It was a quick start for the Vatreni in the 3rd place match Saturday evening in Doha. Following a set piece, Gvardiol was left open in the box to slam home a perfectly placed header just inside the left post inside 10 minutes. However, Morocco got the equalizer back moments later following a set piece themselves. The ball was deflected off a Croatian head and went sky high towards the goal. It looked like an easy punch for Livaković on his 6-yard box but he never came out. Liva has has some great games this World Cup, don’t get me wrong, but on this play he looked like the Liva of old with no box presence. Three minutes from halftime, Mislav Oršić scored a beauty from the left side of the box, opening his body to curl the ball perfectly off the far post. This has to be a top-5 goal candidate at this World Cup. 2-1 Croatia at halftime.
75th minute: Gvardiol is clearly clipped in the box by a Moroccan defender. Ref doesn’t call anything and it doesn’t go to VAR. Should have been penalty kick for Croatia. Such an eyeroll.
I would have liked to see Sučić play the last 15 minutes of this match.
Croatia get 3rd place at the World Cup and only led for a total of 96 minutes this entire tournament.
Croatia have played in six World Cups. They have a 2nd place finish and two 3rd places — SIMPLY AMAZING!!!
So as we close out Croatia’s amazing run at the 2022 World Cup (and amazing is a huge understatement), what should Dalić and the Vatreni do to secure 3rd place before flying home Sunday to a hero’s welcome?
- First goal wins! Whoever scores first in this match will win. You heard it here first. Morocco hasn’t conceded much this tournament, only three goals in six matches. They also locked down Croatia in their first meeting. Croatia has been inept in the scorer’s department; only scoring twice outside of the Canada match. Could this game end 0-0 and go straight to penalties? I wouldn’t be surprised. End the 3rd place match in penalties. Winning goalie earns himself the “Golden Glove” for being the tournament’s best goalkeeper. Call it a day.
- Play Luka Sučić! Sučić has yet to see the pitch this World Cup; which was expected. The 20 year-old CAM has a rocket of a foot and loves to take on opposing defenders 1:1. He is the future of the Croatian midfield. It’s too bad he wasn’t four years older in Qatar because we could have used the player he will become. I’d like to see Sučić play the last 30 minutes of the match vs. Morocco. How fitting would it be if Sučić came in for Modrić in the 2nd half in an emotional “changing of the guard”?
- Get on the plane, kick your feet up, and be ready for the party in Zagreb! This World Cup was a huge success for Croatia, packed with tons of memories that will live forever in all of us. Surviving Belgium’s storm of attacks on the final day of group stage. Taking down Japan in penalties. Knocking 5-time champions Brazil out of the tournament! Clinching a second straight semifinal appearance. Watching Gvardiol become a man in front of the whole world. Argentina was deflating…but we all have to chalk up Qatar as a big fat W for the good guys!
Ante Kvartuc,
You’ve done a great job over the years with getting the Croatian community together with your interviews with the players, the Facebook Live spots and the Croatiansports.com. Svaki ti cast!
For whatever reason, you’ve allowed the boards to be overrun by fools over the years. I don’t get it. You’re the only game in town, so it’s disappointing to read what’s below and see the same immature posts not be removed and tolerated.
Maybe it’s time for a new website where people aren’t using multiple usernames? This site is way too primitive and folks know you now where I’m sure you can easily get sponsors to cover the costs of a new site (and hopefully make money out of it).
Sretan Bozic and thanks for all of your work for the Croatian-American community!
They won’t be sanctioned for singing those songs, because there isn’t anything wrong with them, despite the mental gymnastics some “journalists” with an axe to grind go through to say otherwise. No matter what decade or indeed century ZDS originates from, the meaning translates easily into most languages and clearly doesn’t discriminate against anyone or anything. The worst thing you can do, especially in today’s climate, is to apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong.
I am trying to keep sports and politics separate by saying the players should not be singing these songs
You guys are trying to tie them all together
This topic is relevant when our players get blasted for it by the international media and the team faces sanctions as a result
Ante get control of this place man. Not sure how much effort that is and I apologize if it’s a lot — but I feel like I’m in Grade 7 again with some of these clowns below.
@gbvh…Personally there would be zero politics on this site the moment that clown “the truth” is erased from this community. He has also misused other people’s usernames to such an extent that for example my original username is no longer possible to use when I log into this site.
I agree. Some comments should definitely be deleted. Reading the truth’s mindless drivel about ustashas and extreme left wing rhetorics gives flashbacks to Alex Holiga’s articles and opinions from yesteryear. Shivers down the spine.
I don’t like to mix politics with sports. There are so many songs to celebrate instead of using war songs this is stupid war ended almost 30 years ago.
I avoid talking politics here, but one comment on the lovren brozovic stuff. If that was Ukrainian players singing a similar song/ using a similar phrase (they have plenty), the world would be talking about how brave they are. Let’s hope it doesn’t pick up any negative traction
If they do get penalized it’s Ante Kvartuc’s and CroatianSports.com’s fault, they censor fellow Croatians who have unapproved political opinions in the EXACT SAME WAY Yugoslavians did.
The JJ to Barca rumors are heating up.
Is he biting off more than he can chew if he moves to LA LIGA.
I don’t think so. Barcelona could use a new right back. I’m not even sure who they have now? Bellerin I think is the go to man and Roberto is the other. Jurnavoic has proved him self worthy of getting a new contract. He won’t transcend in the Scottish league. His passing accuracy is good. However, ball control and duels are an improvement for him. I’d say he’s ready for La Liga.
You’re TRAITOR bitch and that’s EXACTLY WHY Ante Kvartuc NEVER censors your comments. You’re the guy who said it was “inevitable” that the Croatian National Team would become more and more brown so of course you’re against the FREE SPEECH of Croatian players unless they were Communists.
Meds, now
Your reply is an admission you can’t refute me and my comment you can’t refute is a reply to The Bullshit.
Bring on the kids . No time like the present but it can’t be Dalic. Modric does most of the coaching and it will be his voice that brings the new blood in.- Congratulations, it’s super hard for a country like Croatia to beat other countries, referee and especially FIFA .
It keeps getting worse and more embarrassing. Now video is surfacing of bojna cavoglave and everyone singing on the plane ride back to Croatia as they flew over Serbia.
Croatia deserves major fines, penalties, and possible removal from Nations League or the next Euro qualifiers.
@the truth AKA Ziva Istina AKA I’m a lowlife serb Chetnik living in a cave: serbian fascist Chetnik president Vučić should be in jail instead of running that garbage dump fascist Chetnik nest of a country called serbia. You’re only embarrassing yourself on this site, man.
Crawl back into your hole like the worm you are. There you can look at your fairy tale maps of greater serbia, get drunk on rakija and sing all your Chetnik fascist songs.
Why are you turning this into an anti-Serb rant? Do you know The Bullshit is a Serb or is he just a TRAITOR like Holiga? Also, Yugoslavia was not Fascist, it was COMMUNIST. No Fascist Regime ever needed walls and armed guards to keep people from escaping the way every single Communist regime did and still do today. Please stop being stupid fighting fake enemies to let yourself off the hook when the real enemies are right in front of your face.
Video surfaced of the team bangin your mom #gross
You chetnik or Yugo govna! Unreal that you have the guts to be bothered by those songs.
You deserve to be called out for being a clown. Understand “Bojna Cavoglave” is a patriotic song that was created for defending the homeland. You sound like a whining communist chetnik that is still mentally damaged after Serbia finished bottom of the group. Don’t be envious of Croatia because we don’t struggle beating African teams and have now overcame Brazil. Just remember that Serbia will never make it out of any group. The mighty Albanian and Kosovan players will haunt you until death. Don’t you recall Serbia displaying a “Greater Serbia” flag in the Serbian dressing room? Please refrain from hiding behind your hypocrisy. Because Serbian Football Federation was penalized for that.
Za Dom Spremni
Give them praise for that!
Well Croatian players have embarrassed themselves yet again and are likely to bring the HNS serious penalties for once again engaging in fascist behavior
Lovren and Bozo-vic were caught singing fascist songs and saying fascist chants at Bozo-vic’s bar in Zagreb after the docek.
They were caught shouting za dom spremni at the start of bojna cavoglave
They were caught singing anica kninska krajalica featuring encouragements to commit war crimes against Serbians
They were caught singing geni kameni featuring lamenting the end of the fascist regime in 1945 and celebrating the white faces of Croatians
Fortunately the HNS wised up in this welcoming celebration and did not let the players hijack it by bringing Thompson along, who was notably absent from any of the celebrations. I still recall at the end of the celebration in 2018 when the fans turned away in disgust from the players when they began singing Geni Kameni and the event organizers were able to save the day from embarrassment for the players by cutting the microphones and ending the event
Cigo, still bitter that the siptars handed you your a.sses again..and then the cameroonians pumped three past you…lol
Bow before Croatians.
Za Dom Spremni!
Try putting your virulent hatred of Serbians aside for a moment and focus on the IMPORTANT point here, The Bullshit is calling for the suppression of Croatian players’ free speech. He’s saying Croatian players must only have approved political views or they should be BANNED from having careers, BANNED from doing what they love and worked so hard since they were little kids to be able to do.
PUT YOUR VIRULENT HATRED OF SERBIANS ASIDE B/C IT IS BLINDING YOU OF WHAT’S IMPORTANT HERE.
Truth are you Alexandar HO-Liga’s alter ego or cousin?
Let them have some fun without pissing on their parade.
You remind me of the old Baba’s at every wedding looking to call out the cute young thing on the dance floor as a whore because she’s wearing a short skirt.
Your YUGO side is quite evident!
“celebrating the white faces of Croatians” < That's a problem?? Are you promoting racial GENOCIDE of your own kind TRAITOR??
Treason is BY FAR the worst crime any social animal can commit, so you tell us all: WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO TRAITOR GENOCIDAL CRIMINALS?
Why does it matter we are classified as Wogs?
By WHO moron? By same people who say eastern europeans arent white but won’t give them the benefits of affirmative action and ask “when will eastern europe be ready for immigration” but never ask that question of African or Asian countries??
WHO DO YOU THINK YOUR FUCKING WITH YOU DISHONEST TRAITOR?
Your Anglo masters and NSDAP said that.
Keep showing everyone what a retard you are.
Who is upset about it “the truth”?
Those who embrace globalist/communist behaviour? Who gives a f*** about them, it’s not their party they’re watching, it’s ours?
If the Serbs could have a reason to celebrate they’d be singing their own nationalist songs, so to save yourself further embarrassment maybe you should go support them because they’ll never have to embarrass a Yugoslavian like you.
I dont care let pessi go out on high neka neka all best to the Argentine scumbags.
As for Hrvatska lets not lose focus lets win nations league if argentina and media count la messima that tournament copa winner vs euro as troghy we should take nations league seriously.
Then Dalic i hope calls these new players and doesnt waste euro 2024 like euro 2020.
I hope brekalo gets playing time we need wing biuk doesn’t become flop. Musa can be good for benfica aswell. Ljubicic simic beljo at least one if not all turn out to have good careers.
Luka Sucic becomes better Rakitic for us. Kova
Vuskovic become new Gvardiol and being 19 and top performer.
Vidovic pasalic diaspora become good players
Our hnl young guns get motivation hey 3 hnl players scored in world cup svaka cast for that.
Fuck the media espn and english iznad svi hrvatska i expect denmark belgium even norawy because of hallnd will be favorites over us al neka ga puse za dom!!!!!
Why do you keep insisting on writing incoherently? Why do you keep insisting on being stupidly stubborn?
Third Argy goal should not have counted. There were two subs on the pitch. FIFA should be ashamed of themselves for pushing this degenerate Argy team. You’ll never take the Falklands!!
The bitterness on this site towards Argentina is unbecoming, the Argentine team aren’t the refs nor the media who pushed the anoint famous corporate sponsor Messi nobody else matters narrative.
I’ve been thinking about the Falklands lately though, it’s like the British have a permanent immovable air craft carrier staring Argentina in the face day after day after day. It has to be thorn in their side figuratively and quite literally.
Is it just me or am I sick of witnessing the constant parades in the square of Zagreb. Yes, I understand we are a small nation that overcame the odds. However, this is getting excessive and too cringe. Be proud but also know that there are limitations. I admire what Dalić has been able to do for us but we need to seriously make changes. Perhaps stop the celebrations and begin the new year back at the chalk board. I don’t mean to be a party pooper but to beat the winners, you got to have a winning mentality. We don’t possess that. I wouldn’t be opposed to having a Zidane, Perkovic or Santos as our manager. Rebic, Brekalo, Colak, Orsic, Musa, and Perisic only as our forwards next year and that’s it. Our U21 is loaded with talent.
Simic, Matanovic, Vidovic, Franjic, Soldo, Vuskovic, Pandur and more.
2023 will be a interesting year and test. Nations league we win, steamroll through our easy qualifying matches, win the U21 Euros. We got Spain again, Ukraine and Romania.
We need fucking need something to get our name on. No more “oh so proud and happy third of second” and then wait four more years. Let’s plant an egg. Prepare for Euro 2024.
Italy, Germany, Belgium, and other teams are rebuilding. Also, that POS Martinez is a disgrace pulling that stunt. No humble person or true winner would ever pull that shit. Livakovic performed better and was worthy of that golden glove.
Let it go dude. Third is a great achievement. People need to be proud of this achievement. Everyone wanted the team to win the finals.
Those parties are for us. They play for us not the world. They got to where they were in pure guts. We have talent but we will never be a complete power. We are just two small of a people but we always play with heart and that’s what matters.
No, it’s just you.
The fans are very passionate, and so are the players- it’s one of the reasons we have the success we do.
Third place is an accomplishment, and it came through a tough path, so celebrate to create memories and to motivate the future generation. The rebuilding can start today now that the party has ended.
Is the cup half empty or half full? Some people view the bronze celebration as a self-defeating attitude; however, it can be viewed as a positive building block as well. If we can get a silver followed by a bronze back-to-back, that is not a fluke. Our players can be confident in the future knowing that we have something special, and that we can win big tournaments.
It’s not “cringeworthy” (sounds like something the British media would say).
We’re humble people and realize what a great achievement this was. We haven’t been around since 1930 in the World Cup, where a 3rd place spot would be looked down on.
I think it was a perfect “Fuck You” to FIFA to have it at the same time as the actual game.
Sorry man, I think its just you.
I’m proud of the way our fellow Hrvati celebrate all around the world, especially in the motherland. I absolutely love it. Celebrating festivals, weddings, sporting events…its engrained in our culture, in our heritage. Its the Croatian way.
Argentina had 5 penalties in this World Cup and all but one highly contentious to say the least. As far as the final is concerned this was the most entertaining final by some margin that I have seen going back to 1974. The French had no chance in the shoot-out, their goalkeeper never got even close to stopping one, whereas Martinez is a big unit and good at stopping penalties.
We did exceptionally well to come third and those welcoming scenes in Zagreb were just amazing. Freezing weather yet 100 K there to greet the team.
Moving forward Dalic needs to find some forwards to replace our snail-paced attack.
I was impressed how well Perisic and Orsic combined in the match v Morocco.
For some reason Sosa at LB and Perisic playing in front of him has not really worked for us. Perisic is spending too much time helping Sosa in his defensive duties meaning that we have lacked offensive penetration in the attack. Playing Perisic at LB and using Orsic is one option going forward. Orsic had limited play time at this WC but whenever he came on, he did well i.e., set up Majer for goal v Canada, assist Petkovic for goal v Brazil, superb penalty against Brazil and well taken goal v Morocco. He has some pace and definitely deserves more time play going forward.
Having watched our youth teams closely for many years I feel that Simic and Ljubicic are good prospects, both are aggressive type players and quicker than what we have at the moment. As far as Musa is concerned, I was never a big fan of his when he played for our youth teams and our U21 in particular, he was no good and I often wondered how did he get in there? A lot of people on this site are singing his praises and think that he will solve our attacking problems? I’m not so sure about that, but if the guy continues to play and score goals for Benfica, he needs to be given a chance to prove himself.
Well said…regarding Musa, he’s been mostly coming off the bench for Benefica so I hope he can get the playing time needed to play on the National Team.
A friend of mine who supports Benfica loves Musa. Said he is hardworking and very reliable. Its time to give him a chance IMO.
I keep looking at our so called penalty. I’m frothing at the mouth more and more.I just can’t get over I should but I have yet to.
Definitely an entertaining final.
FIFA got what they wanted with their poster boy winning it all. The PK Argentina got was a complete and utter joke. Di Maria is already on his way down when HIS foot clips the defenders. No VAR. Unreal and I thought the one of Gvardiol was bad.
France was thoroughly outplayed until their PK then came to life. They had their chances to win it, especially that last chance near the end of extra time.
How did Gvardiol not win best young player?!?!? So deserved but you can’t fight the FIFA corrupt agenda. Disgusting…speaking of which, what the eff was Martinez doing with that trophy when he put it where his tiny Aregentine kurac was? Is he a teenage kid thinking that’s funny or cool? So classless but that sums them up in a nutshell.
I really hope we can integrate some
young and aggressive attackers this next round of Euro qualifiers.
I think what we will see is the vast
majority of who we have stay give these first two games are our biggest with Wales and Turkey.
Hopefully give Musa and/Colak a go depending on form. No need to make drastic changes for those two games especially. I did like seeing Perisic at LB and finding room for Orsic – it leaves us with options on the left.
I think we can get more creative with the easier games and call up younger players provided Biscan doesn’t ask to keep them to build his resume. For all who think Dalic should go imagine Dalic being replaced by Biscan – this site would go crazy after a few games with him at the helm.
It’s crucial to get a good start to this campaign. I don’t think we will see the hangover like we did after 2018. I actually think this made some of these younger kids hungry whether they were on the team or not.
Dalic should go
He is shiittt
wasting our time and hope
Win finals in PKs, win quarterfinals in PKs, but no one seems to dare even hint at the “L” word we often hear. Of course, maybe it’s less luck given how much practice they get in the 90. Arf.
Great tournament for us. Livakovic stepped up and looks as confident as ever. Let’s develop the young guys over the qualifiers and hopefully they gain the coaches trust like Gvardiol did early on. Future is bright since he’s looking out for us;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CihSF0yqS0o
PS: Maybe Ante can make a new Croatian Sports shirt of this video…I’d buy fo sho!
Anyone else kind of feel a lot of these Croatian songs like lijepa li si and moja domavina are getting kind of old and forced. Looking at the players, I’m not sure i really see the passion and emotion hit them when they sing it anymore.. it kind of just seems like they are trying to capture those old magic moments cause it’s what they’re supposed to do
Borna sosa even refused to sing lijepa li si anymore unless herceg-bosno was replaced by munich-berlino
A lot of these players are not ‘look at me’ stage performers. It only started to lose steam with Jura Stublic taking selfies while they just played his songs.
@the truth: I’m thinking Chetnik songs, fascist maps of Greater serbia in the wardrobe, and chanting “kill shiptars, bosnians and Croatians” during matches are getting kind of old. Where is your Chetnik cave? In Srpsko Sarajevo or Srpski Vukovar? Let me know, I’d gladly give you some napalm during the festive season.
Fuck off with your Chetnik govno slag.
@ dumbic
That is the whole point !!
You have a 35 year old super star you create an entire game plan to have him run when it decides matches.
We have our 37 year old run for Kramaric.
Scaloni has Argentina run for Messi.
Simple.
We need to put runners at forward.
What’s the point of having the best midfield in the world if there is no one upfront to run the channels.
Need to shift things up in ‘23
I hope the attacking third will be a focus for next year. It was the missing piece for us in this WC and it it is pretty simple. Our defense and midfield is super solid. Just need someone that could finish.
Messi will go down as one of the best of all time. And this FIFA assisted WC will solidify that. But my observation is that while Messi is still a great player, his best days are way behind him and he is the modern day equivalent of a pickup game basket hanger.
I went to bed at HT thinking Argentina has just played the best half of football I seen this tournament and that no way a sick France is coming back. I wake up to find that sick globalist France must of took some drugs at HT to almost pinch it.
France was on drugs 100%
3.5 years time what’s our starting line-up for North America?
Livakovic
Sosa gvardiol sutalo JJ
KOVA MAJER SUCIC VIDOVIC
SIMIC MUSA?
Will broz still be epic and healthy…Ivan still have gas ⛽️ in the tank?
Which youngster will pull a gvardiol and burst on to the world stage ?
Croatia has NO champions gene
with the like Dalic as a manager!
look at 2018 | yes they are cheating
but our mind only knows how to whining
this whining mental always be in our minds!
It’s amazing how Ante shit for brains Kvartuc allows trolls like you to talk shit about Croatia but when I make proCroatian posts that are simply the truth he fucking censors me. What a fucking TRAITOR moron. So help me God this fucking bitch ass punk.
Does anyone have a better time than Domagoj Vida? Dude had a blast this month culminating at the greeting in Zagreb tonight.
Dude will make a heck of a coach in my opinion. Great player.
Does anyone have a link for the livestream to the event?
Would have been a nice script if France pulled it out. Ottomendi the scumbag who kicked the ball at Rakitic’s head, gives France life by giving away the penalty. And Messi crying for another WC final loss. What could have been.
Had that not been a penalty in the Croatia vs Argentina match this would have been Modrić lifting the trophy but I guess we have to go with what FIFA prefers.
Mbappe looked pretty goated today. Without forwards or any attacking prowess, I’m not 100% sure we could have beaten this France side today
with Lovren on the backside line?
don’t be a fool..Dalic is No class!!
Frenchman, they Africans failed you lol!
Let’s win nations league in June. Get a trophy even though it’s minuscule achievement. Also, I think the South American teams that qualify should be cut. Besides Argentina and Brazil, the rest of the teams in South American are dog shit. Chile, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, are all average or below average teams and hardly can make it out of the group.
Well the next WC will be a shit show, with 16 more teams, but only 3 of them from Europe. South America will now get 6 teams, and maybe 7 through intercontinental playoffs. That is ridiculous. Seven out of ten countries could qualify. And four more teams from Asia and three to five more from North America. Can’t wait to see Bahrain, Uzbekistan and Cuba in the World Cup.
By far the best final I’ve ever witnessed. Argentina blew two 2-0 goals leads, lost to Saudi Arabia 2-1, awarded a penalty kick every knockout stage goal, refereeing was on Messi’s side. France still should be proud. Despite losing, they bounced back from a 2-0 lead and came back again in extra time. Doing this with multiple key players out. Not a surprise Argentina would win on penalties. France had he best PK takers subbed off; Greizmann, Giroud, etc. Martinez is a unit in PK’s and as soon as it went to penalties, Argentina had advantage. Many of these players have been in tense situations in penalties; Messi, Dybala, Parades. I think when you factor in that these guys have been playing in the WC and copa’s together such as Messi, Di Maria, Otamendi. It’s no wonder they beat a young inexperienced French squad whom many are rookies and never been in this position.
Argentina also had 18 yellows…is that a new record?
To the Croatian Canadian after watching Argentina throwing our soccer jersey into the garbage , I was hoping the French would win. At least now the French know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a bad call. I am not upset that we lost to Argentina . I can admit to myself and I believe people who are intelligent know Argentina where better than us. We lacked the ablity to overcome the deficit, made mistakes and simply did not have the quality to score or make our own luck, Even though Argentina were the better team they still needed to to stack the deck against us. We can debate the penalty thats fine. Whats not debatable is how Argentina were committing fouls left and right and not a single card went against them . The ref was giving cards to us like Candy . Josko was scared to touch messi .Messi did not need this cup to say he was great . He will go down in history as the greatest until another lion shows up. Every team needs a little luck . I get extremely upset when media pundits trash our dismiss our team,. They have no idea how hard we work to get where we are. What we saw today from the French is what we need to be. The changes the coach made brought them back and they almost won it . Wont be a conspiracy buff , but the French top players getting sick is suscpoiuis . You can tell the illness took a toll on them. People can say what they want. In public I will keep my comments to myself. But nobody will tell me that Messi did not receive help or that Fiffa did not push him to the final . The cards today against Argentina was perhaps because of the heads of state and they need to make it look good. But what the French did today is something our boys need to emulate. Sretan Bozic tebi i tvojoj obitelji
Don’t cry for team Argentina
The truth is the refs were with you
Giving free PK’s
All through the World Cup
They kept their promise:
You’ll go the distance
Where is thompson at the parade this year? Seems like they organized it better this time around which means they were prepared to not let Thompson sneak in and turn the event into his concert
Oh you did not hear ? He was told , to stay away and because we are now in EU they don’t want him attached to anything publicly with the state or city government
Is there a livestream to watch the event?
Go figure, the team with 6 penalties awarded to them won the WC.
Record breaking.
Every goal means so damn much and to be gifted a majority of those 6 penalties stinks to high heaven.
Oh well, FIFA got what they wanted. At least we can say we only got bounced by the winners in all the WCs we’ve medaled in.
Especially since the PK given has been the first goal of the match.
Massive advantage handed to Messi in every single game.
+1.
I can’t wait to watch the next FIFA corruption documentary on Netflix about this in 20 years.
Aside from that nonsense, we need to build on our Croatian football brand and continue to have relevant players on big clubs and make these deep runs at tournaments. FIFA likes a big name to build a narrative around and like the NBA, these players get the star treatment.
Will we have one after Modric? Casual American fans that I work know who Modric is. I’d love for another household name to emerge to be a part of our next run so we can get a bit of that favorable treatment.
Yup
Anyone with a link for stream of the parade???
Don’t know where your located . But if your in USa or Canada given it till 8pm depending on your time zone it will be on youtube.
Is there a link or stream?
no live stream that I am aware of
holy shit
that give Livakovic golden glove
Argentina, including in 2018, has been an organizational mess particularly with its coaching. This Argentina team seems much better designed and with better tactical game planning. You could even see that against croatia where they started exploiting spaces left by croatia.
The shame of it all is arguably croatia was the better team till messis penalty whereas France has been dominated start to finish
Think we would’ve beat this French side
You think? They made a final without several key players.
It is here, so that was a trip for Argentina, but the Gvardiol clear trip that was not by morocco?
not a surprise
Man though, Argentina dominating…hope France can adjust
Yes Argentina looking strong.
I don’t know how this penalty is not even reviewed as the World Cup final???
I want to see the replay but they are busy making cgi footage
Only half joking as I’m sure one day it will happen
The fraud cup is starting soon..I wish there was Vegas odds at what minute the fake refs will throw the game..
Can you believe we are going to have a backfield with two guys named Vuskovic and Gvardiol for the 2026 WC. Basically the Wolf and the Guard. Could not be more poetically beautiful.
I have hope that the posterized Sosa will be a great player who day, and we have did not see the best of him this time, but we saw glimpses of his greatness and potential.
I think the 2026 backfield of Juranovic/Gvardiol/Vuskovic/Sosa will rival the greatness of Rakitic/Modric/Brozovic/Kovavic midfield, of 2008. Zero goals will be scored upon us , with a fully mature wine of Livakovic vintage.
What great shots by Orisic yesterday by the way. The first goal was a piece of artwork.
Vušković just got busted for doping.
He’ll be lucky if he’s allowed to play before 2026.
He’s probably looking at a 4 year ban.
4 years??? Seems excessive no?
Isn’t his little brother supposed to be better anyways?
How do you guys feel sutalo did overall yesterday?
Not sure how Sutalo did sorry? For some reason nothing stood out as good or bad in particular for me sorry. In general, I think croatia allowed Morocco too many opportunities to tied it up like with Belgium, was a little touch and go too often, scary. I don’t think he did better than Lovren, for that reason. I could be wrong. Lovren crosses were good throughout the tournament. Did Sutalo provide any offensive dimension?
I was most impressed by Orisic yesterday, and Perisic/Gvardiol set piece goal. Two great headers by Perisic in this tournament. Two more timely goals by Perisic in this tournament, esp. Argentina game, and we would be playing today.
Darn
Kromiza,
I said once before here that after the loss I spent a lot time watching foreign media regarding our team. These were knowledgeable people who’s opinion of us were fair. According them we had the best mid field in the tournament . The only weakness was our inability to score. That statement sounds crazy and makes no sense. How can you have the best midfield and not score ! As strange as that sounds this rag tag team held the power of the Samba boys . It was not all luck. Our run with this team that according to some USA pundits was average ,was an impressive feat. The squad has talent . The names you mentioned must get better . That won’t happen playing in our league at home. They need to get to Spain Germany UK Italy. It’s only their that their skill will improve and find form.If Rumors Are true and Livakovic may be going to Bayern that is huge. He had a great tournament and this did a lot for his self esteem and confidence. At Bayern under their coaching they can help him be a better keeper where he can over come his short comings . This team has along way to go but we have the building blocks to be better under the proper leadership . Sretan Bozic tebi i tvojoj obitelji
Some expert is saying our FIFA ranking will be 7th and we’re not far behind the Netherlands for 6th.
If we take care of business in March and continue our paradigm shift of taking the Nations League serious, we could jump even higher.
There’s a site that does the calculations daily.
You can always check them here:
https://football-ranking.com/fifa_rankings
. The disrespect croatia get is crazy from these asshole so called experts.
Good tournament its funny from 2018 starting 11 only 8 players were on this team thats 18 new players. So much for aging croatia haha
We need to survive life without Modric and build i have no dount we will be competitive.
Modric perisic era is almost over we need to enjoy this. We croatians are only ones who believed we are good.
As for today i hate messi agrogant patuljak hormone asshole neka izgubi ako ima boga let france win they beat us in everything but i think they deserve it more based on how fifa treated Argentina this tournament
I can’t believe even one person is rooting for France tomorrow?? France vs Anybody and I’m rooting against France. Those scumbags ruined it for us in the 98’ semi when we had the great suker and the golden boot!! They ruined it for us again after 20 looooong dam years to get to the finals and completely cheat us!
All of the sudden France is on your cool list? Because they are playing Argentina? Whether you like Argentina or not Messi is a legend and arguably one of the best of All time. We got screwed on that penalty call against Argentina and we collapsed after and that game sucked but
Argentina is a way way better team for us to win Than France. Everybody can like whatever team they want but if you ask me France is Croatias most hated team by a long shot.
I dont think anyone “likes” france, its more a case of who you hate less. I hate them both and if they could both lose that’d be good, but i think i hate argentina and messi more. The way they carried on in that holland game was a disgrace, they should’ve been booted out for their poor sportsmanship..
Good comment Iggy, agree with you 100%.
On the one hand, I like that we’re usually the “kingmaker” team (where any team that beats us goes on to win the tournament).
So Argentina winning it would continue this tradition of teams generally having to beat us, in order to win it.
At the same time, it’s just so obviously blatant how they’re trying to give the World Cup to Messi.
France winning it doesn’t really affect much (since they’re already World Champs).
Messi winning it cements him ahead of players like Modrić and Ronaldo as some kind of testament that he’s more of a “winner”.
Modrić and his insane Champions League winning record cannot be ignored…but he never won a World Cup and Golden Boot like Messi. That’s something that alot of people will say afterwards, but if none of Modrić, Messi or Ronaldo ever win a World Cup, then it shows just how valuable it was the Modrić medaled twice in this tournament.
We got hosed vs both teams in recent years, but losing to the eventual champion is easier for me to take, if FIFA that’s what wills. I also don’t think Messi > Ronaldo was ever a debate, and that this would cement his legacy and close the book on the era. Further, Argentina is full of Argentinians, whereas France continues to reap rewards from their unsavory history. That’s not meant to be racist nor woke, just a reflection that I couldn’t fathom playing for any country but Croatia, no matter the opportunities presumably lost, much less for a country that tried to subjugate us. Admittedly, I’m more stubborn than most.
If you have me a free trip to France, Argentina, or Morocco, I would give you the tickets back. The new world order has everyone checking their brains and hearts at the door for confiscation. You can’t make any value decisions about anything anymore for yourself.
If you were a kid who lived in a school in an urban environment, you know you have your classmates, and you also have people you connect with.
The people that mind their own business and try to good in the world, by focusing on being good people, rather that conquering others. They conquer thru their hearts. Where they go they make these better, and are not selfish. If the world the world was just Croatian, Slovenia, Irish, Ukrainian, Polish, the world would be a better place. I might be missing a few.
That is what I call good diversity. The rest is a cesspol and I don’t need or want it. The French are truly bizarre people, a step below the english, with bizarre values. I avoid going through Paris when getting a connecting flight to croatia.
Samba/Jamba, the whole continent of Central/South America is foreign to me. You can have it, nobody including them wants to be there, because where everything they go, they ruin it. Give me the kolo any day of the week. These countries that sexualize everything and nothing is sacred is bizarre.
Scretan Bozic
Right on!!
So the next Euros are obviously only 18 months away given this late tourney, chances of Luka staying on??
Luka is staying for the Euros.
He’s just being respectful and wants it to be a consensus decision, taking into account what his coach and teammates want.
He’s not Ronaldo who only speaks of himself and thinks only of what he wants.
I’m sure Modrić wants to pass the torch if that’s what his midfield teammates want him to do, otherwise he’ll stay on and give Croatia whatever he can offer.
I’m really glad we won cos i think in the future we will look back fondly and by like oh yeah we got a bronze medal that time.
50% of the world cups we are in, we medal.
Taking a moment to honor Luka Legend.
Back in 2018, did anyone imagine that Modrić would captain us to another 3rd place finish and beat tournament favorites Brazil along the way?!
The midfield carried us without a center forward or right winger.
It is almost surreal.
If we could get some attacking talent and make Modrić job a little less taxing. Then he can be more than effective going forward for us.
I’d like to see studs all around Modrić to allow him to work his magic.
Let him usher in yet another generation of young nogometaši.
Musa
Ljubičić
Are a must call up for March.
Sučić has to be given an opportunity.
Oršić in his prime has to start.
Perišić is so athletic. Could he play as a second striker?
LWB
We need some imagination in 2023.
Love to see Perisic as a striker and or lb role
See what conte does…
Is there anyone more versatile????
In other news, I watched two full match highlights on YouTube
Both didn’t show the potential gvardiol penalty…
Maybe it wasn’t highlight worthy but maybe just hide the scandals;)
Jebi ga. Yes let’s support luka. He and everyone will be back
Euro can be ours friends
Agreed about Perisic versatility. Amazing how well he played at LB, and he’s good wherever he plays. But Sosa really should be our future there at LB. I would however like to see Perisic on the RW. It would allow us to get Orsic in on that LW where we see those great cut ins and shots.
I also noticed that about the highlights. FIFA trying to wipe out anything controversial. Usually they showed the good scoring opportunities, which that was until Gvardiol had his feet taken out from under him.
I hate to admit it Soul Champ and Maminjo (I think you were making this point before), but looking back at this tournament I wonder if Rebic would have been a good decision for a call up??
Firstly, I can’t believe I am saying this, as someone who has argued against him consistently and still doesn’t like him very much as a player.
But I have to admit, we lacked speed up front, simply put. Rebic has that in abundance.
As much as I cannot stand the guy, or his lack of ball control which is down right atrocious along with what he did in the Euro…I wonder if he would have offered something in this tournament.
It’s a shame that he is not willing to develop his skills more in the above department and hopefully make amends with the team he has to admit they have gotten far without him.
If it’s not him Dalic surely call up the youth like Colak, Ljubicic, Musa and co.
I have to agree and it hurts to admit that soul champ was probably correct in his rebic love for this tourney.
The lack of ball pressure or tenacity that krama & Bruno had was sorely missing.I’m sure rebic would have created a lot more havoc and inevitably far more scoring opportunities which were sorely lacking?
Gvardiol young stud of the tourney for sure
What’s not lost on me is ya he got tripped up but it’s a cb running in like a striker on a breakaway
Just keep flying Batman
Lead us to the promise land!
THE CRIMINAL ANTI WHITE ESTABLISHMENT SAY CROATIA IS ILLEGAL!
@ante kvartuc, for sure you who censors prowhite truth controls the world. Right bro?
The last time a defender won the FIFA Best Young Player award was 1972. Interestingly, 1972 marked the third time in a row and the fourth time in 5 tournaments.
Did Gvardiol’s goal seal it for him? The tie breaker is whose team advanced further in the competition.
The Portuguese kid had a hat trick, but against a side where his team would have won 3-1 without his contribution. He also couldn’t break through vs the team Gvardiol scored on when it mattered most.
Saka had a nice tournament, but only scored once after the group stage, in perhaps his side’s easiest match, before being blanked in their QF dismissal.
Is there anyone else in the conversation?
Ante freakin kvartuc is deciding what you will read! Ante, you media BITCHES can’t stop me from telling the most meaningful TRUTHS.
I KNEW CANADA WOULD BE ARROGANT AND DISRESPECT US. WHAT MORE DO WE HAVE TO DO NOW?
ROBBED – FIFAMAFIA – RIGGED MATCHFIXING were all trending hashtags at this WC and frequently.
Not as heartbroken as 2018 when I was somehow surprised. Proud of Luka. Glad he said his piece and happy his bronze served as an FU as they tried to rig this game also. What a joke. Vatreni is immortal now. Top 3.
Take that yall Yugo hugging commie throne sniffers!
That Morocco really wanted it and globalist Fifa would’ve wanted them to win made it that much sweeter!!!!
LET’S DEINDUSTRIALIZE GERMANY, LET’S GO TO WAR BRO!
Croatia’s next game is March 25th at home vs. Wales and three days later at Turkey for Euro 2024, which is only 18 months away.
Paragraph from MARCA game report lol: Croatia had the better of the second half and should have had a penalty when Gvardiol was tripped by Sofyan Amrabat in the box, but it was not given for whatever reason.
Judging by a lovren interview after the match, i think he’s retiring from the international team
Not Vida. He will make a great coach when he hangs em up. Fantastic character and knowledge the dude has.
Might have a gig for life
Big time win today @ Morocco with a ref from Qatar.
Dalic made some adjustments from match to bronze medal today. Nice to beat Morocco into submission. It shows our progress.
Oršić needs to be our starting LW. He is in his prime and scores game winning goals.
Majer was disappointing today.
Is Sučić better than him?
Gvardiol has to be young player of the World Cup.
You know what the real sign of losers is? Celebrating when you lose. Croatias second place celebration 4 years ago was embarrassing enough. Now they’ll celebrate losing the World Cup again because they got a losers medal. We only celebrate actually winning in France
Actually the sign of a real loser is someone who likes to troll people online.
We just spanked you clowns a few months ago and you are lucky we had an off game against Argentina or we would be spanking you again tomorrow.
Bog i Hrvati
Mbappe tranny loving fag! You already are losers.
Let’s be real here what Croatia is trying to do to win a world cup is akin to trying to perform a reverse 1½ somersault with 4½ twists off the 3-meter board. So the reason Croatia will never be allowed to win a World Cup is because it is not in the victory only, but also in the way of the victory, that the marvel is the greater.
Globalist Fifa want you to marvel at France and their way. So Mandzukic was right in what he said, imagine if Croatia won, in which victory would the marvel be greater, France’s or Croatia’s?
Hey froggy, suck it.
The comments about Dalic are disgraceful (not surprising since almost everyone is posting anonymously).
The guy brings the team to the World Cup in 2018 vs France (aka “World All Stars) and brings the team a game away from the final in 2022 despite not having a decent striker. What other coach would have done that with this roster?
The answer is…NO ONE.
Just because you would have done something different, so what? No coach makes a perfect lineup. Otherwise, you’d be coaching the National Team instead of bitching about the guy on an online forum.
Folks, instead of being bitter, celebrate the accomplishments with your fellow Hrvati this weekend instead of being Debbie Downer.
Also what a missed opportunity not playing Susic in place of Kramaric.
Typical Dalic BS……can he please go coach a club team in the UAE or China now.
Easy. Only Deschamps has a better record on earth.
Bravo!!! So proud of our boys !!!!!!
Players who are done and should never be called up again:
Kramaric
Petkovic
Livaja
Barisic
Budamir
Lovren
Vida
It was painful having to watch Livaja & Petkovic, Kramaric. Glad it’s over.
So happy with this result.
For those who want to replace Dalic…
WHY?????
Curious if Gvardiol felt more confident going forward, because he didn’t have Lovren to cover for anymore?
I know a lot of people will hate me for saying this, but Lovren is way too slow to be left alone in the back. At least Sutalo is fast enough to get in front of his man. I think Lovren had a decent tournament, but still requires too much support from our midfield and CB partner.
This Lovren/Gvariol pairing reminded me of the Lovren/Fonte pairing at Southampton, where Lovren was praised as being a great defender…but it was only because he was packaged with a solid defender who covers for his flaws.
VERY VERY happy with the way we played today, and very happy that Dalic took this match seriously and did what I was hoping to do.
He integrated the youth with the key veterans, using a formation that we could actually use, and didn’t play any of the garbage players (like Barisic) who have no future with this team.
I’m glad that Orsic, Sutalo, Majer got significant time. Glad that we still played Gvardiol with Sutalo to give us insight into our CB pairing for the next round. I’m glad that we opted to play Perisic at LB, rather than just default to the useless Barisic. Gives us some insight into that as an option too. I would have loved to see a bit of Sucic there at the end, but whatever. We did well today, and I’m especially glad that we played with class (while the Morroccans acted like complete cigani after being thoroughly outplayed). Media and organizers wanted to give Morocco this medal, but nope, people now see how good Croatia really is.
This gives us THREE medals in the past seven World Cups, which I believe puts us into a group of only four teams that have done this (Brazil, France, Germany, Croatia).
Another added bonus is Modric saying that he’s staying for at least the Nations League Finals.
This is fantastic news, which means that Modric/Dalic are now taking our ranking and UNL seriously (keeping us as a seeded team for the future, and keeping us as a Pot A seeded team at the next Euros).
My four-step framework I posted below is actually coming true!!!!
“Another added bonus is Modric saying that he’s staying for at least the Nations League Finals.
This is fantastic news, which means that Modric/Dalic are now taking our ranking and UNL seriously (keeping us as a seeded team for the future, and keeping us as a Pot A seeded team at the next Euros).
My four-step framework I posted below is actually coming true!!!!”
Only Maminjo you always said that the UNL was meaningless, so what you mean to say is you’re glad Dalic doesn’t read your comments🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The way you ended your comment is Truth like🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Huh?
I always hated the fact that we threw away those Nations League games.
It destroyed our reputation and (more importantly) it destroyed our rank/seeding.
I’m still upset today about that, since those experiments amounted to nothing.
Well done Croatia. You exceeded all expectations, going very far in this tournament without a true striker. 3rd place is not an easy feat.
Hoping we can come up with a dangerous offense for 2026.
Happy that Livakovic had that mini hot streak where his confidence soared. Hopefully he can win a high paying transfer to a big team for a big payday. Until he is found out and returns to Croatia on a free transfer.
He kind of reminds me of Ladic in 1998, who was a streaky keeper. Had a good spell at the right time in 1998 and would have beat France, other than Thuram scoring the only 2 goals of his lengthy international career.
Which leads me to think in both our semi final losses, the Gods were opposed to us winning:
1998- Thuram plays almost 150 games for France, scored only 2 goals. The 2 in the 1998 semi.
2022- Second Argentina goal. Ball pinballs around and stays on attackers foot. By rights that ball should bounce off his shin to the goalie, or be cleared, or run behind him, etc .
Tough to win any semi final, but when Zeus is against you……impossible!
I think our team did well to recognize his weaknesses, and did whatever they could to prevent corner kicks and long range shots on goal…but were fine with wide angled arm-lengths shots near Livakovic (because of his good reflexes).
ZDS, we broke Morroco’s defense.
The pic at the top is extremely offensive to our state religion, especially the little kids. By now, according to the PC “inevitable future”, at least half of them should be “diverse”. Now do you understand why ‘the little engine that could’ has to play 11 against 11+1(refs)?
Did you hear Joe Machnik accuse Gvardiol of “embellishment” AND “making a meal of it”? WTF is that lying rat TRAITOR talking about? Gvardiol got kicked in the back of his leg as he’s running; not to mention you are SUPPOSED TO GO DOWN when you get fouled to force the ref to call it rather than stay on your feet and lose possession b/c the foul put you off.
We’ve made the top four appearances the last two world cups and you know who hasn’t?
Germany
Spain
England
Brazil
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
Belgium
That’s still shocking to absorb
Let’s hope for a France win tomorrow. I bet you those dirty South Americans planted a virus in the French training facility.
Polak will referee Sunday final and you know Poland lost to? The frogs…coming together nicely for Argentina I may add. French injuries, flus, the referee, the calls. Plus the president of FIFA MAFIA is Italian..go figure.
I also think Argentina will get an penalty in the opening half. Just like France did against us.
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/fifas-infantino-concerned-about-violent-incidents-argentina-2022-10-20/
Well, the entire France squad was back in training today. Good news for us.
England and Belgium were top 4 in 2018
Dalic Will stay modric Will stay
But I feel lovren Will stay too
He played well but it’s time for the youth
Krama thank you as well
The kids are coming for his spot
Want to see colak if he stays hot
Musa is a must
Ljubicic
More orsic on the left side
JJ as a potential stop gap rw??
Three at the back??? We have the pieces for it
What’s with all the calls for a new coach?
WC Finals
WC semis
Nations league semis
Passed group stage in Euros, lost to a tough Spain team in extra time
What’s a guy gotta do to get some respect?
Sheesh!!!
Puno hvala Gospodin Dalić!!!
Me thinks Dalić is on to something with that Rosary in his pocket and praying before games!!!
Pravi Hrvatski vjernik!!!
Čovjek prva klasa!!!
Something to think about for all you commie/yugo infidels out there.
Bog i Hrvati
If that was Messi instead if Gvardiol, you can bet your fucking ass that’s a penalty.
Why was this referee even given this game? We all know why – tired of this tournament, fuck I’m even tired of seeing that hot Croatian chick and that same old Croat guy at every game.
Can’t wait to watch a Istra-Gorica game after Christmas.
That’s somehow two penalties!!
Modric after the match interview on HRT said that he will definitely play UEFA NL in June next year and EURO qualifiers in March. Great news.
Still cannot believe that we did not get the penalty for foul on Gvardiol.
Watched the slow reply on QATARA HRT. Chilean referee was on VAR.
You just wonder if we were meant to win today.
Volim piti, volim piti. Well done dečki! ••••• I can’t not say though: What a horse shit non-PK call. Unbelievable. (Yet so believable.)
Yes exactly. I’ve been scouring social media and mostly everyone is saying wtf does Hrv have to do to get a penalty or not have a penalty against them. It’s almost surreal when you think about it.
Damn, we can’t even get a blatant penalty call in 3rd place game. Lol
Now if Argentina lose tomorrow and Messi cries, it is a happy ending. We get a medal and end on a high note and Argentina losing and Messi never winning a WC would be very nice. Guessing Argentina get another controversial penalty.
Every real Croatian should support Argentina over France. Tons of Croatians were saved by Argentina after the 2nd world War.
That is a good reason for me to hope Argentina win, but it’s the reason a partizan will root for France.
Great result and love him or hate him- Dalic got the job done for 2 tournaments but time to turn the page and move to a strong coach who can further develop – we have proven we’re now upper tier but we can do better- so great to read everyone’s comments and the unity we have as navijicaci- idemo napred !!
Again, who is your candidate to replace him? You have my full attention.
No one. Forever people have bitched about him. Although not perfect the results speak for themselves. Since 2018…
World Cup runners up, World Cup third place, Nations league final 4.
We had the 2018 World Cup
Hangover but also lost some key players.
Lastly, he’s a Livnjak…what more do you want? 🙂
Only Croatian I would consider if Dalic wants to move on is Tomislav Stipic. Other than him I don’t want regurgitated coaches coming back.
A foreign coach would be interesting to see have to admit.
But which foreign coach I have no idea. The Ancellotti thing is always in the back of my mind
Who?
You’re obviously a relative of his, lol.
Exactly!
Well done boys and Dalic.
We were the better team and deserved to win.
What an awful referee, lost complete control of the match.
Missed a clear penalty on Gvardiol and no intervention from VAR.
Why do reffs get medals ffs?.
Crazy. Does Orsato get a gold one?
😁
Lol, how bout Pitana? He’s another asshole
Today sort of eased the sting of Tuesday but I’m now reflecting and what a tournament we had.
Other nations would die for a bronze. Look at the Moroccan fans.
We can play so attractively when we want. That penalty on Tuesday finished us. Simple as that.
Nonetheless, I am so proud of this squad! On to the next battle fellas.
We will prevail one day oh some day!
We absolutely pulled this 3rd place finish out of our asses. We can complain about Argentina and should, but so many things went our way. Another incredible run!
Indeed
Bravo Hrvatska!!! 👏🇭🇷
Thank you Dalić and the entire team!!!
nice
a good victory
why no Sucic ?
Petkovic…unbelievable…what is he thinking
VAR fucking Croatia for about the 7th time now.
VAR-ati
VAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
Obvious cheating
Where was VAR on that clear penalty?
such a joke…thank God this isn’t the Final…if that penalty wasn’t given we’d all be losing our shit right now
Got a strange feeling. We could and should do more now, but…
We don’t even try to counter attack when we have the opportunity. We just pull the ball back and wait for all their players to go into a defensive position. It’s a sad reflection of the mentality of our midfield, that they consider it futile to go towards the goal.
We’re waiting for the equalizer
Oršić meant to cross the ball on his “goal”. 😁
Yeahhhhh im not sure
im gonna give him the benefit of the doubt there, and say he meant it
either way who cares
You have obviously never seen him play before.
That was no cross, that was a shot on goal.
Exactly, that’s his specialty, does it for Dinamo all the time.
Krama what a crybaby!
Gotten to the point with Kramaric where I can’t stand watching him. Perfect through ball, just has to lay it back to Majer for a clear shot from 12 yards, and instead he tries to dribble and falls down. He is totally useless now.
You don’t have to any more. Looks like he pulled a hamstring.
remember Euro 2020 last year where he had the big chance at the beginning of extra time, and screwed it. Kramaric is really not fitting in
I have big respect for Kramaric, we all know he hasn’t been used the way he’d like to be, but the fact is he was here, where was Rebic?
Livakovic excels at PK’s because there is no chance of body contact.
When there is a chance he might get hit he turtles and stays on his line for fear of being hit.I’ve seen week old kittens with more fight in them.
There were no real inswingers this WC where he would have gotten exposed,he was really fortunate in that regard?
He’s never going to be a world class goalie with his lack of aggression in the box,and it’s laughable that Bayern Munich is looking at him.
If dinamo are smart they off-load him NOW to the highest bidder.
Looks like the entire France squad is back in training today.
mind games, nothing else
He’s always a half a second behind
Very reactive is Livaković
What the fuck we do
Criticise a guy who got us to the semis
Very torn
Woooow…are we leading in a World Cup knockout match?? A good feeling. But a weird one.
I understand this is a 3rd place match and they’re usually played much more open without fear…but our team simply plays better when we can just play football and not chess. Just looks prettier.
Boy, I hope we can build a striker for the next tournament. That would be so sexy!
I know a lot of ppl dont care about this game but there is some encouragement. For example, Gvardiol going forward as he loves to do and scoring goals for one.
great goal from orsic. livaja is completely out of game. majer, too
Put Sucic in, take Majer out … in my dreams
Majer is just seeming a bit off………very easily challenged off the ball, giving it away easy and slow.
now plz no more fuckups from liva lol
Majer is kind of tough to watch right now
Sucic for Majer at half
what a goal ORSIC well done buddy
I’m really disappointed. We have more ball possession, but lack a credible threat in offense
Take Majer out, put Sucic in and all that will change.
Morocco have to know any time they cross or corner they have a good chance at scoring cos our goalkeeper is not coming out and is scared
I would like to see Sucic get some minutes in this game. Sad to see Livakovic choke …
And Kramaric so slow on offense.
WTF was that goalkeeping? or lack of? geez
Livaja and Kramaric are like opponents in the same team
Livakovic back to normal. First goal against Argentina he should have cleared the ball before it got to Alvarez and now allows a ball to fall four yards in front of him. Pathetic.
Livakovic has to come out and punch that ball – same old shit
He had 3 good games in a row at the World Cup. Almost fooled us all. But he’s back folks!
Wow Livakovic just messed that up. Absurd frozen response.
Livakovic being a complete pussy there. That ball was up in the air for 5 seconds and landed right in front of the net and he watches it.
you’re right…Majer’s header was stupid af, but this ‘defending’…oh my
That’s on Liva…ball is right on his 6-yard box. Come out and punch it out. What are you doing??? The guy still doesn’t have any box presence.
Looks like they can adjust with this lineup. Maybe start 4-2-3-1 and shift to a 3-5-2 or some variation of it. Perisic at LB will likely operate more of a wingback. I’m glad Dalic did this instead of throwing Barisic in for Sosa…we do need a decent backup LB to Sosa.
Maybe Bradaric can get back on track. He looked good early then completely fell off the radar for us.
I’m digging the 3-5-2. I know the third place match is played a bit more open, but we look more threatening in attack. I always thought we never gave that formation a fair shake in qualifying or Nations league.
I though it was 4-2-3-1. Changing it again looks like. Well we shall see.
What Dalic is doing with the lineup today is more of what I would have envisioned as a starting lineup. Almost to a T. Interesting choices even Perisic as a wing back is not a bad choice at all he is defensive minded and very good at getting the crosses in. Regardless of outcome these are good choices based on who we have at this time and I hope that it works.
Ajmo vatreni!!
Let’s goooo
i wanna win this
i know some ppl dont care but i do
I agree 😉
Same. Being eliminated still stings. But this is the kind of game where in a few months time I’m sure the players (and we) would much, much rather have won.
You want to go out with a W…simple as that
Effing W for Croatia… it’s as simple as that.
It is 4 – 2 – 3 -1
Liva – Stanisic, Sutalo, Gvard, Perisic – Modric, Kova – Majer, Krama, Orsic – Livaja
Interesting to see Perisic at LB. Some fresh legs in the lineup which is good to see. Sutalo has not played a match in six weeks but deserves to play, hopefully Erlic, Jakic and Sucic get a run in the second half.
I agree, don’t be afraid of early subs here if needed
Interesting lineup with Perisic playing LB. Definitely more attacking.
Ajmooooo!!
It still feels not right…a missed chance.
I re-watched the semi final vs. Argentina and the one thing which bothers me still is that the result was too high in the end.
The PK was as it was, it’s a 50:50 decision, but what makes me wonder, why did we fell apart. It was only after 30 mins, plenty of time to come back, but we lost track.
Then, I think we were lucky before. Gvardiol and his potential hand ball.
We were never in, no really threatening offensive action. The ref might not be the best, but let’s be honest, he did not f… it up. His overall performance was okay, and we saw a pretty fair game.
I sincerely hope, they will win today. In 90 mins, and make us proud again.
Once again I’m not sure why this site seems so confident on the future
Firstly we need to recognize that this years team is not a standard semi final team nor was 2018 a standard final team. These teams got lucky and are more first round knock out round quality teams. Therefore, simply by making improvements on these teams doesn’t get you to the finals… it maybe on average gets you to the quarterfinals
But improving on this team is still going to be tough. Outside of gvardiol, I’m not sure i see any game changing talent on Croatia coming up. Just a lot of average players compared to elite teams and most of them wouldn’t be able to start for an England team
Majer is ok. Not game changing. Looks slow. Reminds me of rakitic a bit in that has some skill and power with his foot
Who knows about sucic. Hasn’t proved he has another step in him
If Croatias youth were really that dominant you’d see then dominate youth competition like yugo won the youth World Cup with suker and crew.
This allegedly stacked u21 team has had mixed results and you can only blame biscan so much
I don’t know man, beating England in 2018 had nothing to do with luck and that’s the truth
Indeed croatia deserved that England win. They were good enough to do it. They are capable of making a run with some luck But their level is not consistent with those results on average
I still think the average level of these teams have been first to second round knock out
Dead wrong on the 2018 team. 2018 we had a number of players in their prime. We straight up outplayed teams (England and France) and came up short against France.
I would agree with the 2022 team. Players past their prime but we adjusted our game to a defensive possession based style that got us far yet again with much less talent.
We do need younger players to develop and fill those roles. I agree with your assessment regarding Majer. Not a major talent but still a solid all around midfielder. We really haven’t had many fast players over the years but out technical abilities made up for it.
I think the future is very bright as we have a number of players in the 18 to 21 range that could pan out nicely.
Lastly, we are typically late bloomers. I like the improvement I’ve seen in Kovacic the last few years. He could step up and break out a bit knowing Modric is slowly is close to calling it a career.
Todays game will be tough….Qatar ref and a home game for Morocco….but then again no one gave us a chance against Brazil.
Nemaš pojma!
Actually, we definitely are THE standard semifinal team as we’ve proven that by being in 3 semifinals in the last 24 years, 2 of which are in the last 2 WC’s on the trot.
We are excited about the future because Croatia has demonstrated an uncanny ability to produce excellent athletes on a consistent basis and know how to produce results with less resources than other, larger countries.
I bet you’re a ton of fun at parties.
You should change your moniker to debbie downer.
Ajmo dečki!!!
Bog i Hrvati
There isn’t a single team that gets to the finals / semi-finals without some good luck. You need to be good to be lucky, and lucky to be good.
Talk about most of our players not being able to make a talented England squad?
Who would want to- with all their talent, they don’t have very much success!
Team players with strong unity, big hearts (a love for their nation that is second to none), and hard work coupled with good talent resulted in better results than England these past two world cups, and that is not luck in my opinion.
I agree that we don’t really know how the young prospects will perform in the future, but with the same attitude, and some signs that there will be good talent / skill, why not be optimistic?
“Just a lot of average players compared to elite teams and most of them wouldn’t be able to start for an England team”
So tell us, what is it that Croatia had in Qatar that elite Germany, elite Spain and elite Brazil didn’t have?
Whatever it is we shouldn’t lose that.
Elite Italy just won a Euro and weren’t even here, what happened to them?
Overall nobody could tell me with this group of strikers we make it this far hope we win today medal is a medal and start believing in ourselves that we are big team F everyone else small nation big heart we will win one day maybe wont be alive but we will. Lets get bronze finish strong nations league and try and win euro 2024
Well said. Based on Hajduk’s Luka Vušković 1st senior goal, at the tender of 15 years of age, “the Peter Crouch of Croatia”, maybe we have a Gvardiol on the offensive end now, and it might be in your lifetime if you can live 4 -8 more years.
Luka Vuskovic is a defender. We need to cross the ball and not play short corners to give our CBS the chance to score off set pieces.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/world-cup/taking-all-necessary-precautions-third-french-star-struck-by-virus-superstar-pushing-for-shock-return/news-story/04ea520df813ff51a531a3bb942590ae
Looks like the Argentina is getting the win Sunday. No Hernandez’s (both brothers out), Pogba, Rabiot, Varane, Konate, Coman, Benzema, Pavard, Kante, Tchouameni are all out. Grant you, others were out prior to the tournament starting or throughout the tournament. I swear if Argentina don’t get this win, it will be pathetic to not get the inside job done with most of the team being second string players in the final. Reminds me of Ronaldo missing the 98 final vs France with “panic attacks” and then starting but playing like ass.
Looks like an inside job to me brates. Total scam. The French team has been threatened or bribed to throw the game.
Wow, I thought we could handle Argentina, based on the belief that this 2022 croatia team might be better than 2018 version, and based our past performance with Argentina. Was more worried about France. I think we could have taken Frances with this revised line up. Missed opportunity.
Losses we’ve had in the knockout stages or group stages to teams that became the eventual winners
Germany 2-1 1996
France 2-1 WC 1998
Spain 1-0 Euro 2012
Portugal 1-0 Euro 2016
Argentina 3-0 2022 could be the five.
We’ll get that trophy soon brates!!!
I truly believe we can become champions next World Cup. Yes we will rebuild but we’ll have the youth ingrained in our system in the next 2 and half years. Gvardiol, Kovacic, Majer, Vlasic and amongst other players will lead the U21 team and prepare them for the next one. Five major improvements need to be made in order to become champions of the world.
1.Consistent Goalkeeping: Livakovic has only been our starting goalkeeper since 2019 and has been in two major tournaments. Subasic was a short term piece and started too late. By the time our journey ended, his stint was done. Look at previous World Cup winner goalkeepers: Lloris, Neuer, Casillas, Buffon, etc. These are legends and have been either the captain or a goalie for the National Team for several years. We can’t rotate goalies like we’ve done in the past. Is Livakovic our main guy? He could if he gets exposure to quality competition and signed to a better club.
2.A prolific striker and that puts up 15-25 goals in a top league in Europe. Who’s our current guy? Rebic is the only one and he’s on the naughty list with Dalić. You don’t win championships with HNL players starting or be substituted against the top teams in the world. Spain had Villa, Germany had Muller, Italy had Del Piero, France had Mbappe. Who do we have now? Nobody.
3.Coaching and leaning towards international coaching. Perhaps slowing doing this by introducing foreigners to assistant coaching positions. It has to be done. This “Only Croatian Managers” mentality has to shut down. It’s complete stubbornness.
4.Downplaying the third place or nations league matches. This is why we aren’t winners. This mindset of “third place doesn’t matter or winning nations league doesn’t have significance” needs to end. We play hard or go home. We got three difficult teams to face. Morocco and either Netherlands, Italy, Spain for the semis/final or third place. Let’s get an actual UEFA trophy with our name engraved on it. Prepare for Euros in March and get the youth minutes. Modric, Perisic, Lovren and others can stay until June. After that, retire immediately. None should start or be listed on the team for Euro 2024.
5.Last but not least. Constantly blaming the FIFA referees. Complaining and saying “woah is me” that’s a loser mentality. You think the mighty Germans ever won a World Cup independently after losing to champions; Brazil, Italy, Spain? No! They picked their socks up and pushed through it. They lost to champions and so did we. We lost to the eventual winners. We lost to France twice and possibly the winners on Sunday. It took Spain how many years to win in 2010? 80 years to get that star.
Let’s have a fucking winning mentality.
I hope you’re right CC but not yet. The one after we’ll be so dangerous it will be sick. Actually, I think 2028 will be it and we could make it a double in 2030. That would be job done.
just kick Lovren and change the manager
we don’t need Dalic anymore – he is done!
So 15 year old Luka Vuskovic scored in a friendly today for Hajduk vs Schalke. 15 and 6’5. Isuse
Another stud CB in the making?
Hopefully he doesn’t fall under the influence of doping like his brother hahahaha.
Not sure if you saw his celebration after the goal…pretending to inject something in his arm. Lol.
The kid does not look 15!
I always wonder how many world cup titles we would have if the communist partizani didn’t fight against our independent nation that was a Fifa member in 1941?
When I look at our record since being readmitted I find it hard not to think we’d at least have 2 world cup titles
Didn’t we lose to the Third Reich 5-0 once
I heard that was just a game put together quickly.
That’s cuz Alen Boksic was hurt. Works every time
Our boys did very well this tournament considering we had no striker and right winger.
Hopefully some of our striker prospects take their game to the next level in the near future.
I would also like to see Juranovic on the right wing and Stanisic behind him from now on. Pasalic and Vlasic are ineffective in that position.
Considering our current lack of quality wingers and quantity of quality CBs; maybe we can reconsidering testing out a 3 in the back line up again for Euros qualifying. It allows Pasalic and Vlasic to play their natural positions. Maybe something like this;
————–Musa
——–Vlasic-Pasalic
Sosa-Kova-Brozo-Juranovic
—Gvard-Erlic-Stanisic/Sutalo
Sretan bozic in advance to everyone here 🙂
Sounds crazy but I want us to emulate Germany’s World Cup record from 2002 to 2014 by consistently making the final four; we’ll win eventually.
2002: Runners-up
2006: Third place
2010: Third place
2014: Champions
Let’s take the bronze home this time and keep the strong momentum going. No post-2018 meltdown, please. It’s probably time for us to permanently stay elite, in the same fashion as Portugal since the 2000s.
I really agree with Maminjo our NT needs to possess a “in-it-to-win-it” mentality. And also had we maintained a good ranking, we could have been seeded in Pot 1 and avoid a nailbiting clash with Belgium in the last group stage match (although having said that, I think the 48-team WC2026 format is somewhat different, with only 2 matches in the group stage. Nonetheless I think it’s vital to have a good seeding if we want to improve our chances of winning the WC).
I’m not sure if this is possible but I really hope Dalic will learn a few lessons from this WC cycle and continue to improve as a coach, especially in regard to his obvious weaknesses.
Bartolec 1912 now your fucking talking. Yes could not agree more. look I got nothing against Dalic. I just don’t believe he has the vision to understand what you write about or what we the fans envision for our team. We need someone that is ambitiuous and understands the politics of Fiffa and can manage the savez and can continue to build on the momentum we have built on in Qatar. We need someone that can educate the savez on what a successful national team can mean for the country and for our soccer federation . If the national team were proven to be successful with a honest management in place the worldwide Croatian diaspora would support it . Money would pour in . Money that could be used to help our youth . We can build soccer academies in every major city and selo doma. Building successful youth academies would be the foundaton for building national team that as you said would be able to reach the final four in the major tournaments and stay elite. This is easier said than done. but its possible. it takes hard work , men with vision , balls and intelligence to get to make it work .
I am calling BS that third place doesn’t matter.
It makes a difference to all of our young nogometaši.
We let ghetto fabulous Argentina run us over.
This is unacceptable.
We need all the young legs to defend the faith.
This is not a glorified friendly.
This is for Croatia.
Totally agreed, Soul Champ.
Soul champ , I am with you
Boze moje, tako mora da bude. Tocno.
100% agreed, idemo po broncu!
I would rather Croatia safeguard their nation, at the very least, for people of like similar values, and cultural norms, rather than importing people for short term needs and ambitions. If the cost of a cup is losing the past cultural and national identity, is it worth it? Victor Orban has it right in hungary. Country before Cups. There are many beautiful things in croatia, as well as soccer. We do the best we can, and be satisfied.
I agree but no worries . Foreigners are not coming to Croatia . There is no money , shit economy , cannot get ahead . Thousands of migrants passed through but never stayed. No Sir , they want to go to England Brussels Germany Holland big countries , big economy, somewhere they can work the system and dig in , thats not Croatia . Funny open borders only exist in white countries .
Strikee position depends if orospects pan out. Dion dren beljo simic ljubicic.
Is Musa international level player. Need to try out and see.
Our Goalkeepers are ok for Future
Our defense is gonna be good Gvardiol Sutalo Erlic CC Pongracic Sosa Stanisic Juranovic. Maybe Bradarić wakes up bosko sutalo aswell.
Midfield should be ok sucic misic moro baturina ivanusec kova is 28 broz still here
So i think we will be competitive its just a matter of if these players will step up.
Vidovic Pasalic Kacavenda smolcic franjic zvonarek saranic it all depends if they turn to players
Alot of flops recent years halilovic coric examples
If Switzerland and Portugal can find success with mid-table Portuguese league strikers like Seferovic and Eder…then why are we above calling up Petar Musa from Benfica?
If it’s true that Mandzukic is his idol, then odds are that he’s a worker and someone who will press.
His highlights already prove he’s an aerial threat and is scoring regularly enough in these past 18 months.
No brainer to call him up. Even if he’s not prolific, I’ll take him for the pressing and threat of headers on set pieces alone.
If his (Musa) work rate can destroy Livaja and petko
And his skill and speed is more then budimir
We have something very workable with our current line up
Prove me wrong
I really like a
Kacavenda but didn’t he blow his knee? Hope he isn’t a pjaca
Speaking of didn’t he quietly have A decent year last season?
Not sure what the status of Kacavenda’s knee injury is, but the kid was explosive and it was a big part of his game.
I’m going to assume that he’s done as a prospect for us.
Hopefully he proves everyone wrong, but a blown knee is a blown knee…and it’s pretty much ended (or terribly limited) the careers of guys like Moro, Pjaca and Krovinovic.
Would be surprised it it didn’t do the same for Kacavenda.
I feel like lovren is going to have to be phased out kicking and screaming
He is now in Russia and who knows when will see European action… he is all but done
But can stay relative on a bigger stage with the repka
I am with others
Let’s see gvardi at lb tomorrow
Erlic, sutalo and stanisic
Majer deserves some time
Orsic on left, Perisic at Striker, if vlasic is not able to play, Throw pasalic
I am with the others who said we took guys we knew wouldn’t play which sucks
Like I said before, we could have given vida a temporary coaching staff position for moral support
Could have taken colak or Musa instead
To not take our most inform striker at the time while is what it is, Let’s face it wasn’t the smartest move
Especially since budimir only played what a half and a bit??
Dalic did his bit. Thank you
Let’s get a new look, it’s probably the only benefit of modric retiring right now. Maybe lovren, dalic, vida will leave. Krama also done
If we are going to have some growing pains let it be now
Perisic, kova, broz still on the team for experienced veterans
One of these young strikers will be dangerous
Whether it’s an older colak still doing well or the ljubicic, Musa, simic…. Someone is going to step up
But I do think we give Perisic some more time in that role
Will be curious if conte deploys him out there more
Let’s not kid ourselves. We know Dalic will put in Vida for Lovren and Barisic for Sosa
Sadly, most likely
We had an immense striker by DNA Zlatan but we thought he was a Swedish Meatball.
Vidovic played for our U21s in their qualifying campaign. I watched a few of the games and recall one of Vidovic or Pasalic looking really good as a winger. Aggressive and quick…..
We do have some decent attacking options in our U21s.
Definitely some no.9s out there but not as many pure wingers aside from Biuk who has been so-so. He’s still very young and lots of time to develop. We just need a few of these guys to accelerate their development before the 2024 Euros.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/croatia-coach-ejected-messis-world-194115055.html
Does any but no the story regarding Mandzukic being ejected? Who ordered it?
I hope I’m wrong, but this has Morocco 2 Hrvatska 0 written all over it.
They’re exited to get a bronze as our veteran guys are either banged up or not as thrilled with this match since they experienced the finals 4 years ago as I don’t get the feeling they care about a consolation.
We didn’t come close to scoring in our first encounter, so what will be different here? Start Sučić at right mid since we never came close to replacing Raketić.
Does anyone here know if Gabriel Vidovic is going to play for us? or has he declared for Germany ? also what do we know about Toma Bašić from Lazio? did he play for us at one point as sub in a friendly.
I’m pretty sure Vidovic is going to play for us. He’s currently loaned out to Vitesse in the Dutch first league and is starting regularly.
Basic kind of flamed out and as far as I know isn’t starting for Lazio.
Hey Markus and Croatia U14; we need a mid season update on the next crop of youths coming up the ranks. Is that on the agenda?
Do you guys know much about the striker Leonardo Vonic playing for Nuremberg II? He was apart of the German U19 and looks like he switched over to us a couple months ago and is scoring some goals.
Hi Dumbic, thank you for the reply . question if we had to pick a foreign coach who would you choose ?who is the best choice for us
I’m not really the best person to answer this question. I was anti-Dalic for a while after 2018 when we tanked for a bit and then underperformed in 2020 Euros. But when you look at his body of work outside of that, he’s going to go down as one of the best coaches if not the best coach we’ve ever had with a silver and potentially a bronze in back-to-back WCs.
Can a foreign coach bring out more from our players than what he has? Maybe. But when you look at the talent some of the other foreign coached National teams have had and have bowed out sooner than us in the last two WC’s… maybe we’ve got ourselves a good tournament coach.
There is a grass is always greener element, and part of me wants to see an outside opinion (not influenced by the big Croatian club pressure to pick their players prematurely for their own financial benefits).
We’ve no doubt lost some qualifiers and made it into the tournaments by the skin of our teeth. I faulted Dalic for that. But is part of it the Croatian personality of the players to only turn it on when it matters? Sometimes I get that sense from the players when we’re playing Azerbaijan or Estonia in the middle of the season in March.
If he’s getting us into the WC finals or a chance at the finals, I think we should continue to roll with him. The players seem to believe in him and I’m willing to give him another 2 years. If he tanks, let’s consider another perspective. But keep in mind, the HNS is cheap and we may end up with someone way worse instead of a shiny foreign coach.
fair enough . Thank you
no way _ we have got more than that
with a foreign coach – as they will kick Lovren out! +
I’m 100% with you in your thinking that Lovren should be sent out to pasture. But what realistic foreign coach is on the shortlist.
If im Dalic which im not id go with
Livakovic Stanisic Erlic Gvardiol Sosa
Modric Kovacic Sucic Majer Livaja Perisic tommorow.
My worry with gvardiol going forward won’t be his talent but it seems he’s injury prone
Sadly i think he’s likely to miss a lot of games in his career
And where exactly are you getting this from? Just a hunch? What a dumb comment.
Truth plugged in the Fact that he’s a rather large lad into his comodore 64 and it spit out the 45.67% chance that he “might”get injured in the future!
It’s time. The young guys will be going in. We have to move forward and we will- we have lots of good kids and we’ll need a proper manager to support their development – we did very well with Dalic but it will be requiring another skill set with a new manager -Let’s see what HNS does.
Hi Crotown. I don’t believe Dalic after this should continue as our coach. I spent a lot of time watching Foreign news regarding our team . Its hard to believe that according to them Croatia had the best midfield without the ability to score and reached the semi finals is a remarkable feet. Although they critized our team it was fair and not bias and respectful . A third place win would garner the repka 23 million euros . plus two million for reaching the quarter and semi finals. With that money we could afford a foreign coach to take over . I agree from your previous post that the PK Versus Argentina did not cost us the game . We were not good enough or ready from them yet . I do believe that the ref was not on our side and had we had the offensive muscle to win that ref would off spoiled us. Question for you ? and others here ? Does Croatia or any other team have the right to say we don’t want this referee and won’t play unless they are removed ? I was curious about that . We have a good roster and if we built on that I believe we can be good team and make a run at the Euro 2024. That won’t happen if our team is not run by proper coaching and management . We cannot afford after this to regress . Although the nations league is a joke we must win it, and go undefeated in Euro qualifying . With each game we win it will boost our morale and put teams on notice we’re not some joke or Cinderella story .
would be great to win every single game you play (as you say we must do) but that is not realistic, and too much pressure to boot.
Fairly tough Euro qualifying group with Wales and Turkey….we should top it, but game in Turkey will be tough for sure.
Croatia has a decent shot at winning Euros, but won’t be the favorite by any means…
GG Alin, yes your correct its not realistic and will be difficult . Pressure must not be a problem or a concern. Every team faces pressure . We need change the culture in our team . Tom Brady once said he expects to win every game and thinks that he can win whether thats realistic or not. As he said I play to win and not loose . Even if I personally believe that I will loose ,I don’t believe or accept that . I don’t want to see us go through the drama of not being able to qualify or having to get a wildcard to get in. You seen some of our past campaigns . I rather avoid that . We need to change the culture on that team . I enjoyed our run while it lasted and would love nothing better for our team to be a team on the raise that when people speak about us, its with respect . We are by no means favorites . A different coach that knows how to develop and motivate talent could go along way in changing the culture of this team and get us on winning track . We have potential . We just have to take advantage of it
Thanks CIG – lots of good points- sometimes the politics of HNS is better than the soccer – it will definitely be interesting- let Mamic loose and it would be a great reality show LOL
Yeah several good points by CIG. Thanks.
thank you
Crazy as that sounds Mamic would get ratings . Thankfully he is no longer involved. Had he been in the picture 2018 and now would never have happened. be a first round knock out . He was the biggest reason our team failed to advance in major tournaments and were so disorganized. Hopefully we are turning the page
Apparently Gvardiol has a foot injury, and received injections in the foot. I hope he will be good to go for Saturday.
Glad to hear that Lovren is out.
I know a lot of people here liked Lovren. He did more than expected and sent in a good cross against Japan…but he is what he is.
He is good when Gvardiol is covering for him, but we saw his limitations in this World Cup when under pressure against Belgium and Argentina.
Hopefully he’s officially done and doesn’t play another game for us. Gotta move forward with our younger CBs.
yeah 3rd place will be guaranteed
Need to find a fast centre forward who can run into and find gaps in defences. That’s it. That’s all we need. We find that guy and teams will tremble with fear when Hrvatska comes to town.
Petkovic, I’ll give him credit, actually did some good things in the Brazil game but his contributions are too few and far between.
Livaja, one goal against Canada, that’s it. Looked like a pylon every other game. Not to mention the missed casual penalty.
They gotta go!
Can’t wait to see Musa and Simic get their opportunity. I pray that we will give them a chance to settle in. They’re young, it may take a little while.
Ajmo dečki!!!
Bog i Hrvati
I honestly think it won’t take any time to settle in.
I think Musa makes an immediate impact when he gets called up for these qualifiers, and we’ll all be really upset that he wasn’t called up for the World Cup.
Even if he’s not scoring, just having a 6’3″ striker who has young legs, is willing to run, is an aerial threat for Sosa crosses (not stupid short crosses) and is willing to press hard on the defensive end…is huge for us.
We were missing ALL of that with our current crop of strikers.
It now looks like Vlasic will be out tomorrow as well. So Dalic will probably go with Pasalic.
This will be an extremely challenging game to win.
Morocco’s motivation seems sky high and they will be playing at home. You can bet not many croatians care to fly out to qatar to watch a 3rd place game.
That’s just a product of Croatia’s recent success. It’s good and bad. It’s good we’re so spoiled. It’s bad that winning 3rd place isn’t as exciting anymore for either fans or players probably
That being said, if I were a player I would still rather go home with a piece of hardware than empty handed.
The celebration in zagreb will be interesting. Once again, 3rd or 4th place rather than 2nd place…. people are probalby less excited….and it’s winter
PEP GUARDIOLA SPEAKS WITH JOŠKO GVARDIOL AS MANCHESTER CITY PREPARE TO MAKE THE CROATIAN THE MOST EXPENSIVE DEFENDER IN THE WORLD
https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2022/pep-guardiola-speaks-with-josko-gvardiol-as-manchester-city-prepare-to-make-the-croatian-the-most-expensive-defender-in-the-world/
I’d rather he go to Real Madrid. Less wear and tear on the body. Even AC Milan would be good.
Save him for the Croatian national team.
Bog i Hrvati
AC Milan is below him
Hey Maminjo I don’t think the Seria A is good place for our guys. They go there and just loose form .
I agree with Real…would love to see him there. Wherever he goes, he’ll be getting a huge payout and so will Dinamo!
Ante I would agree, I was asking myself why Sucic did even have a chance to play as a sub, the kids quick and as you say does have an eye for goal. When nothing else is working, why not throw in the kitchen sink??? I am not in any way suggesting Sucic is that much of a risk, I don’t think he is he has talent.
The problem here is Dalic’s union mentality. Call the older guys first and let them play first always. I mean, sometimes the older players need to rest don’t they?? Nations League for example… You have to sub and let the younger kids play if nothing else to use the depth you have
I made this point before, the French coach to a risk playing Mbappe, Dalic has to be more ready to take those same risks. Play who is hot up front, call up the person or persons that are scoring the most. Above all don’t call them simply with the point of being bench warmers.
How players play and pair together needs to be considered as well.
I hear Juranovic and Brozo are out for the last game, I don’t have too much faith in Stanisic just yet so I’m a bit worried about that right side
Stanisic is better than Juranovic defensively…but yea, we won’t be able to go wide on that right side offensively.
let’s have a petition to kick out Dalic ~
let’s bring our future to this national team
Imo I know brekalo didnt get playing time for his club should have went over budimir even jakic why call jakic if you dint use him i understand sucic is still young and is below in midfield order.
Musa Or colak should have went and brekalo.
Good tournament over all close it out with a bronze bog te zivija
No way
Lovren will play
and there is no bronze!
For Jakic, he got the call because he’s our Brozovic backup and with Brozo coming off an injury we needed someone to play that position in case he went down. Some would of rather had Bulat, but when it comes down to it, if Brozo can play, he plays.
Now that it’s looking like Brozovic will be out for Morocco, I think they’ll go with Majer in his place as MART suggests below. Before Brozovic came along and we had our dark years at CDM between Niko Kovac, I remember us going without a true CDM against teams that were going to bunker. I’m thinking we’ll do that tomorrow and roll with Modric/Kovacic/Majer as the 3 in the mid.
– – No Dalic – – – No Lovren – –
the bright future for Croatia!
If Sosa is injured for tomorrow, I’d really prefer Gvardiol over Barisic at LB. We don’t need to see Barisic struggle against Ziyech. This also allows for our future and frankly currently capable Erlic/Sutalo pairing at CB.
Vlasic should start in his more natural position in the midfield 3 with Kova and Modric. I think we all want Sucic to at least get some minutes this game. Hopefully, Stanisic as well.
Orsic has been decent, so it will be interesting to see if he gets the nod over Pasalic. It’s just that Pasalic is more willing to make runs into the penalty area which is vital for us especially if Krama is roaming as usual.
Unfortunately, Krama is our only viable option up top. Sad that Budimir took Brekalo’s spot this tournament but that needs to motivate the young man to act and train like a top player. Musa will be there for Nations League for sure after these poor performances by our CFs.
I agree with your 3rd point Ante, we should be proud of how far we’ve come. Another medal will only enhance our reputation as a perineal contender. Just like in basketball, reputation gets you calls with refs and I think we’ve learned that lesson several times.
*perennial (still an immigrant lol)
Yea, I don’t want to see a minute of Barisic. It’s a waste of valuable playing time for a player who probably shouldn’t be called up anymore.
If Sosa is out, I’d be down for Gvardiol at LB…then we can try out a MONSTER backline of Gvardiol, Erlic, Sutalo, and Stanisic.
Will give us some nice insight into a possible backline lineup that we could try out in the future.
Indefinitely like the sound of that backline, Maminjo. There some other players so to consider as substitutes over Barisic I think, plenty of options to go with there, other than what Dalic chose.
After all the Sosa theatrics, wanting to play on the National level, I hope he is happy with his performance. In American basketball, as they say, he got posterized against argentina. Still, I like his is playing style over Barisic 8 days a week. Time will tell. Don’t think the crosses we all envisioned from him ever materialized. Additionally, as many on this site have stated in the past As goes Perisic, goes Croatia. Perisic left us hoping for more.
Barisic is a perfectly cromulent backup. He’s not setting the world on fire, can fill in a pinch. LB was a weak spot for awhile and I had high high hopes for Bradaric and then Sosa. We hardly tried those guys out during qualifying which caused the Sosa antics.
(Can you believe that the U21’s were stealing from the senior squad for tournament needs and not the other way around).
Bradaric misplayed his career hand and Sosa peaked at the right time. His performance at this WC left me disappointed, but he’s still our #1 option going forward there.
T – minus 1 day
3rd place is a big match for us.
Fresh legs are needed to win.
Start Majer as second striker.
Kovačić and Modrić in a double pivot.
Stanisic for JJ.
Oršić at LW.
Perišić up top.
Should have probably made this move going into tournament when you did not choose Rebić, Musa, Ljubičić or Čolak.
Perišić is our best striker.
Why he doesn’t start there when we can’t score is just dum.
I know he prefers to play LW.
But Mandžukić retired 4 years ago and you couldn’t mentor Rebić, so you are it.
Vlašić on the RW.
Dalic needs to make adjustments.
You have to score against Morocco to make life easier.
Then you open up the game and we can enjoy our football.
Modrić deserves our best.
Argentina created an entire campaign around Messi.
Why we do not do the same for Modrić is classic Croatian BS, taking for granted our best people.
Ironic that Kovačić has been much maligned as can’t play with Modrić, when in fact his explosive speed and industry is the ultimate compliment.
We need this all over the pitch.
We need to start strong as we did against Brazil.
No extra time in 3rd place match to rely on for Dalic.
Need to bring all the adjustments from the start. Second half subs is a must.
Perisic is our best goal scorer bar none, I agree with you Soul Champ. But he is not again, a true number nine, and he operates best on the wing. I think this is why Dalic put him there.
Perisic up top was attempted a while ago and it did not work. I think this was done either in the Euro or Nations league or one of the qualifying games. I cannot remember which one, and it wasn’t the greatest solution. Dalic has kept Perisic on the wing and I think this is because noone really filled this position as well as he does. Or atleast, Dalic hasn’t experimented there very much.
Kovacic as a double pivot is questionable, only because I think Broz edges him out just a bit more defensively. I think the diamond works well and did even against Argentina, the problem again is the front line paired with some issues in the back, as your pointing out.
I think our front line was not built with goal scoring in mind, and Dalic veered away from this idea in favour of possession based football. I think he did this because he saw goal scoring as a problem for us, which we all knew going into this. Unfortunately it had its own problems when we faced the firepower of Argentina. Bullshit calls aside, this was our problem I think. We just couldn’t put the ball in the net, and as you have pointed out scoring first needs to become a priority for us moving forward, because it is essential to wreck the the spirit of the opposing side.
So Maminjo’s points below do carry some weight I think. I think very few of the players called up for this tournament, if any, deserve a call up next time (of those selected for the frontline of course).
Mate 1 you are a hundred percent correct .
Mate 1 you are a hundred percent correct .
This match is important as things stand, we have played 6 matches – for 1 win, 4 draws and 1 loss. Wins by penalty shoot-out count as a draw. We need to maintain our top 10 ranking long term especially for the 2026 WC qualifying draw, so a win over Morrocco would help and also, we need to have a good performance in the coming EURO qualifiers.
For the next WC, UEFA will have 16 teams up by 3. We don’t know what qualifying format UEFA will have for the 2026 WC, but one has to assume that only the group winners will gain a direct spot at the WC. We all saw what happened to Italy in the play offs, so it is critical that we be in Pot 1 when the qualifying draw is made.
For the match against Morocco, it looks like Brozovic is out so I would bring in Majer. There is talk that Gvardiol is also not 100% fit so maybe bring in Erlic or Sutalo. I would also rest Juranovic and give Stanisic a go. We need fresh legs upfront so I would start with Orsic , Vlasic and Budimir.
I hope that we win, however I was impressed the way Morocco played against France in the second half. This could easily go to extra time and penalties.
I like the lineup changes proposed. It looks like Juranovic has a calf injury so he won’t be starting.
Why is my comment awaiting moderation?
Just cleared it. Something you wrote got picked up from my “naughty list”…
Must of thought it was one of the manifesto’s with the all cap words.
Next Steps for Dalic…
#1.
Take this bronze medal win by integrating our key youth with our best vets (no clearing the bench). Winning a medal is for the history books and you have no right to ruin that for Croats. This is important.
#2.
No time for a World Cup hangover. It’s not summertime. Enjoy Bozic and Nova Godina but then it’s back to work in January.
Focus IMMEDIATELY on fixing our striker issue with an automatic callup for Petar Musa (for these March qualifiers) and closely watch Ljubicic, Beljo and Simic like a hawk (and watch every single one of their games to see if they fit into a pressing style offense, especially with players who share a skillset like Sosa’s). Don’t worry about what Igor Biscan has to say. Fuck him. He wants you to fail because he wants your job. He’s your enemy, not your friend.
#3.
Cut Lovren, Vida, Budimir, Livaja, and possibly Krama from the team. Some of these guys will only retire if Luka retires. They probably see themselves as some sort of package deal with Luka. This will be hard to do, but needs to be done.
#4.
Do not lose points to Wales or Turkey in March and ruin our top-10 rank. This is important. Teams work very hard to maintain their rank for tournaments. We keep taking this for granted.
We are a top Euro2024 seed for qualifying now. We need to remain a top seed for the Euro2024 tournament itself.
We are NOT a small country that should be happy to qualify. This mindset is blasphemy. We are a football powerhouse that should ONLY be happy being a Pot A seed in EVERY fuckin’ tournament and making DEEP runs into every tournament to win it all (not just to participate).
It was unforgivable that we almost fell to being a Pot C team for Euro2020, so quickly after we finished 2nd in the World at the last World Cup. It was probably a futility record. We were actually the WORST ranked Pot B team in this World Cup draw too. Far behind a team like Mexico, and just barely ahead of Iran in Pot C. Absolutely embarrassing, and if we did fall to Pot C it could have ended our tournament very early.
If you’re the top seed in a group…odds are you will advance.
None of this stupid “you gotta be the best to beat the best” mythology.
We keep repeating this jargon, but then we complain that our team is gassed after the group stage. Well obviously, lol. You don’t see Argentina and France having to deal with a desperate Belgium team in a do-or-die elimination game in the group stages.
Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia this tournament, but because they were the top seed, they easily recovered by only having to play two poor Pot B and C teams in Poland and Mexico.
Imagine if that final game against Poland was instead against a desperate Belgium squad?
Argentina probably either get bounced, exhausted, or red carded to oblivion.
We are officially a top-10 team again…
We are top seeded at the Euro qualifiers again…
We must take Euro2024 qualifying and Nations League seriously, and only look to win (no idiotic experiments)…
Anything less than a Pot A seeding at the upcoming Euros is a failure.
If we’re seeded top of our group, we likely finish first and get an easy path to the quarters (like Argentina, Netherlands, France, Brazil, England and Portugal did).
These teams were all fresh for their opponents in the quarters, while we were already spent when we faced Japan. It was incredible that we had enough in the tank to take on Brazil, but you could see that we were done against Argentina (after we went down two goals).
Agreed on all points.Unfortunately for #3 Dalic is sentimental and doesn’t want to rock the boat so it will need to be Lovren and Vida’s decision. Vida I think gets it and sees he is getting no playing time anyway, but Lovren is stubborn.
For Livaja, I think Dalic likes having the Hajduk favorite on the team so he doesn’t catch media/fan flak. I don’t think Budimir is hard for him to cut, he’s about as fringe as it gets for our strikers. Kramaric should be the striker equivalent of Vida on the depth charts at this point. Thank you for your service, but let’s see what the next generation can do.
Regarding our ranking lowering and us dropping to lesser tiers; that was gut-wrenching watching that happen post 2018. And completely unnecessary. So much experimentation and trying out our 4th and 5th options at certain positions. Or trying a hometown player in whatever non Zagreb home match we had. We didn’t really learn anything.
Oh it did piss off Sosa and he said he was going to Germany. That seemed to light a fire under the Savez to not lose talent in our diaspora, so there was a positive.
Nice assessment Maminjo, very on point
Maminjo _
let’s have a petition to kick out Dalic ~
let’s bring our future – this national team
I agree with everything except for one thing. If your cutting Livaja you should be cutting Petko because they are both the same to me really. Both exceptionally slow in this tournament, not sure why one is being favoured over the other. The goal against Brazil was not a fantastic one by any means it was a bit of luck and deflection. The pass to Broz was a great move on his part but aside from these moments, what else did he really offer that makes him a better option? He was terrible in the game against Japan which again shows inconsistency. I just don’t see it and why some people really like the guy. I don’t think the goal against Brazil is enough to hang onto him personally. If your revamping like this, or proposing a revamp, than do the whole lineup. I would maybe only keep Perisic, possibly Pasalic because they were both playing well against Brazil in terms of the possession game that they were playing in this tournament.
I would throw Brekalo in the mix of players to drop as well due to the unproductive season he has had, and the fact that Dalic isn’t even picking him as a viable option up front.
I would throw in the prospect of Colak as option to call up as well. Colak hasn’t had a bad season this season, among the list of names you mentioned to look at. Maybe Biuk, maybe Vidovic, maybe some of these younger players that seem to be doing really will need to be looked at as well.
Melnjak along with Misic are some names maybe mentioned here in other respects, and other positions.
A broad stroke of the brush, or not at all in my view.
I would also keep Orsic as well because I like him on the wing personally, and he opens up play a lot. Just to add, he looks to be a great talent moving forward.
My point on #3 It wasn’t a complete list. I was just rattling off some names as examples.
I didn’t mention Barisic, but I would probably cut Barisic first lol.
I agree that Petkovic and Livaja are the same shit and we need to move on from both.
The only reason I would keep Petkovic over Livaja, is because Petkovic is good at beating up on very weak teams (and we have quite a few of those in our qualifiers) where we dominate possession completely, and the game is pretty much played entirely in the opposing half (so no running is needed from hiom). We may need someone in the opposition box who can win balls, make tight dribbles, and break down a bunker.
But he’s pretty useless in tournaments. where the possession isn’t so one-sided and he cannot play on a full field. Just mali nogomet from him.
I’m gonna disagree on the comparison of Livaja and Petko. Petko offers decent hold up play, which is valuable in certain situations like closing out games. His issues are that he is far too slow of a runner, and is equally slow in his decision making, causing the ball to get poked away before he can make anything of his opportunities. His record is what it is; if we’re calling him up to score goals, we might as well call one of the youngins instead.
Meanwhile, Livaja can run when he feels like it, but his passes are infuriatingly misweighted. The PK miss was hard to forgive too. If he’s better than our third option by Euro, it should be considered a failure.
Neither is clinical, great in the air, or terribly creative….but one of them has a role.
Lots of great points! I’d be really surprised if Lovren and Vida didn’t retire after Qatar. Vida knows that he won’t get much playing time in the future, and Lovren had a very good tournament…this is his last chance to leave on a high note.