Team CroatianSports.com shares postgame analysis after Croatia’s 2-0 World Cup opening victory over Nigeria Saturday from St. Anthony’s Croatian Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Over 1,000 people attended the game which also coincided with the church’s 69th Annual Picnic.
Thank you to Anthony Zorić, Frane Šošić, Matt Lebo and Branimir Kvartuč for making the postgame show happen. And big thanks to Johnny Cvjetković, Josip Sep and the rest of the St. Anthony’s crew for putting together such a successful event for the Los Angeles-Croatian community.
Much like the Swiss D yesterday.
Brazils only goal came on a fortunate bounce that fell to a player that doesn’t need to be told twice to shoot from that distance. Swiss D had no time to close that space.
We need to pressure them with shots and crosses and be able to beat them to 2nd balls in and around the box.
We need to beat Argentina.
I don’t want to rely on a result against Iceland.
@marko
I agree. Icelands defensive lines are a thing of beauty…everyone in unison…looks like a military march the way they play defense..impressive. We will have a very difficult time scoring on them and hopefully they don’t get a cheapy on the counter. I think I would have preferred Argentina beating Iceland outright.
@Jarac We played the weakest team in our group also. We still have a tough game against Argentina who is going to be extra hungry for 3 points and Iceland a team that you know will give it everything they’ve got.
Lovro it’s ome Game and Serbian and Iran played the weakest teams in the group both won’t make it out of group stage.
I don’t want to see another Lovren/Fred situation where the game is decided because some mediocre striker like Higuain suddenly falls because we touched his shoulder
Shouldn’t VAR be used for such an instance? I’m not saying it will be cos they’ve broken all their own rules with how it was meant to be deployed already, but surely it should be?
Lets give Messi a KO punch in which he will be afraid to go back to Argentina. No need to fear anyone. We play better as an underdog then a favorite.
@ Maminjo
I completely agree with your thoughts on Mandza and Krama.
For the first time in a long time we have a coach who I thought no has a feel for the game in making adjustments and generally playing the right lineup vs our opponent.
Kova did such a good job marking Messi that I think it’ll put even more pressure on Argentina to have their other players step up.
I really like our chances. Winning this group will be key to a deep run.
People need to be stop calling Nigeria the youngest team in the tournament.
Those titles don’t apply to countries that don’t accurately record birth certificate data.
It’s no coincide that most of these African players peak when they are “24” and somehow don’t get any better.
These guys were as old as we were yesterday.
Ante Zoric was a decent player …nothing more than your average college guy but what makes him an expert…his responses are always general and I’m shocked st how little he can identify about our players qualities and weaknesses. He is an expert on Twitter…ask him…he’s a pro!
@Maminjo
Next on my agenda is to address your comment regarding our big wins.
The big teams are always teams with targets on their backs, the team that little teams (or mid tier teams like Croatia) treat as their tournament finals (Croatia vs Germany 2008).
But just like in a horse race, a longshot can lead the race, but more often than not, when the whips are cracking, you’ll see the favourites sorting themselves out.
But because of what Croatia did in ’98, for some of the little teams, we’re a team with targets on our backs, and sometimes we’re not up for the fight.
We hardly ever top our qualifying groups, in fact, we hardly beat the next best team in our qualifying groups.
You gotta look at the whole picture, not just the parts you like you big homer.
Also, some big teams haven’t won yet this world cup, but they didn’t play Nigeria (the youngest team in the tournament), we did.
@Maminjo
“I think Perisic will have a big game against Argentina.”
Like I’ve said before we’re a decent counter attacking side, and against Argentina we should have plenty of opportunity to hit them on the counter, and it’s in these sort of games where Perisic can flourish.
@Ante Zoric one of the guys on our panel of experts expects us to sit back more against Argentina. With Messi playing for the Argies, I agree with that assessment, and that’s why, like you, I expect Perisic to have a better game next time out. Well he should anyway.
Great comments Maminjo, you’re on fire!
Serbia’s Kolarov scored a nice goal today.
Yea, that all makes complete sense 🙂
Who would have thought Croatia, Serbia and Iran in first place in their groups and Brazil, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Argentina winless.
Germany will be out in the group stage the World Cup is staged hoax fixed like France couldnt score a goal in 2002 Italy 2010 out early and Spain 2014 now will it be Germany in 2018.
@ Mali Ante
You are probably right about Krama being dropped.
Krama is our most complete striker, and I love him…but Mandzo REALLY stepped up that first game and it would be stupid not to have him in there hounding Argentina’s flimsy back four.
Also, since we’ll be playing counterattacking football, we probably won’t need Krama in there (who generally isn’t built for counterattacking football).
Kramaric will be very important in the Iceland game, where we will likely have possession, and space will be tighter to operate in. Kramaric linking up with our midfielders and weaving in that crowd of Icelandic players will be useful.
In the game against Argentina, I fully expect our counterattack to be led by guys like Perisic and Rebic.
Playing this same lineup (with one of Kovacic or Badelj in there in place of Kramaric, to mark Messi) will probably be the strategy.
@ Slavonac
I think Perisic will have a big game against Argentina.
He was very stealth against Nigeria…but he was good. Our first real chance to score was that Perisic bomb that narrowly missed. He wasn’t provided with much opportunity to make his signature runs, and you can tell he wanted to score yesterday (and was pissed at Kovacic for not passing on that last play). He didn’t get much ball, yet he still created the best chance early in the game and he would have made it 3-0 if Kovacic wasn’t an idiot.
Perisic will have many more opportunities in the next game, since Argentina will most definitely hold possession.
If we score, it will be off a Perisic counter, similar to how he scored against Czech or Spain at the last Euros. He will do his stepover and slip it past the keeper.
We just need to worry about Messi and Aguero. Those two are key for Argentina.
We also need to be careful and dsciplined, as Argentina is pretty low brow and will definitely resort to dropping in the box for penalties.
I don’t want to see another Lovren/Fred situation where the game is decided because some mediocre striker like Higuain suddenly falls because we touched his shoulder.
@ the Anonymous comment above:
“Something mi hrvati have yet to do”
I love the super cynical self-hating Croat complex.
Mexico beats Germany for the first time in over 30 years, whereas Croatia has a WINNING record against Germany (something no other team in the World probably has) and somehow we’re the ones that have yet to play with heart and win big games, lol.
We have an equal or WINNING record against the following top-level teams:
– Germany
– Italy
– Spain
– Netherlands
We have losing records against the following top teams:
– France
– Brazil
– England
Of the remaining top-level teams, It’s really only Brazil and France that got the better of us in competitive play (though it’s a small sample with France).
England beat us three times to our two times, but we actually eliminated them from qualifying from a tournament.
Also, I’m not going to count the France98 game against Argentina where they played with their starters and we cleared our bench (after both teams already qualified for the next round).
Call me with Mexico beats Spain with their B team, or when the beat both Italy and Germany at full strength MULTIPLE times.
Heck, we even beat down some teams who (although no elite) we going through a ‘golden generation’ period.
We eliminated Romania’s golden generation, and we beat Sweden’s golden generation twice. That Dutch golden generation win was sweet as well.
Our problem is (and always has been) our lack of discipline against teams weaker than us. Lots of stupids draws with teams we could easily beat has hurt us in qualifying. Playing down to our opponents in tournament play has hurt us too. We played a good strategy against Nigeria, but we did make a lot of individual errors and many unnecessary chippy fouls giving them decent deadball opportunities.
@anon
Almost every tourney we beat one of the big dogs…
Croatia need to play for the win against Argentina at all cost. We can learn from Mexico. Say what you want about them. They had heart. They never gave up. They believed in themselves that they can win. Something mi hrvati have yet to do.
With Germany losing and potentially becoming the 2nd seed in their group, we could end up having an easy side of the bracket and route to the final if we finish first.
If all the favourites advance we would be on the side with Spain and England being the toughest teams, teams that we should be able to beat. We would also avoid Brazil, France, Germany, Argentina, Belgium and even Portugal until the finals.
I thought Perisic was marginally better than he’s been but he has a long way to go to be that very dangerous player we all know he can be. Lovren was solid, Strinic was a tad above average, Rakitic did very well, our attack overall was a 7/10…Rebic makes me smile…that guy is so happy to be there!
…and to think that I was attacked here cause I said Mandzukic is our second option but still much better than Kalinic who would have done sweet piss all of he played yesterday!
Why would you want Messi to play well??. Come on with this fan boy shit
it was a fun match to watch!! looking forward to the next!!!!
Best post ever Miško!
Mandza played really well. He proves again to be a big player in big matches. Both goals were his really. His physical style was vital today.
Everyone was solid with the exception of Vrsaljko going forward…he seemed lost moving forward today.
Although we had very few actual shots on net we did create a few good chances which was encouraging.
I liked Dalic’s tactical move early in the second half to bring on Brozo and move Modric back up. Nigeria has a good stretch to Star the 2nd half and that changes helped us regain control of the match.
The big question for the Argentina game is who do we start and what formation? Does Dalic start Kovacic to mark Messi like he has in the past few times Real faced Barca? If that’s the case who sits? I wouldn’t be surprised to have Dalic push Luka up again behind Mandza, sit Kramaric and start Kovacic to shadow Messi. He could also default to Badelj coming back and going with their usual lineup.
I don’t think you can sit Rebic based on this last game. He was lively. I bet Krama is dropped although even though Mandza player well, I’d rather have him sit and Krama start up front. Bring on Mandza for him in the second half of we have the lead.
Great start with the W and I really feel we make a deep run this year….. U Boj!!
This is the best commentary and fricken hilarious
https://www.facebook.com/moto55RacingTeam/videos/1031383130347978/
Play for the win, settle for a draw. I don’t want to see them play defensively all game only to give up a goal in the last 5 min.
Wonder if Dalic will release his lineup early again. Maybe he’ll do a head fake this time; release an overly defensive lineup a day out and then change before the game.
Croatia needs to avoid all those chippy fouls they committed against Nigeria in the game against Argentina.
We put Nigeria in some good deadball positions, and there was even a stretch where they gave up three or four corner kicks in a row.
Nigeria didn’t have the quality to create too many chances out of those plays, but a much better team will kill us on those.
Too many fouls in dangerous places, and quite a few individual errors made by some of our players. Hopefully it was first game jitters and we’ll be more careful next game.
Thanks for the vid dude! But yeah i would definitely take a draw vs Argentina unlike that dude. Then we only need beat Iceland to win the group, that’d be awesome dude. Fingers crossed we can in fact draw that game.