Croatia easily wrapped up a 3-0 win in Latvia Friday night with goals from Mladen Petrić, Ivica Olić and Darijo Srna. Even though the Vatreni couldn’t break Latvia’s ‘Mourinho-like’ bunker defense in the first 40 minutes of the game, they made up for it with a goal from Petrić right before halftime and another one from Olić minutes after the break. Croatia controlled tempo and possession nearly the entire match and only had one legitimate threat from Latvia the entire day.
With Greece drawing Georgia at home on Friday, a win on Tuesday by the Croats against Greece can give them early control of the group. Luka Modrić should be in action.
MATCH PREDICTIONS & POST GAME ANALYSIS
FULL MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
I will absolutely be there with my friend Melanie coming along as well possibly my brother. He is a teacher and doesn't get out till 2:50 but trying to get out by 2. Hopefully he gets out!!!
I do have one question about Pranjic? Is Billc tired of him getting burnt on the left side and refusing to put him there. I know he goes up to much and people have abused him in the past ( Theo Walcott) but I didn't think he was that bad. Can anyone clarify what's the deal with Pranjic not starting?
I was surprised Strinic played because he's had injury problems in the last few weeks at Hajduk and Jozinovic has been covering. he's prob not fully fit.
@ footballonly aka Allen,
Good meeting you at Scorpio!
No worries about not knowing me. We're not exactly celebrities yet. Will you be at the bar on Tuesday for the match?
Great performance for Croatia, compared to the other big teams in Europe. They didn't pull any nonsense and it was a professional performance. Petric was painful to watch early on, but redeemed himself with the tap in. I have never seen Olic take a shot that far for Croatia, amazing lol.
Second half amazing ball by Petric right to Olic, as he somehow put it in. I am used to Olic missing, so when he put it in it was great to see. Kranjcar hustling was great to see, as he is finally becoming a complete player. That shot he had early on was incredible, but the goalie made a " Joe Hart" like save. Srna's goal at the end was icing on the cake, as he was my man of the match. The guy is all over the field and is just a pleasure to watch. I am proud to say he is our captain, so should Nico Kovac.
I was at Scorpicos and the place was a little empty, but still people were still there and were positive. Meeting CSR was cool, even though I made a fool of myself asking where Ante was when he was right in front of me ( he cut his hair i didn't know shit lol). Great time great performance what better can you say on a Friday afternoon. Bring on the Greeks, I hate those mofos.
Sorry for double posting I just want this post to go on my new google account.
Strinic was ok. The sad fact is there's no one else. What are the options? Cale and Pranjic? No thank you. We'll see how he handles a half decent opponent in a few days.
Not sure if anyone but me has noticed this, but Croatia has skipped over the UK in unique visitors on the flag counter. Croatia had always been 100-300 visitors behind for most of the time the counter has been up, but all of the sudden a jump was made and now Croatia is almost 200 uniques in front of the UK. Its good to see Croatian's participating in CSR especially the Croatian media who has obviously been keeping tabs on CSR as they have been republishing material recently. Would like to see some video footage from inside Scorpio during the Greece game…maybe a half time interview…or even better, maybe a CSR sponsor Karlovacko drinking contest!! Hey that's seriously not a bad idea!! Would love to watch that here and I'm sure the vid would have a ton of views! :))))
just confirming audio is normal on my end as well…don't know what anonymous is going on about…
One concern
Generally I don't like to dwell on negatives but I must say I was disappointed with Strinic's performance yesterday. I thought he looked pretty shaky, like a player better teams could exploit. Was this just a case of nerves or did he play well enough to retain his starting position?
Great performance for Croatia, compared to the other big teams in Europe. They didn't pull any nonsense and it was a professional performance. Petric was painful to watch early on, but redeemed himself with the tap in. I have never seen Olic take a shot that far for Croatia, amazing lol.
Second half amazing ball by Petric right to Olic, as he somehow put it in. I am used to Olic missing, so when he put it in it was great to see. Kranjcar hustling was great to see, as he is finally becoming a complete player. That shot he had early on was incredible, but the goalie made a " Joe Hart" like save. Srna's goal at the end was icing on the cake, as he was my man of the match. The guy is all over the field and is just a pleasure to watch. I am proud to say he is our captain, so should Nico Kovac.
I was at Scorpicos and the place was a little empty, but still people were still there and were positive. Meeting CSR was cool, even though I made a fool of myself asking where Ante was when he was right in front of me ( he cut his hair i didn't know shit lol). Great time great performance what better can you say on a Friday afternoon. Bring on the Greeks, I hate those mofos.
I wasn't able to watch the first part of the match but I was impressed with Olic's work ethic. I know this isn't news, but watching him track down a ball in his defensive end after 75 minutes reminds me of his quality.
Looking forward to the Greece match.
(As an aside, the video quality/sound of the interviews was fine on my end. Keep up the good work, CSR.)
Whats with this smelly african? Hes got it all backwards, he needs to go to the local KFC and a take a few whiffs yo.
http://www.jutarnji.hr/sokantna-izjava-reprezentativca-sad-a—europljani-smrde-poput-crknutih-magaraca-/882981/
oops I meant Long Island 🙂
nice work decki, looks like fun in the ol' NYC!
i just love seeing the boys play again…just replace Luka with Ognjen and we'll be ten times better… i kinda like dudu, petric and olic with srna as rb too…is Bilic actually doing something right??
amazing! lets keep this going!!!
i wish i was in NY with you guys, but can't really afford to use the vacation time when it needs to be use for yacht week in croatia next summer
Greece aren't gonna sit back. I didn't realise they had any other way.
I didn't even bother to watch the Croatia match yesterday as i expected a win. Croatia had too much strength for that Latvia side.
The tougher tests come against Greece and Israel. Lets see how they go, but i have no real issues with the side at present. Petric who seemed to play better will prob drop out for Modric. I think Dujmovic should start against Greece.
I still think you should make the squad the best you can so Pokrivac should not be there. Runje still does hideous think. He just watched a shanked overheadkick go by him and if not for Kranjcar we'd be talking about another dodgy moment.
Greece knows a loss will put them in a tough position, so they're not going to just sit back the entire match like many road teams.
Should be a close game.
Great result on the road to start a new ciklus!
I wan't able to see the game today but the highlights looked great. But even from the highlights you can see a new dynamic on the team. Srna gives us long distance firepower from the "D", and although he's not going to score a goal like that every game, he'll score a few more like that, and that's an element that we've never had on the NT.
Beauty ball from Raki to Olic too. I'm glad Bilic has taken my advice 🙂 and put all of our most talented players on the field at the same time (excepting Vuki and Joe), and we still have some nice bullets off the bench.
It's good that we can win convincingly without Modric too. Who says we don't have depth 🙂 I like Luka as a distributor but the kid has to learn how to finish, and this includes his wardrobe and his haircut too 🙂
Of course, as Ziva Istina will surely remind me soon enough, it was "only" Latvia, but even his curmudgeon self needs to be impressed with the performance.
Agreed, Hrvatska:2 – Greece:0
A couple of changes though:
Pranjic should start instead of Vukojevic and,
Nikica for Dudu.
3-0 is a great result on the road against a team playing not to lose.
Greece looked terrible, 2-0 to Croatia next week.
The starting lineup looked damn good together. Damn good. Kranchy was actually hustling today. And the bicycle to bicycle would have made top ten around the world.
Thank God our soccer team is having more luck then our tennis players.
subtitles for the interview video please. I cant hear anything. Thanx, bye.