Croatia travels to Minsk on August 12th for one of their most important qualifiers in recent years. Anything less than a win against Belarus will surely see Croatia throw away a chance to play in South Africa next summer.
The Croatian national squad will finally be back at 100% with Eduardo, Niko Kranjčar and Ivica Križanac returning from injury. I have no doubt in my mind that Croatia will win this game. If Croatia can’t beat a mediocre Belarus team after two draws with Ukraine; they don’t deserve to play amongst the world’s elite at the World Cup next summer. Granted Croatia have been through a tough stretch with injuries to some star players and an unforgiving red card call and defensive misstep against England.
With all that in hand, we still control our own destiny for a playoff spot.
PREDICTION: Croatia cruises to a 3-0 victory with two goals by Eduardo and another by Luka Modrić.
I’m also taking suggestions to whether CSR should Twitter the game live like we’ve been doing the past two matches. Please let me know if you are interested as the game lies in a work/school day.
Hi all,
Croatia face belarus this saturday, September 5th, at Maksimir Stadion in Zagreb. The Vatreni took care of Belarus 3-1 in Minsk with ease a month earlier. I think Croatia will easily win 3-0 with the England match on their minds. Thanks a lot…..
@Joze
You predicted the right score and came really close to predicting all three goal scorers as well. I will give you the benefit of doubt and send you this Zagreb shirt I received from the Bad Blue Boys fan club. If you are for Hajduk then Im sure you can find something interesting to do with this shirt.
Please email me our address at paluka81@yahoo.com
@Ivica
Well done on the prediction and post. I dont think you're a Dinamo fan, so this Zagreb shirt isnt for you anyways. Joze beat you out by a hair.
@Vatreni
Yes, we have struggled in qualification in the past. Croatia has always been inconsistent (draws in Slovenia, Malta, etc etc)
Good luck on the sponsors..haha… If we had a few $$$ we would sponsor you..
@Nepoznat
I bet you were one of the 74 people that voted for Pletikosa… 2-0 if Pleti plays and 2-2 if Runje plays…wow.. I can tell you one thing, Runje has no luck with Croatia. Belarus just about had one shot on goal and once again, Runje had no chance, another fluke goal.
Runje was never tested and was the right choice by Saven Bilic. You cant start Pleti after sitting on the bench for almost half a year.
@everyone
Great predictions guys. Everyone had an interesting view on the outcome of this one.
Another correct tip =]
All I'm going to say is we just better f***ing win.
All I'm going to say is we just better f***ing win.
2 – 1 croatia
Kranjcar and Da Silva
For anyone interested, CSR will in fact be Tweeting the game on Twitter this Friday. There will be a live window on CSR and also at twitter.com/croatiansoccer.
If you are watching it on CSR, make sure to refresh often.
Here is my point….I agree that Bilic should be on the roster. But, if Slaven Bilic does not want to select him for the national team based on his play in Spain, scoring a goal against some team like Swizterland in a friendly wont help him make the squad either.
Another reason Engalnd play friendlies is because of the money they make on them. At home or on the road, they will make huge $. We on the other hand, do not. If we put a friendly in Osijek, Varazdin or Rijeka, there will be about 5,000 people attending. That type of game is not a money maker for the savez.
Not Pletikosa no – why would we need to look at him. He's played over 50 times for Croatia or something so we all know Pleti inside out. Galinovic and Subasic yeah they could have done with a friendly and maybe we'd trust them now. Bilic isn't ready to choose at all – he's making wild stabs in the dark. He selects the same players and most of the reason why he don't try anyone else is cos he don't trust them purely cos he's not seen them. He's limiting his options and choosing from a select band of favorites. He's not using them cos he's not seen them. If you don't see someone you don't feel confident in selecting them. Well exactly Capello wants to know what he's got. So should Bilic. You'd have thought for example he'd want to give Sharbini, M Bilic a run out to see if there form translates to international football, He could so with Sharbini in his squad already. If Eduardo breaks down we'd be back to same situation. Olic and Petric has been shown not to work so really it doesn't mean we should give up. I said this before, but you can beat Ukraine with a squad worser than Croatia have. Its all about getting the combinations right. Mate Bilic and Olic could have beat Ukraine, but not if you don't make Bilic part of your set up. Bilic is good enough to score against Valencia and Atletico Madrid so am sure he can shake up a few Ukrainian defenders. Slaven has been one dimensional and not playing friendlies is part of his one dimensional behaviour. But again its all past now. Its clear Bilic needs a full strength squad to look like a decent coach so hopefully the players he's got back will improve things.
So by playing a friendly a few months ago, that would have prepared Pletikosa for this game….sure!!!!
I can see we disagree on the importance of friendlies. i think they are a waste of time if you dont plan on using the young players that you will play in a friendly and then using them in a game that means something. Players like Juric (he did play bad against Ukraine) do not benefit froma friendly. He could have played great against a team in a friendly and still would have played like shit against Ukraine.
And the reason Capello did it because he needed to see all of the players. Bilic and his staff have seen enough of our guys to make a decision.
Croatia 2
Belarus 1
Belarus Goals: Hleb
Croatia Goals: Srna, Modric
@ Anonymous & Crorupt,
There will be NO Twittering of the Cro-Belarus match this Wednesday. I apologize in advance but the place we will be watching the game is not WI-FI'd. Sorry.
The Twitter Account is:
http://twitter.com/CroatianSoccer
Hey whats your twitter account, and what time is the game in USA pacific time?
We didn't stay together after the Ukraine game to arrange a friendly when other teams did and we also missed one another time. Also its common practice so when everyone else is doing it why would we want to just sit around. Especially in world cup season we could be testing ourselves against different types of sides. There was also a time when England went out to Carribean for a tour for player and weather experiment so they are at least 4 friendlies ahead of us. The fact they are scattered is even more reason to get them together and also the fact some of them are rivals rather than friends like the Hajduk Dinamo players is another reason to get them together. We've also not even seen our supposed bright young thing Nikola Kalinic start a match during this year he has been with the squad. You'd have thought he would gain through scoring an international goal even against Slovakia or someone. Instead the guys getting bench splinters and not even been in under 21's. I'm surprised the guy got a work permit. We also lost of whole generation of elder players Kovac, Simic, Tudor, Zivkovic, Tomas, Tokic which was our defence for ages so you'd think they'd want to work with the new guys on defending and partnerships and look at what else there is. Pranjic another one who needed defensive coaching having spent all season as attack midfielder.
Also we have a goalkeeping crisis now and we have no tried alternatives. Instead we pick one guy thats not played in 4 months and another that is 34. Anyone who plays football will tell you that any match is confidence building and helps you to prepare. You don't even have to put out the Modric's, Olic's to play friendlies. We need to look at the other guys so we are ready when we lose a player. I don't wanna turn this into a friendlies arguement though as its meant to be for predictions. argue about it another time.
Croatia 3 -0**
Croatia 2 -0 Eduardo, Eduardo, Petric
Whoever predicts the right score and who will score for Croatia will get a Zagreb T-Shirt that I received from the Bad Blue Boys Club.. If you are a Hajduk fan, then you can think of something interesting to do with the shirt.
Good luck..
Also, in the event of a draw… I will put the names in a hat and draw one lucky winner…
Maybe I should buy one of those lottery balls and have a live CSR lottery…. this way I won't get sued..
2-0 Croatia
Eduardo, Olic
We are going to set things right and grab that playoff spot 🙂
You should twitter the next Belarus game and the ngland game, because that's during school.
Ive already stated why I believe friendlies to be of value. Most coaches at both club and international level arrange friendlies for their team- it's not rocket science that doing so would aid in player selection, tactics, and player understanding. I can't believe that we're even debating this…Obviously you don't agree. Fair enough. Maybe we should leave it at that…
think whatever you want, i never said that…..all i ever said is that playing meaningless friendlies 4 months ago would not have prepared this team for the
Belarus game or any other gamee.
have you ever fucken played soccer….if so, how does playing meaningless games prepare you for the real deal.
So, ziva istina's revolutionary concept in match preparation is no preparation. Brilliant…
Easy for England to arrange a freindly when all of their players play in Engalnd and can get together easily. Look at our guys cattered throughout Europe in 3 different time zones. This Belarus game is a perfect example, we wont even have 48 hours to spend together.
As for the friendlies, how many did we not play. I think there was one open date and thats it. These guys play too much soccer as it is, no need to burden with extra worthless matches. If we cant figure out what these guys can do by watching them with their club teams, then we really are inept.
I don't get this so how do you work out your team if they don't try things out in practice matches. Do you just like throw it all together on the important games and hope it works. I'm not in agreement. England arranged friendlies which helped foriegner Capello understand about how England players play and what players there is in the country. Croatia similarly needed to look at what players they had in friendlies to replace Eduardo and Kovac. Bilic, Galinovic, Juric, Sharbini, Kalinic, Cale should all be seen in a Croatia shirt to see how they cope. Your bound to learn something. I don't understand why you need to play a friendly against a horrible side rather than a half decent one cos every other team plays friendlies apart from Croatia it seems. England playing Holland in a friendly in few days. it don't seem to worry them to play friendlies. Also if Juric played a horrible match in a friendly then we'd know he;s not much good. It also help team bonding and We could also have a look at partnerships and how people paired with each other which we could never see by watching a player at club level. Petric and Olic didn't work for example so we could have tested another striker partnership.
However that's all past now. Hopefully this group stays fit and Galinovic, Subasic, Sharbini and Sablic come under consideration.
I agree with Alex. Bilic should be playing more friendlies between the big matches where there are changes to the team. Why not?
How does Bilic talking with clubs in Germany and England impact the performance of the team. Bilic's name was speculated throughout EURO 2008 for various openings and it did not impact the squad.
Any playing a friendly would not have made a differance with Juric. Playing some shit team in a friendly would not have helped figure out if Juric is the answer or not. Juric had a terrible 45 minutes against Ukraine, but a player deserves more than 45 minutes to show if he has it or not. If we would judge players one half than Petric does not belong in this squad.
Croatiafan, I totally agree, Bilic is mainly responsible for the poor campaign- the problems with Juric in a 4-4-2 would've been discovered way sooner had Bilic organized friendlies against strong opposition. Instead, he finds out it doesn't work in the middle of a hugely important qualifier…Also, his constant flirtation with management jobs had likely created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the squad.
Anyhow, Let's all hope that that's behind as we go into wednesday…
If Stipe plays, even having not playing in half a year, 2-0… the first from Darijo off a set piece and the second Luka crosses to Eduardo as they start getting their amazing chemistry back
If Vedran plays, 2-2 *sigh*
@Mikko B…Runje will get the start, although I feel Galinovic should be on the sqaud. Butina should never see the national team ever again.
I have a good feeling about this match- one I haven't felt in a long time. The two keys for me are that Dudu's playing and Robi Kovac isn't…if Krizanac plays like he did v Ukraine (which i expect), we might have seen the last of Kovac(I pray). Kranjcar on the left will (hopefuly) add backbone to Pranjic' defending (Raki being useless tracking back). I also read somewhere that Bilic will start Vukojevic over Juric( thank god), in what I'm assuming will be a straight 4-4-2. I predict this match to be very, very open- both sides need a victory to have any chance of advancing.
@ Anonymous,
I'm glad you brought up the Facebook idea. We actually have had a FB page for a few months now.
Here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14635084601
The reason we've struggled in qualifying up to now is due to Bilic's slowness and lack of imagination in replacing Eduardo and Niko Kovac. We can also look back on Kalinic's inclusion now and question the footballing reasons for it. But nobody can now say Kalinic is not gonna get tested and won't have to warrant his call up. Recent changes like that is all good and healthy. Kranjcar back is healthy as i believe him and Rakitic competing with each other is the best thing for Croatia rather than depending on just Raki. The guys still only 21 after all. Also you'd imagine Sharbini will start pushing for a squad place soon to keep Raki and Kranjcar on their toes.
I have more confidence in the defence with Krizanac there and i think players like Corluka and Simunic will be fresher now as they looked well spent for the season in the last game due to over play.
I normally have problems with Pranjic at left back, but Kranjcar is more experienced than Rakitic and should assist him a lot better and hopefully his energy and creativity will be an asset. It will be interesting to see who Bilic starts alongside Modric. Juric really needs a big performance if its gonna be him. Keeper situation is a concern, but we'll see how they go.
Lovren is also good inclusion as he can play all along the backline, though ideally would prefer he didn't feature in the centre for any reason and that Krizanac and Simunic stay fit for the 90 mins.
I still feel we are missing Sablic, Galinovic and Subasic from this squad to improve it a bit more. Runje, Pletikosa and Lovren hopefully to step down for the next match. Also Sharbini for one of the defensive mids.
1) http://www.saan.tv – 14HRK a month and it's all the HRT, HRt2, Nova and RTL you guys want 🙂
2) This is our first match since England 07 that we are 100% healthy (Minus GK). Modric, will need a huge game and since most of the team (Olic, Pranjic, Rakitic, Modric, Corluka, Vukojevic are coming off good performances on the weekend) we SHOULD win this game.
3) Belarus will likely play a few men behind the ball, so Croatia cannot let up. They need to keep hammering them with shots.
4) Goaltending is the biggest flaw. Pleti hasn't played in nearly 5 months, Runje got blown out 4-1 (Albeit vs Bordeaux) and guys like Butina, Galinovic are no where near NT Level.
All you guys who don't have access to a tv for the game, go to http://www.atdhe.net.
this site shows every sporting event possible, and it's free, no registration required. At the time of the game just go to the site, scroll down and click on the link of our game.
I say 2-0 Croatia: Eduardo with 1 goal, Srna with the other
Many qualifying campaigns have been difficult for us. In 98 WC qualifying we can down to the last day and it was up to Denmark to save us. If Greece beat Denmark we would have finished 3rd and never gone to the WC. After that we still had 2 difficult games against Ukr. This was supposed to be our best national team and they barely qualified.
People are saying that Croatia hasn't been convincing this qualifying campaign. Everyone must understand that luck plays a big part in qualifying for a big tournament. I was watching Ukr-Bel and it was 0-0 till the 94th minute. Ukraine got a penalty and in the last minute of extra time to win 1-0. I also watch Ukr-Kaz and watched Kazahkstan start out with an early 1-0 lead. Ukraine stepped it up to take a 2-1 lead but Kaz had 3 good chances in the last 10 to tie.
On the other hand we dominated in Ukraine and could not score. Olic hit the post and Modric's shot was saved by the foot of Ukr keeper. Also, the game in Croatia against Ukr was strange. Ukr had 2 chances and scored twice. Modric and Petric hit two posts in last 10 minutes. We win either game and its much easier for us. The game against England was a difficult loss also. I remember on their first goal one of our defenders cleared the ball of Kovac and bounced to Walcott 1 on 1 with our keeper. Then, Kovac got a red card before the half. It seems like anything that could go wrong has so far. I think that Eduardo coming back will bring up everyone's confidence. He scored 10 goals in the last Euro qualifying campaign and it would have been amazing to have him last Euro. We did well without him but if he was there I have no doubt there would have been a great Spain-Croatia final. Great teams show their strength when times are tough. We're about to find out how mentally strong our players our. I believe we will beat Belarus twice. I would love go to England to watch that Croatia game. I'm accepting sponsors so if are interested in paying for my trip let me know 🙂 haha
1-0, Eduardo scores.
I would not be stunned at 1-1 though, as I have very little confidence in our D and keepers to keep a clean sheet these days.
PS CREATE A FACEBOOK PAGE FOR CSR SO WE CAN ALL ADD EACH OTHER ON THERE
Honestly I hope we win I cant predict I have before and I have cursed myself to the grave. All I am saying is if we dont beat Belarus we dont deserve to be playing in the world cup anyway.
I have mixed thoughts on this….We have shown nothing this qualifying cycle so that makes me doubt we can score a big win, but we do have Da Silva back. I'll take any type of win and can see us pulling a 1-0 win. But, our D scares me. The Ukraine game showed we cant defend on set pieces.
A win and we r still alive, anything less and Bilic can begin sending his resume to teams in EPL and will be the first hire once an EPL teams fires their coach.
3-1 Croatia
Eduardo with 2, Modric with the other
I think Croatia has potential for a big performance too. The squad is much better this time. We have strength in numbers which we didn't have before – no more are we talking about Vejic, Drpic, Kalinic and people like this. Now we can actually discuss who starts out of Eduardo, Petric and Olic. Lets face it all three make great sub players. Eduardo stays with either Olic or Petric i think. Doesn't matter which. I have total confidence in either of them when they play off a main striker. I see goals for Petric coming from deep and entering in the box and picking up the ball outside the box to shoot. Having said that i think it'll only be 1-0 lol. Kranjcar scores.
I think Croatia is gonna make it rain in Minsk. The squad is going to be together on the field more the first time in months. Should be exciting.
I say Croatia 1-0. Eduardo Goal. Its a must win for both teams.. I just dont see a high scoring match.
Croatia 3-1 Belarus Eduardo, Modric and Olic goals
I think they're going to really step up for this match…its must win.