The path to Croatia’s first ever international trophy is set! It will have to go through Spain.
The Spaniards defeated Italy 2-1 Thursday night by way of an 88th minute Joselu winner. That means Croatia and Spain will lock horns this Sunday in Rotterdam with a 2:45PM (ET) kickoff and a UEFA Nations League title on the line.
The last time these two nations met was the Round of 16 at EURO 2020 where the Vatreni would scores twice in the last five minutes of regulation to force extra time at 3-3. Unfortunately, Krama would miss an easy shot in the box, Spain scored twice, and Croatia would exit the tournament losing 5-3 after 120 minutes. It is Croatia’s only extra time lose since the 2018 World Cup started. The Vatreni are an amazing 6-1 in extra time games in that span.
I honestly think Croatia take this one…in extra time…maybe penalties. If Modrić does in fact lift a trophy in Croatian checkers, will it be his last game and could he finally call it a career for the Vatreni?
Dalic is the luckiest man in the world. The lineups he has produced and the results he’s gotten are unreal. He must have the guiness world record for most rosaries prayed because this is crazy. If we win again tomorrow with Ivanusec at LM…Perisic at LB and Vida in….He should just become a Pope
Yeah the Vida thing might catch him in today’s game.
Vida didn’t have much to do last game. But we’ll see what happens against Spain.
Our backline didn’t play to great last game.
Šutalo was pretty reckless (especially with that one double footed tackle), Juranović showed his weaknesses there (but that’s nothing new), and Perišić could’ve done better.
Morata is a big striker who could present a problem for Vida.
Our LB and RB have to play well tomorrow.
Wouldn’t mind seeing Stanišić in there tomorrow.
Do you guys think that even barisic could get the start being more defensively strong then sosa and have Perišić up
barisic while not World class usually can hold it down for us
I think it was against Turkey if not mistaken he put in a high quality game
I’m only making convo. Not saying This is how it should be
But sadly sosa doesn’t give us the defensiveness we need and if he doesn’t give us the offence which is what he is supposed to do then what?
Maybe if he has petko and pasalic as targets in the box sosa may be more effective ??
If not mistaken bradaric put in a solid campaign in Italy
Maybe it’s someone who may get in the mix going forward at the Lb spot ??
https://youtu.be/MSMmipWBQrA
forgot to share the modric Netherlands masterclass link
I hope to see the same lineup as against the Netherlands, but Stanisić instead of Juranović to start, with Juranović as an offensive substitute, and possibly Erlić instead of Sutalo because Croatia defended better with Erlić and Stanisić instead of Sutalo and Juranović. Spain’s wingbacks are poor defenders, but their attack is world class. The team has to focus on recovering the ball and using superior speed and strength down the wings.
Those who think replacing a peak modric with brozovic will be easy are simply dreaming
Take a look at this video of every modric touch last game
Modric does not have this every game anymore and it’s higher level than he had at the World Cup but this performance i thought was one of his best ever
Look at every touch and how it’s constantly giving croatia a slight advantage. Constantly taking slight edge over time is how a team on average will win
No one on croatias current team has this level in them
Offensive? Looks great on paper and would be risky but could throw off the Spaniards…. Lots of threat through the middle to attack
Cons.. hard to picture this without Gvardiol leadership at the back where I feel Erlic may be to slow and not as offensively gifted to form a balanced back 3….
—————Perisic———–Kramaric—————
————————————————-———————
—Sosa—————Modric—————Juranovic
——————Kovacic—-Brozovic——————
——-Sutalo————Erlic————Stanisic——
————————-Livakovic—————————
Balanced Netherlands style?
Pros.. demonstrated pretty well against Dutch but Spain is another beast and whatever lineup we put out we will have to be tight but positionally correct as they will rica taca and will frustrate us with possession which is our game… if we play to there and run like chickens all game will not finish well… they will catch us in a breather and we are doomed.. they are the best in the world at holding the ball… contradicting as we do have the best midfield but they have the best all around team in the world at holding possession
—————————Kramaric—————————
——Ivanusec—————————Pasalic———
—————————-Modric——————————
————-Kovacic———-—-Brozovic—————
Perisic——————————————Juranovic
——————Sutalo———- Erlic———————
——————-—-—Livakovic—————————
Counter?
– Pros. on paper wings are balanced offensively and defensively
-cons. Perisic Sosa have yet to find chemistry alongside each other especially in attack.. where as I feel Stanisic and Juranovic are solid and would complement each other… I don’t think I have seen all 4 on at the same time ever but if any game could call for it it would be this one
———————-—Kramaric——————————
———————————————————————
——Perisic——-—Modric————Juranovic
—————Kovacic———Brozovic——————
—Sosa———————————-—-—Stanisic—
——————-Sutalo——-Erlic————————
What y’all think… how should Dalic setup?
Barring any injuries, I think that Dalic will stick with the same players as against the Dutch. This means that Vida will play again.
The only possible changes are Stanisic coming in for Juranovic and Sosa playing at left back and Perisic playing higher up the field replacing Ivanusec.
The team played well, and I cannot see Dalic making too many changes IF ANY. What is that saying you never change a winning team.
Pretty much this.
The only possible change would be the flanks, simply because Perisic is still a key player for us on the wing and he didn’t play particularly well defensively at LB (and the whole intention of that move in the first place was because Sosa hasn’t been that great defensively there).
I still think we leave our right side as-is, because Dalic loves Pasalic and the kid always seems to get into the right place at the right time.
Juranovic defensively will be a problem though. Stanisic should be a big upgrade defensively there, but it’s a tough call. I could see Dalic starting with Juranovic and see how it goes, then sub in Stanisic afterward.
All other players will still be where they are, and we’ll probably have the same substitutions (Petko coming on for Krama, Majer coming on for Kovacic, etc.)
@Maminjo
[“Kacavenda has been back since February.
Not sure if he is back to his old self though. Knee injuries are trouble, especially for players with an explosive first step (which is what he had before his injury).
The biggest shame is Luka Sucic’s knee injury. That one hurts because he looked legit.
Thankfully, we have Baturina.”]
– In addition to what Cro911 said (about Kacavenda not getting back to what he was post injury), Skocic also recently mentioned that Kacavenda missed U21 training as he was feeling discomfort in his knee. It’s not looking good for him atm, which brings me to your next point about Sucic. I really hope he will make a much stronger recovery with Salzburg next season as compared to what we have seen from Kacavenda during the spring.
***
[“UEFA/FIFA and the referees like to influence tournaments to satisfy narratives.
Look at the penalties they gave to Messi to ensure he ended up winning the World Cup.”]
– Not being sour or anything, but when I think of Argentina’s 2022 triumph, it will always remain a FIFA or referee-assisted win.
***
[“Ideally, he should not play as big a role in our remaining qualifiers (since we’re pretty much guaranteed qualification). Maybe start bringing him in for the second half of games, and start these games with Majer in his place. Maybe start calling up Martin Baturina for the odd game here and there. This is an opportunity to start the transition away from Modric, but still have him available for the next tournament (or two, if he’s up for it)”]
– Can’t agree with you more! I worry about the post-Modric transition as it will take place during the lead up to WC2026, and to me the WC is the tournament that matters the most. Atm, there is a big drop-off after Modric when we consider his potential replacements… unless Baturina steps it up during the next couple of years.
Brozovic will keep our midfield safe after modric leaves. We will be just fine. I really doubt they’ll be a big or huge drop-off after luka leaves.
It’s going to be rough transitioning, not as hard maybe as I first imagined.
Our depth will eventually take over.
Z, I hope you’re right!
*Just to clarify something, when I say Argentina’s 2022 triumph is FIFA or referee-assisted, I’m actually referring to their entire run at the WC finals (realize that my original comment sounds like I’m talking only about their semi-final win over us).
I have seen Kacavenda play after his knee injury a few times in HNL and he is not the same player he was. He has lost pace and does not have the acceleration that he had prior to the injury.
Replacing Modric will be impossible, players like him come once in a generation. Once he retires, we will have problems. Baturina is a good prospect, he is more of an attacking midfielder and scores more goals than Modric. Modric at his age as a midfielder already had better defensive skills and also the ability to dictate the tempo of the game. Modric also runs a lot more than Baturina.
Modric is generational superstar, yes.
But there are a lot of teams with generational superstars who don’t do anything in any tournament.
Sweden with Ibra, Norway with Haaland, Belgium with DeBruyne, Poland with Lewa…even Portugal with Ronaldo was up for debate had they not gotten lucky and won Euro 2016 (playing anti-football in Greek fashion). We’d be saying the same thing about them with Ronaldo. Despite their Euro win, they didn’t do anything at World Cup level with him. They got to 4th place with him in 2006. We topped that twice in the past 4 years, haha.
I think that the team identity and style of play is key, along with our depth of talent.
We will always have a conveyer belt of midfield talent that can outpossess opposing midfielders, and we seem to have a very technically gifted group in all other positions of the field (especially in our backline lately).
We just need to stay true to that style of play. All our poor tournaments came when we moved away from that style of play.
We won that game on Wednesday because we kept outpossessing the Dutch and continued to play our game despite being up 3-2 in extra time. We pumped two more goals after that.
Ideally Modric stays on as long as possible to help with the transition. He doesn’t need to start anymore. He can be that player coach type of player that comes in the second half. Guys like Baturina, Majer and others could learn a lot from him.
Felix Zwayer from the German Association is the ref for our match on Sunday. Be good Felix!
Latvia scores in time added on, second half, to tie it 2-2 … moments later Turkey scores to win.
Yeah i was watching that, that sucked, nearly a perfect day for us.
Wow… Turkey seems pretty good at responding to ultra-late goals… reminds me of our Euro 2008 match with them.
Wales absoultely imploding at home, losing 4-2 to armenia and with a red card. How did these guys draw with us in Hrvatska? Anyway path to euro 2024 looks much easier for us now.
Saw the highlights of the match. Armenia has a couple of really good forwards and will not be easy beats.
All this fear and apprehension. Hrvatska 3
Espana 0. We are going to maul them.
Possibly.
If the veterans want to go out with a bang, this is their chance to play the games of their lives.
Great news with the euro qualies atm, wales losing at home to armenia 2-1 atm, 55 mins in or so. Good for us if that holds. Turkey winning 1-0 away in latvia which is not so good, just keeping one eye on what makes our path easier.
I was actually more fearful of the Netherlands going into this final four tournament, than I was of Italy or Spain simply because of the home team bias.
Netherlands have been hyping this tournament and wanted to take the gold (since they haven’t won any silverware since 1988).
Netherlands don’t have the skill to match up with us, but they are still a good team that narrowly lost to Argentina in the quarters.
As much as we’re all fearful of Spain here, they DID get very lucky to get into the final.
Spain did dominate possession in the second half, but not the first half. Italy actually won that half and were up 2-1 but their second goal was called offside (even though it looked legitimate). Spain got bailed out by the ref there.
Spain ended up winning the game on goal that twice deflected off of two Italian defenders.
They’re a more difficult matchup for us, but they have been inconsistent. They lost to Scotland 2-0 in their recent qualifiers and lost to Japan and Morrocco in the World Cup.
They will outposses you, but they still struggle in putting that ball into the back of the net.
Even in that second half against Italy where they were totally dominant, Italy still had 2 or 3 chances that could have ended the game.
We are going to be the toughest team that Spain has faced in a while. Italy is a far worse team than we are, and if they managed to create several game winning chances yesterday like that (despite Spain’s dominance) then Spain will have to be very careful with Croatia.
I think many of us still have that crappy Euro2020 game in our minds where we had Rebic ruining our possession play, and Perisic was removed for COVID. Dalic also messed up on some parts of the rest of the lineup that game too. Our team was in a weird transition phase in that tournament, and we’ve bounced back since.
I heard most of the players comment on the Croatian crowd in Dutchie . It’s going to be a factor . It’s our shot , let’s play loose and take it.
Football demands a high technichal, quality game , which Croatia don’t lack.
The difference to me is the coach,
What I have noticed is Dalic always seems to make the right changes, which always works .Dalic is a mastermind of the game.
BEST CROATIAN COACH EVER
I don’t t get it- we are now ranked 5th in the world and Spain is 10th; however, once again the betting odds are against us?
Do most people think we have been getting lucky repeatedly? Does Gvardiol’s injury impact us that much? Do they think there is a switch for Modric that will suddenly be turned off and will render him useless due to his age, is it because we have some HNL payers (a league that is also underrated imho), or is it because they recognize that far too often we get too may bad calls against us?
No doubt Spain is a high quality team, and most people expect a close match. I have heard it said that it will be a more youthful side over a more experienced side.
I don’t see it that way. I imagine that both teams are cofident, and provided that there aren’t some very lucky bounces, or bad one sided calls, that the team who finds a way to win this one is the team who wants it more.
No prediction here, but rather I ask you to search deep within to find the answer that your gut instict is telling you.
Franjo
I understand your frustration . Remember we are a small country, and we will never get the respect we deserve . We will always be considered a Cinderella team that got lucky. We will always be looked at, as a dysfunctional organization. We do make it easy for them to judge us. I thought at the last cup that our team was more talented then people thought we were. We were simply not polished or fine tuned yet. This tournament is not as big as Euro or the world cup. Most players don’t want to be there and the trophy is not really prestigious . This tournament for us is an opportunity to win . We should use this as a stepping stone and vehicle to ride into the Euros with. With each win our team becomes more confident. Dalic needs to let Musa play and any young buck that has potential an opportunity . Our players must continue to play in the best euro clubs to learn and grow. People will start to respect us when we start to win continually . Youth will win this game. Last time we played the Spanish we were an old team over the hill. Our youth were not ready yet. They still tied the game and showed fight . We have proofed we are a comeback team . the team is on the rise and we just need a few missing pieces to make run .
Good point Croatian Inspector General, most notably Gvardiol (who gets a lot of media attention, and perhaps is why the others are underrated), but we do have other high quality youth.
Musa / Beljo I would like to see get some playing time, but with very little to no experience with the NT, and with Petković’s performance vs the Nerthlands, I can’t see it happening vs Spain.
The reason Spain is the favorite is because more people are betting on them, it is actually better for people who bet on Croatia…. bet Cro to win and both teams to score and you will turn $100 into $750.
Franjo
thank you fro the tip . lets hope we don’t jinx ourselves
Already covered this topic, but Modric is not retiring.
Spain is a killer match up for Croatia.
Even before the Brazil game, I mentioned how Brazil is much more talented but they were actually a decent match up cause their laziness worked to Croatia’s possession/game killing advantage.
If a crab and a scorpion fight, it can be tough to know who will win cause of the different strengths and weaknesses. When two crabs fight, it’s probably going to be the bigger and faster one.
Croatia Brazil was like crab vs scorpion. Croatia Spain style clash is like crab on crab. Fortunately in soccer because the margins are so slim, a lot of luck will come into play that Croatia maintains a chance.
My model gives Croatia a 40% chance.
I agree with this “Spain is a killer match up for Croatia”…they are the only team we can’t seem to maintain possession
I disagree with this “I mentioned how Brazil is much more talented but they were actually a decent match up cause their laziness worked to Croatia’s possession/game killing advantage”
Brazil lazy? nah man, they just play a different game that involves more one v one situations…and they’ve always dominated us with possession in the past, we managed to take that away from them in the last match…Dalic’s plan was to “hide the ball” from them by getting his players to manage more possession as part of the strategy. lots of that possession didn’t amount to much but when we have the ball, they can’t create and we are not defending as much.
Brazil is more talented than us but we took their advantage away by being patient, making them frustrated and getting them to focus a lot more on defending than they ever imagined they would have to do. lets not forget that Juranovic had the game of his life…that was a massive differentiator both defensively (shutting down everyone on his side) and offensively…forcing them back to defend.
Spain kills us the same way we took Brazil’s strengths away, except they do it to us almost every single game. we always have to be at 100% full concentration defensively and then bank on our counter attacks.
The one thing that I can see different based on this past game when we played against Netherlands is we were all collectively pressing high and we didn’t allow them any chances to break out easily. we didn’t sit back behind centre and wait for them…we were actually pushing them to play the ball back, trying to force errors and if we can maintain that against Spain…and then actually maintain our own possession without turnovers, that will change the game drastically in our favour.
I know my comments might be too “old school” and “technical” for you but this is part of how the game works!
I’ve never seen Italy so completely dominated as they were in the second half of that game. They had one counter-attack chance, and it was a good one, but unfortunately didn’t score. Otherwise they barely touched the ball. Croatia is a better team and different team than Italy right now but we’ll have to use our greater experience against Spain and their young squad. It seems like Spain is taking out all their anger at losing to Morocco on their opponents in this tournament. I propose we use “revenge” against our Spain loss to motivate us. Time for some payback you… you… sombrero wearing (fuck no that’s Mexican)… tapas eating (actually their food is kinda good)… poncho wearing (shit, Mexican again)… bull riding?? (no, idiot they kill bulls not ride them). It’s difficult because I generally like Spain and their team. But sometimes you gotta kill your friends. Cause they need killing. So let’s kill Spain. That’s all I got.
Hopefully our red checkers will make us the matadors and Spain the raging out of control bull.
I think Croatia can beat spain just play smart id go with sosa and stanisic as backs sutalo i guess vida is the man as his partner and trio mid mbk perisic petko krama id go with that and attack spain pressure them we really need a trofej that would be nice to see a trophy is a trophy even if this keague of nations to some isnt big but to me it would be. Then build for a euro 2024 run home advange in germany like wc 2006 idemo vatreni
All this talk of Luka retiring from the national side makes zero sense. Who’s even starting this conversation?
If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my words on this forum but from an arm chair striker position, I can’t see Luka committing to Euro qualifying to bail out half way.
I’m pretty sure he said he would play one more major tournament being the Euros. It would be quite selfish/unprofessional for him to suddenly leave unless seriously injured.
Luka is class act not like other entitled footballers. Just my opinion on this matter.
UEFA/FIFA and the referees like to influence tournaments to satisfy narratives.
Look at the penalties they gave to Messi to ensure he ended up winning the World Cup.
Modric implying that he is unsure of what his future will be… may be beneficial for us, as UEFA and the referee may give Modric an edge in this game on Sunday (as opposed to the usual 50/50 calls going against us).
Personally, I highly doubt he retires. We’ll be a the top seed in the Euros and well positioned for a deep run. The tournament is only 12 months away and he’ll still be elite.
Ideally, he should not play as big a role in our remaining qualifiers (since we’re pretty much guaranteed qualification). Maybe start bringing him in for the second half of games, and start these games with Majer in his place. Maybe start calling up Martin Baturina for the odd game here and there. This is an opportunity to start the transition away from Modric, but still have him available for the next tournament (or two, if he’s up for it)
Agree
Despite our top-class midfield Spain will dominate possession against us. They will try to get behind our defence on the flanks, rather than employing high crosses into our box like the Dutch did towards the end of the match. Dalic will need to decide on who will play left and right fullbacks. I would stick with Perisic as our left fullback but might be tempted to bring in Stanisic to replace Juranovic. Stanisic is a much better defender.
Let’s hope that our players have learned from our last match against Spain and we do not see stupid things like Rebic changing his boots and Gvardiol taking a drinks break. Both incidents cost us goals.
Odds slightly in favor of Spain but with a bit of luck we can win. Livakovic will be the key and if he can produce a performance similar to the one against Brazil at the WC we will win.
Mart,
This Spanish team is different from the Spanish teams we faced in the past. It was odd that Spain did not control the possession in the Italy game as people thought they would. Spain on paper is a better team. I think we have more than a puncher chance to win , if we control possession and disrupt their ticky tock soccer
@Croatian Inspector General
“This Spanish team is different from the Spanish teams we faced in the past. It was odd that Spain did not control the possession in the Italy game as people thought they would. Spain on paper is a better team. I think we have more than a puncher chance to win , if we control possession and disrupt their ticky tock soccer”
Thanks for mentioning this. They are a young and developing side that doesn’t have nearly the same tiki taka mastery without Iniesta and Busquets, the defensive partnership of Ramos + Mr. Shaqira, nor as many consistent goal scorers. I see a bright future for Spain, but we match up well at present.
Pasalic did well on that cross bar attempt to create space
Shit happens
If we were down we would talk about it forever but hence everything is ok we can forget it
You would think we would bomb more corners in
Cause I think he has that pounce on garbage skill
Tho the short corners were better then some of the past I’d rather take my chance and throw shit on goal
Are they worried about a counter with a bad bounce perhaps?
Gvardiol could catch most guys I would think…but sadly he is injured
And I sure hope truth is not right about his injury proneness
@Dannyj
I think the short corners were less out of fear of the counter, and more about what might create the best chance against a tall team with arguably the best defender in the world waiting in the box. That or they noticed a tendency. You can tell they practiced this, and the first couple almost came off.
By contrast, the Dutch played everything direct. There were some dangerous mismatches throughout that we somehow dealt with, the biggest being when Kovacic had to man-mark Weghorst or Gakpo (I can’t remember) on the corner that was initially whistled.
I was hoping for italy. Not only for our past winning record with them, but coming from San Pedro, a traditionally predominately Dalmatian/Italian fishing Community from the 1800s, it would be nice to have bragging rights, in our friendly rivalry. Even if we didn’t win, being from Vis, in the middle of the Adriatic , we would be losing to our closest neighbor.
Hey, my family is from Vis too. My great, great uncle is Martin Bogdanović, you know the one whose statue is in San Pedro 😉
Not personally, but I know he was good to us, and gave my great grandparents and grandparents jobs. When my grandfather unfortunately lost is boat when he got ill, he hired him as a security guard, and my ancestors found work in his canning factory. Fala bogu. “It’s A Wonderful Life” Bogdanovic style.
That’s awesome to hear.
I’m very happy we got Spain!
I’ve rated this tournament from the get go, even when the founders of this site & Maminjo were calling it “meaningless.” Our first game in this UNL was against Spain (6 nil loss), so if we can win our first trophy against Spain then that’s a great story, I just hope it’s one Uefa likes.
It’s the one they will let us potentially have now if any
My opinion about Modric leaving…I don’t see it happening whether we win or lose on Sunday. He’s still having fun and enjoying our National team…this group of players are really doing well under Dalic and it just wouldn’t make sense that he plays for a big club and yet leaves us….I think he will stay!
Sunday!! Fuck I hate playing Spain. They are the one team I never feel we can control…they usually overtake possession from us and they’re usually good at getting the ball back when we have possession.
If yesterday’s game was any type of indication that we’ve found our rhythm for utilizing our technical abilities, we might have a chance. Our talents were out of this world in soo many different areas of the game. We were calm and had several situations where we connected multiple short passes and transitioned…but Spain press hard and collectively so it’s not that easy to do that with them.
I don’t like making predictions, I feel I might jinx our team so I’ll say this.
We have come a long way from folding like a cheap tent and losing when we should win. This group of core players all have one thing in common…they never quit! I do believe that they will be mentally ready vs Spain and I think that inside that dressing room, every single player will leave that room, go into the field and believe they will be victorious! If they raise their tempo and get a full team effort like they did vs Netherlands…we will change our history with Spain!
I wish we had Gvardiol for this game. You know he would have pulled a Virgil and pressed forward like a striker (but unlike Virgil, actually be useful on the field).
I think we have that Euro2020 disaster game too fresh in our minds where Perisic was unfairly punished for being unvaccinated, and Rebic ruined our possession game with his cinderblock feet.
Vlasic also started that game, so that’s not ideal technically either.
This time, it will be Kramaric, Pasalic and probably Ivanusec again (unless Dalic decides to push Perisic foward with Sosa behind him).
Pasalic being your weakest link technically, isn’t too terrible as he can make a decent pass, so this should be an interesting game.
Hoping that Perisic can wake up and have a big game for us. If Sosa plays this game, would be great if he could connect on Pasalic’s giant Dalmatinska Zagora head.
Starting Bruno might be an option too, if we want to have Krama play on the wing.
We would be elite technically, but Pasalic has horseshoes up his ass and we may need that luck when he’s out there. Bruno is probably first off the bench.
Rebic – cinderblock feet
Vlasic – Rugby player
You come up with some good ones !
Giant Dalmatinska Zagora Head!!! Fuck lol! You couldn’t have put that more mildly lol. Pasalic isn’t that bad man… Come on Maminjo!!
I didn’t say he was bad. I said that he has a giant head (which is true and useful).
The guy looks like Bonk from Bonk’s Adventure out there.
It just sounded kinda funny the way you put that lol.
I had to look up Bonk’s Adventure because I never heard of it. I LMAO!
Where do you come up with this shit!
Should come up with character memes for everyone on the team.
That means Bruno Petkovic and Livaja can be dudes from River City Ransom…Let’s see if you know/remember that one.
I hope you’re right
Fingers crossed
The excitements building
I think the biggest differences now are not only our skilled depth players but more importantly our belief!
Mentally I don’t think there is a team stronger than we are at the moment. Multiple extra time/PK wins and coming back on numerous occasions (too many to mention). We feel like we are never truly out of a game no matter the score. Anyone who has played any organized sports in their lives will understand. That means the truth won’t understand.
A far cry from 2008 vs Turkey where we we were crushed by the last play ET goal and had no shot in the PK because we were done mentally (I’ll never ever forget that empty feeling).
We’ve had multiple players step up and come through. I agree with Maminjo that we will really miss Gvardiol in a game like this.
I still argue that Raka’s longball pass to Klasnic was totally onside and would have secured the win by possession or goal.
Yet the PTB mafia decided that they wanted the Turkish outcome, gave them the offside kick to tie.
I’m still pissed, lol 😝
On the podcast I think Lebo said it may be a dalic luka swan song if we win….
Appreciate the podcast guys
This will be a tough pill to swallow
Boys go all out
Like we know that euro was a shit show
Perisic was only getting warmed up and if he was on it would have made a huge difference against Spain
Covid got us
Livaković if he was playing like now, it’s a much different story
3-1 the good guys in 90mins!
Or penalties for funsies;)
Am I selfish in thinking that we lose then ?
I’m surprised Susic was not on the roster. Is he with the youth team or not playing well?
Sucic has been injured for months. Should be recovered here relatively soon, but not in time for these tournaments obviously.
Hoping both knee injury guys sucic and kacavenda can fully recover and be in the mix
The kiddie euros will be a good look at our young, hungry and ready to challenge for a spot
There won’t be another luka but the vacancy of king of Croatian football will be up for grabs soon!!
Kacavenda has been back since February.
Not sure if he is back to his old self though. Knee injuries are trouble, especially for players with an explosive first step (which is what he had before his injury).
As I watch HNL Kacavenda unfortunately has not got back his explosive first step since his knee injury. He reminded me a bit of Kovacic or Rog before his knee injury. Hopefully Kacavenda can get back to what he was but history with these knee injuries for Croatian players is not good. Baturina for me is by far the best young player in HNL and should be with the national team but because midfield is deep I’m guessing that’s why he wasn’t called.
Yea I have no hope for guys with blown ACLs, especially if they relied on speed or agility.
Moro, Pjaca, Krovinovic became shadows of themselves after their injuries, despite their young age and relatively quick recovery.
I expect Kacavenda to be the same.
The biggest shame is Luka Sucic’s knee injury. That one hurts because he looked legit.
Thankfully, we have Baturina.
For a country of 3.8 million we are lucky that we can burn through prospects like this, and still have many in reserve.
I think we’ll win this Sunday. Skill wise we are on the same level as Spain. Spain has better counter attacks but we are better strategically and better defensively. That Euro 2021 was a complete and utter nightmare. That squad was put together last minute, too many inexperienced players, Gvardiol, Sosa, Brekalo, were all young and had no confidence. We even had our best forward Perisic out. That was a back and fourth match. We’ve only lost 3 games in extra times; Turkey 08, Portugal 2016, and Spain 2021. I’m confident we can beat Spain in regular time and our victory over the Dutch speaks more volumes than them beating an unpredictable team that hasn’t been in a World Cup since 2014. Only France, England and perhaps Spain are above us in terms of Europe. We’ve also beaten them all in major tournaments and competitively recently. They dropped points and lost to Japan, Scotland and Switzerland. Spain beating Italy isn’t impressive one bit. Olmo is also injured and no Torres in lineup either.
I hope that Croatia can win this tournament. I hope that Modric and Croatia can get their first international trophy. It would be huge deal.
People have been doubting Croatia since 98 and I still feel like Croatia’s current soccer success has been minimalized and often understated.
The fact that Croatia beat Argentina in 2018, France and Netherlands in this current Nations League, Brazil in the last World Cup… It’s as if it’s never enough no matter what they do. I personally believe this win would go a long way because there are no easy opponents to play here. This is kind of what I like about this league it pairs all the more difficult teams together in Europe which on the surface makes it more challenging in a way.
This is what this win would mean in my view. I really hope that they win, and Dalic comes out playing the right cards.
Clearly would have preferred Italy but obv we have a chance come Monday morning, gonna be sweet if we can win this !
I hope not , hopefully he can out last Pirlo, Zidane, and Zlatan, and he plays into his mid forties, like Tom Brady.
I don’t equate these things. Tom Brady probably ran a couple hundred metres a game. If that. (Not saying that you necessarily are, but just saying.)
Tom Brady is seven time champ. He has a mental attitude of never giving up and winning the big prize. I see this in our players of late. They play with confidence and never give up attitude. It is great to see this change. A lot of credit to Dalić.
Fair enough. But being a non-running NFL QB isn’t the same as being a soccer midfielder on the world stage, and in terms of “getting older.” Being a non-running NFL QB takes skill yes, as does golf, but so does pinball.