Croatia got the three points they were looking for against Andorra on Wednesday. The ‘Vatreni’ came out strong in the first half as they controlled ball possession 75% of the time. It looked as if they wanted to end the match early and bury Andorra as fast as they could.
Klasnić opened up the scoring with a nice run up the middle of the Andorran defense. Kranjčar layed off the ball with a nice ‘dummy’ and Klasnić nailed the ball low and wide for a 1-0 Croatia lead. Even though it was against Andorra, the Croatians passed equisitely on the play.
Eduardo received a yellow card for pushing away the arm of an Andorran player who grabbed his chin. Minutes later, Eduardo scored a beautiful goal reminiscent of his world-class strike against Cardiff City earlier in the season with Arsenal. He managed to stay onside and get a boot on the cross-pitch pass which he volleyed past the keeper.
The second half had absolutely nothing to offer to a soccer fan- let alone a Croatian fan. It looks as if Bilić told the team just to kick the ball around and not get hurt; a 2-0 win was good enough for him. Croatia only took one shot on goal and held the ball in midfield the majority of the half.
The ‘headliner’ for this game is going to once again be the ‘flare incident’. Croatian fans started throwing flares onto the field midway through the first half. With Croatia already up 2-0, this couldn’t have been a more stupid move by the Croatian supporters. The referee had to stop play for five minutes and discuss action with the two coaches. It looked as if he would call the game if it happened again; which it did to start the second half but Pletikosa quickly threw it off the pitch.
Just plain stupid by the Croatian fans. This is in Andorra for godsakes! When will they learn some class?
this post is very usefull thx!
Oh come on the same old method works for every sport: People love winners. If they didn’t then countless terrible coaches in the NBA, NHL, EPL, etc. would still be coaching.
Without a doubt the most boring and uneventful Croatian game I ever seen. Even my dad fell asleep twice during the second half.
The first half saw Croatia dominate the pitch, score twice, and were looking forward to a 4-0 or so drubbing. However, after “certain individuals” in the stands decided to throw flairs onto the pitch, Croatia decided to “juice” the game.
After a fear of a possible forfeit or postponement, Croatia just kicked the ball around waiting for the clock to hit 90 and hit the showers as soon as possible.
As far as I’m concerned, 2-0 or 10-0 over Andorra is the same thing. Also, I think that Croatia lacked creativity in the middle without Luka Modric.
Overall, I give Croatia a B grade. Was I falling asleep? Yes, Did Croatia fail to score in the second half? yes..
We didn’t come out for Andorra. Who cares?
This qualification will come down to Ukraine at home and then 2 matches against Belarus. period!
Rob
“To be honest, if they can’t win a must win game at home to Ukraine, they don’t deserve to qualify anyways”
If we tie Ukraine and don’t reach the world cup, I will take my hat off to Ukraine. However, there is no excuse not to finish second over Belarus and Ukraine.
I am confident that we will finish second.
Adrien
“Maybe the second half performance was a punishment to the flair-throwing fans who’d travelled all the way to Andorra.”
Good point!
Ante
“I think he told the team at halftime to just kick the ball around and not to score.”
better safe then sorry.
Croatiafan:)
I didnt catch the Ukraine-England match. If thats the case Shevchenko is a clown.
“Klasnic looked impressive by scoring one and setting up the other.”
Klasnic touched the ball like 5 times. So I guess scoring and assisting isn’t bad. Also, nothing impressive about scoring against Andorra. Klasnic deserves a place in the squad.
Marko, Oliver
Good call on Ciro Blazevic… Did you watch the video… Ciro ran around the pitch like Bosnia won the world cup. I dont remember him this happy even after winning third place with Croatia in ’98
Vlad
I always liked Olic coming off the bench as well..
“As for Bosna who cares”
At first, I thought this was a little rude on your part. However, after reading your explanation, for the four hundredth time I have to side with you. If you look at this story directly, its a hollywood movie with the perfect ending.
However, after looking at this story indirectly and reading your comment and Joze’s comment I agree with you both. Most Bosnians would rather have us lose. Also, i did see a Bosnia flag in the Turkish section of fans just 20 yards or so away from me at the Turkey-Croatia game.
Great point on “dumb fans” and “dumb people running HNL”
Joze
“When Blazevic was appointed they were saying how its a digrace they have a Croat coach now they love him.”
I didn’t know this. Funny how results change the views of people.
Johnny
“win anything”
What is “anything” ?
Simply wanna remark that you have a very nice site, I like the design and style it actually stands out.
The reason why we have dumb fans is because we have a dumb goverment and dump people running the hnl. I wont get to into it as i can write all day about it but for one example, when dinamo and hajduk played a few weeks ago, there was no need for all that confetti and fire works when they scored stoping the game, its tihngs like that, if its ok for the club to do that than its ok for people to stop the game with flares, the dumb balkan mentality has to stop from the top before people will get the picture.
Either we have the most moronic fans there are or something fishy is going on.
Why travel all the way to Andorra for that? That’s what Prva Liga games are for.
Would Croatian fans really sabotage the game and risk a forefeit? I think it was possibly a set up.
There is obviously that overriding hatred left its only been 20 years since independence, not to mention the religious differences, still it gives me a hint of optimism for the future.
We are a people of peace and virtue
I just find it amusing when i read things like look at bosna team its a good example for the rest of the balkans, before ciro was apointed bosnians couldnt stand a croat coach, know that he’s winning, their happy, they can care less about ciro its just the results they care about, back in euro 2008 when croatia and turkey played all the bosnians were cheering for the turks, they were fighting with the croats, who lived in bosna, driving threw there street honking their horns rubbing it in our faces when turkey won, throwing rocks at their houses, but hey their setting a good example. So when i say who cares about bosna really who cares how thier doing, its not croatia its bosnia, they wish we would come last trust me.
Regards national team players for 2010 i wander if Srdjan Lakic is worth a glance. See link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LdQV5oeBqU
Currently at Kaiserslautern with 10 goals this season.
I think on the whole Bosnia is a Croatian and Muslim team. Its not really a Serbian team. Most Bosnian Serbs will always select playing for Serbia over Bosnia. Bosnia may not win anything, but they are now in their to compete which they never were before and i’m with Oliver and Marko. I think some Muslims will never like Blazevic due to his politics which is understandably, but obviously they’d have to concede to his coaching ability. Its clear the guy really has another authority and arrogance to unite that group of players in addition to making them believe they can achieve great things.
Regards Bosnia’s playing ability i think Edin Dzeko and Misimovic are to them what Dudu and Modric is to us. Basically Dzeko and Misimovic are class so its no surprise they are doing well and give Turkey bellyache in the process.
Regards Dudu being a first choice i agree he should always start when he’s back to 100% health wise, but whenever he needs recovery time like now he can be rotated. My normal pick would be Eduardo and Olic, but with Klasnic and Petric coming from bench. I’d say Petric on the bench as he’s the one who gives less of himself on the field at times and needs to be forced to do something. Also he’s had a lot of chances and not done much with it so back to bench and am sure he’ll up his game. I think Olic makes us move faster. I have 100% confidence in Olic and Petric when either of them are alongside Dudu or Klasnic. Its just when they are paired together, they just don’t seem to combine as well with the way we play. We still haven’t really discovered anything in the last 6 months about whether Rukavina, Mandzukic, Kalinic or Vrucina can take over in 2010. At some point one of those needs a full 90 minutes.
As for bosna? they will never win anything cuz thay have serbs in their team…
Its funny how the muslims change their minds about things. When Blazevic was appointed they were saying how its a digrace they have a Croat coach now they love him.
lol no need to make some lame ass comment like "who cares" obviously Oliver & I do? So, your point beside making a useless comment?
Im glad to see klasnic do well, i always liked him as a striker, i think he should be given more playing time, i always think if healthy eduardo is our number one man, as for his partner i think petric olic and klasnic are all par, i know everyone on this site likes olic, and i do too i think hes a better sub than a starter.
As for Bosna who cares
Yap, Marko. indeed.
Im also glad that true football fans can leave out all those nationalism or whatever topics and just focuse on the game, for the love of the game.
Btw, this is what Blažević says:
“I dread the possibility of playing Croatia for a berth in the finals, I wouldn’t know what to feel because I would really have mixed emotions about it.”
I’ve posted an article on my website about that.
I read an article about Bosnia’s coach (who is Croatian) and how he was proud about how the fans appreciate what they’re doing considering their players and coachs. (bosnians, serbs, croats) I find it refreshing and genuine that Bosnia is playing amazingly well while setting an example for other Balkan countries. I just though I should mention it.
I agree Croatiafan…but to me Dudu always starts…the others can rotate though (my preference is for petric, but neither of those 3 are significantly better then one another).
I didn’t see the match so can’t say too much, but from the video above Klasnic looked impressive by scoring one and setting up the other. I think rotating Eduardo, Klasnic, Olic and Petric is how we get the best out of them with none of them being guarenteed a secure position. That way they have to play hard every second to get in the team.
I think we have shown our potential in the first 30 minutes where the team played well against eleven deep Andorra players.
We secured the win, thats it. No player faced a direct 1v1 situation after the break to dismiss any chance of getting injured.
Furthermore the game is meaningless when we come to the play-offs since it will not be counted (Andorra will stay at the bottom of the league). So no matter if we have won 7-0 or 2-1…
Erm Belarus 5-1 win against Kazakhstan. This is a serious side with vast potential. What is worse is England and Ukraine played them without Hleb and now he’s back ready to face Croatia.. marvelous! As far as i’m concerned if we beat Belarus twice and beat Ukraine we’d have deserved qualification cos this is not an easy group and they are better teams than Isreal and Macedonia. I watched the Ukraine match against England and i absolutely hate that team. Ukraine are so lazy and do not care about their national side. They threw the match away with some full back giving away a foul to Beckham who pretended he was going to outpace with the no pace he has and then drew a foul. and at the end of the game they didn’t look disappointed and Shevchenko just ignored his teammates and started hugging and kissing England players. They never even went for England even though with Milevsky, Alliev, Shevchenko they have the quality. Instead they play with two Niko Kranjcar type players up front… WHY? I don’t think Mikhialicenko knows what’s he’s doing so despite Ukraine have decent players we should beat them to second place. They didn’t deserve to beat Belarus first match and i think Belarus will beat them or draw next time. Not 100% impressed with the Croatia game. I think Croatia have not given a decent performance since Kazakstan and had the opportunity to bang in some goals. As many say though its the next games that are important. As for the fans well basically they are daft cos FIFA enjoys punishing countries like Croatia so common sense would say not to give them a reason to damage us.
It’s really good to see Dudu going strong. 😀
Btw did we play with three defenders after Cale was taken off?
Every point we get from now on counts…so its all good
Ivica,
Ukraine still hasn’t played Andorra. Those two games will not count for them regarding 2nd place.
Help me out. i thought england beating ukraine would be good for us. now we are 3 points ahead of them in 2nd (though they have a game in hand)
is there something i was missing?
Bilic knew that the game was already on thin ice because of the Croatian fans throwing flares on the pitch in the first half. The ref gave him a serious warning immediately that he would stop the game if the flares proceeded.
I think he told the team at halftime to just kick the ball around and not to score. There would be nothing worse for Bilic and Croatia than have to come back to Andorra for a meaningless game.
The fans who threw that flares seriusly ruined the game. I doubt goal differential will be in issue as we are now shooting for second place with England’s 2-1 win over Ukraine.
But if GD was an issue, our fans really would have ruined a good chance to put up some goals…we could have easily put in another 2-3 goals…”if we tried.”
I love the flares but it was pretty pointless when away to Andorra…who are they trying to impress lol.
3 points is 3 points so I’m happy but we really need to pick up the pace for Ukraine!!
Maybe the second half performance was a punishment to the flair-throwing fans who’d travelled all the way to Andorra.
Probably never. Not only was it classless, it was stupid to interrupt the flow of the game…played into the hands of Andorra IMO.
A lucksluster result to say the least, but pretty much what i expected.
If Croatia fails to pick up a win against Ukraine in June (a tie is likely not good enough) they can kiss their chances of going to the world cup goodbye.
To be honest, if they can’t win a must win game at home to Ukraine, they don’t deserve to qualify anyways…was a shame to see England steal a late win…a tie would of really opened up the group.
Oh well, it is what it is. Here’s hoping for the best come June in Zagreb.