany would have been better off not tying their game today.
However, say we beat Italy and Spain beats Albania. We get second and play the Swiss. Then the QF would be likely against England. If Netherlands beats out France for first place, the four possible semifinalists would be Netherlands/Turkiye/Belgium/Austria. Not a terrible path.
Here’s a fun link to enter in the teams and project the playoffs:
https://gaming.uefa.com/en/eurotournamentbracket
I know Croat’s record vs Italy is a good one but let’s be honest, would need the stars to align and everyone would have to have a blazing hot performance, chances are they’ll be beaten comfortably, don’t like the old boys chances, old, it’s the end of an era, time to rebuild, dalic if u see ???? this ,do not play brozo, do not play petko, good luck old men
At least the results today allow Croatia an almost guaranteed third place spot with a win tomorrow, which could happen if Albania beat Spain, which already clinched first place. Croatia would be third with 4 points. Not much chance of the remaining four groups all having a third place team with 4 points. Slovenia would have to beat England for their group to have a third place team with at least 4 points. I’m kind of glad we have to win tomorrow. I don’t want a third place spot with 2 points.
Now that I think of it…
I would have preferred we finish with 2 points and that Switzerland won today (with Hungary/Scotland remaining scoreless).
I would have loved for us to be the first Euro team to progress with only 2 points, then immediately be paired up against the tournament hosts (who would be under immense pressure to win, ha ha).
We would give new meaning to the word spoiler, lol. Pundits would lose their minds.
We wouldn’t be paired up with Germany if we get a third place spot. We can only play either the winner of E or F if we get a third place spot. So likely Belgium or Portugal, which I would be Ok with either at this point.
Oh right. I had us in second place in our group for some reason.
So…how do we know which 3rd place teams play which 1st place teams?
Is it predetermined, or is it a draw?
Like…if Hungary makes it as one of the top-4 third-placed teams, do we know already which group winner they play?
It all depends on which 4 groups make up the third place teams. I went through the combinations for Croatia, and there are 5 combinations where they would play the winner of group E and equally 5 combinations for group F. If you click on the link I posted above, you can fill in the group standings, and then pick the third place teams. Then it shows you what the playoff matches would be. Very interesting if the Dutch win their group and Croatia gets second. Croatia would then be in the half of the draw without Germany, Spain, France and Portugal. We would be with Netherlands, England and Belgium.
That Hungary Scotland result is a bummer
I don’t want to hear any people acting high brow like advancing in a tie is unworthy and they would rather not
Let’s know who we are. Croatia. We take anything we can get
You think Portugal would’ve rather gone out with their tie in 2016?
Famous comments on this forum:
“if we cant beat x team, we dont _deserve_ to go through”
“i’d rather not go through if we dont deserve to”
“i’d RATHER play France/Spain/Brazil in the round of 16, you have to beat the best to BE the best!”
and lots of other stupid comments.
I will gladly take any level of kicking, scraping and crawling to get through and i never understand the above type of comments. The most annoying one to me is the cunts who act happy when we get a really hard draw “oh this is GOOD” lol.. total wankers.
And yeah i immediately thought of portugal not winning a game in their group in 2016..
Portugal didn’t win a game in the entire tournament (other than Wales).
They beat us and France in extra time. Everything else was a draw…yet you only hear the pundits knocking us for being a team that relies on draws or PKs, lol.
New lineup leak announced. Krama for Budimir. Sucic on the left. Brozovic in. Pongracic for Erlic
I saw that… If its true necu ni gledat utakmicu
Funny! I was literally thinking of posting the same comment.
I like Dalić, but this is insane if it’s true.
I guess Dalic figures if we’re not going to use our wing to attack and feed our striker, may as well double down in the midfield.
We’re essentially playing a 4-6-0 lineup
My friend is cousins with Luka sucic, he said he be starting tomorrow. Let’s hope this is true.
Friend of mine is cousins with Luka sucic and he told him he was starting. Let’s hope this is true.
I havent looked very closely but we have to be one of the only teams with no players on a yellow? I dont count Ivusic getting one from the bench. Swiss and Germany both had players get banned for their next game. Hopefully helps us play a little more aggressive tomorrow
Honestly, if we tie I wouldn’t care to advance. This is a momentum making game.
If we win and do it well, I can see it building are fractured confidence. That inertia can easily carry us far into the knockout stages.
Furthermore, the highlights of this tournament by the pundits so far, is gaff goals(Ty Turkey) spectacular goals and bad reffing.
Even the talking heads are admitting the reffing as been a debacle, lol.
Lastly, that being said my money is Germany will be go to the final and be pushed to win. Then the powers that be will spout the home country historical narrative/propaganda.
Dalić just $hit his pants from that Hungary goal.
Haha, he’s not shitting his pants, he’s still getting paid for the next couple of years with his sweet contract.
He will have a tighter grip on his rosary beads tomorrow though.
the end of this scotland hungary game is exciting lol.. cmon 0-0..
ahhhhhh 99th minute goal.. damn
If Croatia finish 2nd why would we be playing group A’s second place team. Dosent 2B play 2A?
We do, as of this second that is Germany!
Could be Scotland or Swiss but right now it’s Germany
So if Switzerland top their group(1A) wouldn’t Croatia play them?
No 2a play 2b
All the 3rd place teams change conventional bracket
Thank You
Huh?? You answered your own question with the correct answer. Croatia would be 2B.
Is it in the best interest for the Germans to lose today?
Not at all.
If we beat Italy tomorrow, we play the 2nd place team in Germany’s group for the Round of 16…which is currently Germany.
There is no way UEFA will allow Germany to be eliminated in the Round of 16. They are going to VAR the eff out of whoever they are matched up with.
I mean for Germany! Obviously we want the Swiss
I think there is an easier path actually. Group A can still finish with a worse third place team. just need hungary and scotland to tie. then need turkey to beat czech and portugla to beat georgia.
Yep we are all crossing our fingers for Scotland and Hungary to both be too shit to score a goal lol
we could also cheer for serbia to beat denmark by 3 goals at least
So there are only two potential groups that could generate 3rd place teams worse than Croatia. Those are group C with england, denmark, slovenia and serbia and group f with portugal, turkey, czech, and georgia.
In order for croatia to advance with a tie, you need the current potential thrid place teams of slovenia to get crushed vs england by 3 goals and both czech losing to turkey and georgia losing to portugal.
Those final conditions seem doable. I suppose slovenia could lose by 3 goals to england but that’s getting tougher.
And group A if Scotland and Hungary tie.
What is the scenario where Croatia advances with a draw?
Albania would have to lose to Spain AND two of these scenarios below have to happen…
– If Hungary and Scotland (who are playing right now) ends up in a draw.
– If Georgia and Czech each lose their final games to Portugal and Turkey
– If Serbia lose to Denmark, and Slovenia loses by three goals to England
it comes down to the team . We have the talent to win. Do they have the self respect pride and dignity for themselves and their country to rise up and give it everything they got and extra to win, is the bigger question. Are they hungry ! how bad do they want this ? Now is the time for Luka to rally the troops and be the leader that Dalic is not . I expect tomorrow’s game to be controversial. Full of hijinks and bad calls . Look for a Italy penalty . I called it first