England was the better team on the day. They could have easily scored one or two in the 1st half with one shot ringing off the post. The Croatian defense absolutely became Swiss cheese on England’s lone goal with two missed tackles.
The Vatreni did nothing offensively and are missing a true striker to work off of. Gvardiol’s nerves showed in his first major match for Croatia. He’s only 19. He will be fine.
I’ve said this a million times and I will say it again. You can’t play Kova and Modrić in the same midfield unless your goal is to play for the draw and control possession throughout. Kova actually had a good game but there was no weaponry around him.
Perišić was sloppy on the wing. Rebić couldn’t do it my himself up top.
A bit disappointing that Croatia has only scored one goal in their last three matches, but the real tournament starts now. Czech Republic is next on Friday. 2nd place is this the goal. The Vatreni need to show up in the next game.
I don’t really see how people can throw all the blame on Dalic. Did you see some of those 10-15 ft passes?? I don’t care what your strategy is, if you can’t make those, it doesn’t matter. The players played poor. Even the odd break, no bodies running to the middle. Dalic has at least brought some young players up without alienating older players. Hopefully, we can catch some magic and ride some momentum.
Dalic also blamed the training ground in Rovinj today, saying that it was too conspicuous and that people could see the tactics and strategies he was trying out. When a coach starts blaming players and other things…well that’s a major RED FLAG.
Fun fact, Dalic is now tied for most Croatian losses as a coach at 15. Surely, the record will be broken in the next couple of weeks….
What I hate about Dalic, is his blasé attitude about losing–it’s NOT OK to lose and never will be OK!. We lost too many games the past 2 years that it’s become the norm.
This right here. A++
@Armada
I’ll take that bet. Modrić is not retiring from International soccer until whoever is the Izbornik doesn’t call him. He’s said that in numerous interviews.
I think that Dalic has lost the room. After the loss he said that he’d been blasting in their heads for a week that England likes the sneaky quick throw in, but they obviously weren’t listening and it cost us the goal. That’s a stupid thing for a Coach to say. You don’t blame your players in the media right after a tough loss.
Dalic reminds me of a Fantasy Soccer coach. Just start your 11 “best” players, regardless of actual position, and cross your fingers. Sad really……
Who is more missed
Raketa or mandzu?
It’s close but I’m going to go with raketa
He really took pressure off Luka in the midfield and moved ball well up for us
For sure Mandzukic was the man but I still say raketa for some reason
@nikola vukmanic
Congrats, u finally did “more research”. at the end of the day budimir is a slightly above average striker in the world of football, but i would take a striker over no striker. its annoying cuz u claimed hes not actually that good in the air, when in fact he is actually pretty dam good. it sounds like ur a guy who just watched him play once for 45 mins and based ur entire opinion on that one viewing.
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“I stand by my opinions that he is physically weak for a target man and not fast enough to get in behind the defense.”
imo, ur underrating him. u act like he is pushover novice who never dealt with “strong defenders”. also, u don’t need super strength to play striker. Petkovic and DCC are the probably the only ppl who are “stronger” than him on our team, while rebic is probably as strong as him. also, he is just barely slower than mandzukic, mandzu just had an insane amount of stamina and would be able to sprint at full speed even at the end of games.
You are writing a lot on budimir yet u even admitted to not watching him play. it was only after i replied to u that u decided to look up his goals. maybe just stick to trying to analyze players u actually watch
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anyways, we need a striker presence on the field, petkovic is a lazy/unmotivated weird futsal like player, so ive been leaning more towards budimir. in theory rebic looks like he could play striker, but unfortunately pioli and milan fans know this situation too well. he is just invisible when he plays 9. rebic is a wide player and we need him on the wing for his good offensive and defensive qualities as a winger.
meanwhile, kramaric is a central player. when he plays out wide he is not nearly as threatening and adds no defensive help. like bro, he is slow af, why in the world is he playing out wide, we need fast strong players on the wings like perisic and rebic.
Talk about having issues scoring.
Spain vs Sweden
Spain has 75% possession, 932 completed passes….game ends Spain 0 – 0 Sweden
85%*
86% – 14%
if you look at croatias record from the world cup, it looks terribly but qualitatively i think it’s actually just fine.
the UNL was a murderers row of opposition and ones croatia often faced unmotivated and without full squads.. and really it wasn’t too bad
they beat spain, they tied england, and were up a goal in wembley to finish first in their group with only 12 mintues to play
in the next set of games, they arguably outplayed france for a lot of both of their games with 57% possession and 53% possession and collectively taking more shots than the french. Granted that is a bit of France’s game plan as we saw in the 2018 final.
they beat sweden once and lost the other. and lost twice to portugal..
not great, but these are great teams they faced so great were results were never likely
meanwhile in their qualifying group they actually topped the group for the first time in forever and as mentioned a group with several quality squads
So I think Croatia showed exactly what we think they are through this.. They are better than some mid levels team like Wales or Czech and they got a punchers shot vs the giants like England, Spain, France etc…. but they will never consistently beat them
Losing 1-0 to england in wembley fits that perfectly
If we lose to Czech and/or Scotland….that is when it’s time to ask serious questions
so far, the tournament is going as expected
Ultimately, it’s up to the players to perform. They are professionals.
They know their roles they just need to get on the same page.
Everyone is freaking out Dalic this, Dalic that…c’mon he puts out the best guys we have and hopes things click into place like it did in Russia.
It hasn’t been happening for us lately… but since the WC we did qualify out of a group in which 4 of the teams qualified for this tournament Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Wales.
Wales tied the Swiss
Slovaks beat the Poles
Granted Hungary will probably get smoked but they’re in a tough group.
Our next game will make or break our tournament. We must beat the Czechs. A tie can still get us to the next round but we really do need a win if only for our mental wellbeing.
The best scenario could actually be, tie the Czechs, beat Scotland 1-0 go into the next round as third place underdogs and pull off some surprise wins.
We didn’t exactly fly through the WC last time either…two penalty shoutouts and and extra time win.
Scrappy but effective!
Bog i Hrvati!!!
Hopefully Patrik Schick doesn’t send any high balls toward Livakovic on Friday, lol
we added 2 young dmen- we had to do this without changing any overall formation- adding more pressure on inexperienced dmen- CC and Gvar – probably nice kids – they mean to do well but not with the breakdowns all around them- what surprised me most was 2 things against England 1] young kids faired OK it was the senior players who we’re terrible 2] in 30 years of Croatian soccer almost zero offensive touch- we have never had such an anemic offense- Ante summed it up properly Conclusion- have to go young and if you get knocked out – so be it. The comments about Croatia holding their own is a joke- they didn’t create anything – whatever went their way was a lucky bounce of a deflected pass- the basics, of running, tackling , passing was a major fail- the look on Modric’s face after the goal by England summed it up- it was a “what the hell are we doing here” ?
Slavonac….
The past three years, Dalic wasted time trying to “plug” players into spaces where they did not fit.
He overlooked the majority of our U21 players, and he did not experiment with any formation changes that were more suitable to our star players.
Yet the funny thing is, he experimented with a formation change (moving to a 4-3-3) for the first time in three years just yesterday. Yesterday was NOT the time to experiment.
Since Mandzo retired, the focus should have been to unlock Kramaric’s goalscoring ability. He was the obvious choice to replace Mandzo, and brings a different skillset. But I doubt Dalic has even watched one Hoffenheim match, and just had him play in the same role he had for Mandzo (which is idiotic).
He had three full years to do this (all the while Krama scoring like crazy for his club) and we got nothing.
He tries to plug Kovacic into the CDM role during UNL (with Pasalic)…and it fails miserably. Fine. I can understand that. It looks like we’re just going to move forward with Broz and Modric in a 4-2-3-1 formation…then he just switches it up to a 4-3-3 at the last minute before this tournament.
This is fine, but how about a few games of this before the actual tournament? What if Brozovic playing poorly has something to do with the formation? Modric, Brozovic and Kovacic have barely played together in these past three years. Give them some reps together first.
I’m a big fan of Gvardiol, but if he was realistically going to be playing in this tournament…why wasn’t he tested for a few games before this tournament opener?
Why go with Melnjak and Barisic for so long…then finally just cap the teenager at the last minute in a big match? In a game where he has zero chemistry with his teammates and such an important match. Just setting him up for failure.
This doesn’t seem like a competent move from a guy that had three years to prep for a tournament.
For the most part, our starting eleven is the same as the one in the World Cup with some high performing players (Kramaric, Vlasic, Caleta-Car, Kovacic) plugging in for some of our retired players.
It’s not some massive rebuild or transition to the new generation at all. It’s about replacing Mandzo and Rakitic, with Krama and one of Vlasic/Kovacic. That’s it really. Strinic and Lovren are not star players, so subbing them with players like Caleta-Car, Barisic or Gvardiol makes no major impact.
These past three years, was just a matter of trying to figure out what formations and lineup work best with Krama, Kovacic and/or Vlasic being introduced into the lineup.
Instead, he didn’t do any of that at all. Just played a 4-2-3-1 and plugged any random available player into it to see what happens.
Now, we are at the tournament and Dalic is completely unprepared. Things might work out anyway, since our team is still very talented…but I doubt we will max out on our potential.
great point on Gvar!!!!- kid got no games , had 2 players ahead of him and then he gets the England game- Dalic is showing 2018 was a fluke at the coaching level- we could have had Modric kid coach that team and we would have been in the semis –
Great points. Rebic seemed exasperated looking for a press mate i.e. Mandzukic, but that is not, I think, Kramaric’s game. Frankly, I actually don’t know what Kramaric’s game is. I don’t watch the German league and he has been so marginalized for us I have no clue. Persons I know who know football much better than me say that he is excellent. Why are we wasting him? Why are we not seeking him out on each possession the way we do Modric? We need to score or we are cooked.
Also, I have been watching others games today and see that players are actually moving around and running. We stood still a scandalous amount of time in that game. Only Perisic was running. That is not acceptable.
The truth may hurt Maminjo but I don’t know how we include an 18 year old (back then) Gvardiol, Barisic has been soo hot and cold…Sosa was injured, Melnjak was a fill in while all other options were out of form. Why is this hard to understand? we keep looking for blame but this is the truth!
Kramaric is the ONLY real option we have. I know you love Petkovic but I think you need to take off those homer glasses and accept the facts he’s super hot and cold….he was completely useless yesterday. Other than them…who else you gonna bring in? should we go looking for players in Argentina? It is what it is.
I honestly think you look to put blame on the coach too much…when in reality, we do not have players ready yet for this level…thats the truth!
Why are you bringing up Petkovic?
I am saying that this team is no different from the World Cup team, other than Rakitic and Mandzukic being subbed out with Kramaric and one of Vlasic/Kovacic.
In three full years, Dalic didn’t even ATTEMPT to try and play Kramaric in a formation that would benefit him. Same goes for Kovacic.
He kept just putting Kramaric in the Mandzo role, and asked him to press forward like Mandzo did. He also played Kovacic in the CDM role. Vlasic in the Rakitic role seemed to work okay.
But these past three years, he should have tweaked the formation to ensure that his best striker (Krama) could benefit the way he has at Hoffenheim.
Even though I am not a big fan of Kovacic, I will admit that Dalic made no attempt to play Kovacic in a way that Chelsea uses him (other than the 4-3-3 yesterday, for the first time).
Replacing Lovren and Strinic in our back four was not a big issue and not something that would impact our tournament.
Replacing Mandzo and Rakitic were the big challenges…but we do have some talent to fill those spots with Krama, Kova, and Vlasic.
Problem is, Dalic didn’t want to change anything tactically. Just the exact same tactics and formation as the last World Cup, but with Krama being a Mandzo clone and Kovacic or Vlasic being a Rakitic clone.
That’s not going to work.
All these other callups he made during UNL, were for depth purposes. The deciding factor was always going to be if he could successfully replace Mandzo and Rakitic from our World Cup lineup (or change our tactics to integrate some of our existing talent like Krama or Kova instead). He did neither.
“In three full years, Dalic didn’t even ATTEMPT to try and play Kramaric in a formation that would benefit him. Same goes for Kovacic.”
I’m not sure what we can change to accommodate Kovacic and I think overall he’s tried to implement Krama in different scenario’s…it just hasn’t worked out for several reasons.
remember, we had no right back or real left back for 3 years….poor service from the wings.
Krama has played a few different roles for us, we were very poor all around.
You and everyone else keep saying we didn’t bring in players…so I ask this openly….WHO DID DALIC MISS? who’s immediately ready? (please don’t say Sosa).
We’ve brought in Vlasic, Pasalic, Brekalo, Orsic and now Inanusec. Who’s on fire and needs to be inserted? Who was consistent these past 3 years….Vlasic? I tend to remember him being missing…what did he do vs Slovenia? What did Brekalo do vs Armenia or Cyprus? How has Pasalic done for you?
I see your frustration and I feel it as well. We had to play England the way we did and all things considered…they had 2 shots on us!
Maybe vs Czechs we have a different look but these players really need to hold some accountability as well.
We tend to blame the coaches….Kovac, TV repairman and now Dalic and yet, as you said earlier nothing has significantly changed other than Mandzo (whom I always supported and argued about) and Rakitic.
what formation should we use that is suitable for the team?
Sosa
hahaha…yeah, he would have scored 3 for us!
perhaps we should of then looked to transition out of a high press, to more so fit our current roster. Why are we addicted to high press?
you’ll bear a lot more pressure on defense if you don’t press England high…would have been worse for us.
Someone explain to me how Kramaric seems to not be on the field? Not for the first time I hardly noticed him. Isn’t the key getting him involved and catering the formation to that effect rather than changing the line up. He is a proven scorer whose skills are lost with us.
So after this wc qualifying in september and dalic still have no plan thats what im scared of imo gotta start call8ng young guys to build for 2022 2024 like this we are going nigdi i think majer gvardiol erlic sutalo vuskovic moro biuk need to play in friendlys as much as i didnt like cacic he did have hnl friendlies and tryed out young players we some will say to sell them tata told him which to call but need start fresh sosa forgive never forget?!
Im not a coach nor played football but change is needed livakovic is fine we have some other good keepers aswell backline we have young players just they need to play for club like pongracic example has quality but needs to
Imo rb is a ? After vrsaljko and we dont have a pure number 9 target man.
There is this young austrian croat raguz that we can steal i was reading amd article about him.
Need a smjena generacije it was a good run from 2008 to 2018 10 years we were a good team and reached peak at wc 2018 time for rebuild
Personally, I think many of us over blow our situation.
Dalic certainly has over-looked some players but I don’t think I’d say he’s done as bad a job as we say quite often. We name guys daily and yet I just don’t see how anyone can justify them when they’re not standard at their club and/or they are and have been performing sub par.
Dalic experimented with what he had available to him during the Nations League. We’ve already analyzed the situation with Sosa, we see Gvardiol is a good option, we tried Bradaric, Barisic, Uremovic, Juranovic and we’ve brought in Brekalo, Petkovic, Vlasic, Orsic……
Is there someone I am missing that you think would have made a world of difference?
We’ve been soo critical of Kovacic, Vida, Lovren while we give a free pass to Vrsaljko, Petkovic, Krama, Rebic, Perisic…
I’m not looking to criticize anyone at all, I just think soo many here list line-ups and mention players without really understanding how they fit in a lune-up and what the strategy should be for the game.
For example…in yesterday’s game Dalic started Rebic as striker…sacrificing him on the wing where he belongs, because we do not have anyone else available that can press high. Soooo many comments about who should have started in Rebic’s place as striker…and yet, how successful do you think we would have been if we used Krama or Budimir up top? It’s pointless to argue now because the game is over and we saw how much Rebic struggled BUT…has Krama, Budimir or anyone else ever proven they can press high and keep the England defense and midfield moving the ball and not walking easily to centre before being challenged?
Gvardiol should be given support and all the confidence in the world, he’s our best option….BUT REALLY, are you honestly going to say he played well? He was below average. Please don’t add a few words saying “he did well considering”…or “he wasn’t bad”…he was not good in my opinion…and yes I know, he’s young and we give him time to grow but his performance was not good….which leads me to another comment.
Should we have 3 or 4 players on the field that are not yet solid and who are not experienced enough to handle such an important game? This leads me to another question. During the nations League games, do we truly know the form and situation with all the different players we name every week? Sutalo, Sosa, Uremovic, Juranovic, Ivanusec, Orsic, Barisic, Gvardiol…and soo many more??!?!?!
Would you be happy to see our savez introduce an abundance of young guys that are truly unfit for the challenge just so we can see how good or poorly they perform? Is that responsible to do?
We really need to stop the daily team line-ups and fantasizing all these younger guys who will turn our team into world beaters. There’s a reality to the development process and in most cases, its not that easy to transition from a lower level club to a world level player….no matter how much we want to believe its super easy….its not!
I’m only defending Dalic because I see he has a dilemma and if he’s made some errors, the truth is, this team has its weaknesses and he’s been plugging holes for a long time!
Slavonac from Canada,
Well written and so true.
We have better options than what he puts out on the field. I think thats why people like to play the line up game.
I wonder if we’re gonna be like Argentina was in the last World Cup.
They were the runners-up in the previous tournament, but their coach (Jorge Sampaoli) spent the previous two years just experimenting with the lineups and cycling different players with seemingly no plan.
The talent was there, but the chemistry and preparation was not.
They struggled to get out of the group, then gave a decent run at the Round of 16 opponent (based on talent alone) before exiting the tournament.
Seems kinda like we are in a similar situation.
Yikes! Well I can nearly guarantee you we wont be kicking dead balls into the backs of injured players heads or crying our way off the field without shaking anyones hands. So we got that going for us. We’re gracious losers.
Really wanted to pull for Scotland over England but now our best interests would be to see England smash em by a bunch
I mean this game was always one that was going to be tough to win. England is at home at Wembley first game and all the pressure was on them. Lets face it, England is stacked and very talented for an England squad and we neutralized them. First 25 minutes we were under high pressure which was to be expected but we absorbed it. I think we controlled most of the game and we didnt play that great. I think we made the Brits look quite beatable even while Brozo played his worst game for Croatia and without a true striker. Me personally, I would play Krama up top because he can hold up the ball, midfield wise I think modric, kova and brozo and play vlasic on the right wing. Rebic off the bench since I dont think hes 100%, him and Brekalo off the bench are 2 pretty good subs if needed.
Gvardiol played well, the kid is 19 years old and he looked composed for most of the game. Of course he had some jitters but thats to be expected as well. The goal was not his fault, yes he slid in but Brozo didnt follow his man. It was just shitty defending all over.
We looked the best when Modric/Kova made the runs through the middle and played the ball wide. The Sime crosses werent effective just for the fact that we didnt have that kind of forward in.
Sorry for the novel but after watching this ScotlandvCzech game I am not too worried. We should be fine, the goals will come.
The Czechs are a big athletic team. That’s a little concerning. Feel like our midfielders are better suited for the smaller technical ones like Mount or Foden then the big athletic ones that can bully us off the ball like Phillips did all game. Broz Kova and Luka aren’t the most physical
How’s everyone feeling after watching that Scotland v Czech game? Personally, I feel that both teams are giving each other chances that we aren’t going to let them have.
modric is not retiring after this tournament.. football is what he does and the world cup would be in a year. it would be silly
as always, I hate not including kramaric in the line up, especially in a game where we will have more offensive opporunities. petkovic has shown no signs of being in form. nothing like subbing out someone who scored 25 goals and 6 assists in 34 bundesliga/europe matches for someone who scored 14 goals in 42 matches for dinamo
the czechs won today but it doesn’t change croatias odds much. It moves their 2nd place odds down like 4% and 3rd place odds up about 4%..
Overall Croatia’s chance of winning the group sits at 7% and , 30% 2nd, 35% 3rd, and 30% 4th.
obviously if croatia loses to czech, 1st and 2nd place odds go to about 0, and then its about 50/50 for 3rd or 4th place
Has Modric ever directly commented on him showing up for Qatar? I know he’s spoken around it, but has he definitely confirmed? We know what it means to him to put on our dres, but if we have a stinker of a tournament, Dalic leaves and another coach comes on that he doesn’t see eye to eye with and he has to deal with a ‘rebuild’ of sorts going into Qatar…. does he want to deal with all that crap? I wouldn’t. He’s done everything he can and then some and has always been a good soldier when it comes to the repka and all its bullshit.
What’s the diff now and when we were convincingly scoring against Hungary and Slovakia in qualifying?
An in form petko? What else
Rakitic was still on the team. Certain players were in better form. I think as a whole, our form has dipped since those qualifiers. We’ve let in more goals, haven’t scored at the same rate and have lost about half our games since wrapping up qualification. As much as we want to say we’re a ‘tournament team’ and all that baloney, hard to forget a lot of the bad results we’ve had…
Omg anyone see the schick goal from half against the scots lol caught the keeper off his line – goal of tourney (so far anyway) although there hasn’t been too many of any decent goals yet – do we want a Czechs win here or what ? This ones gotta be over at 2-0 now
Watching scot czech game england easy 9 points as for us at this moment nemamo sto traziti s ovakovom igrom last 3 years.
Reading vs czech lineup this is what croatian news outlets are saying
Livi Vrsaljko vida cc bradaric modric broz brekalo vlasic perisic Petkovic
Yea, as much as people are hating on Petkovic right now…his size and strength (and futsal ability) should be very useful against the Czechs.
Budimir would have to compete against a very tall Czech lineup for headers, and we’re not sending in quality crosses anyway.
Krama should only ever play in the #10 or false 9 role. Either him or Vlasic.
We should be good enough to get the points needed to get to the Round of 16.
However, it’s pretty bad that Dalic had experimented for three years (ruining our reputation with terrible losses), and we are STILL experimenting in this tournament. The two humiliating UNL tournaments were a complete waste.
The worst thing about this is that Modric might retire after this tournament.
I feel like if we did well, he would stick around for one last World Cup run.
But if we crash out in the group stage (or easily in the Round of 16) then he will probably feel like “it’s time to move on” with a new generation and new coach.
You are correct 3 years and he wasted time with melnjak no disrespect skoric getting called. And other things that i am not like all of us happy with. The striker position play with what you get at the moment petkovic budimir are onky cfs we have i think brekalo vlasic deserve to be in the 11 and subs orisic deserves to be on team i dont care if he only plays dinamo guy kills it in european games.
Really dont know what to say anymore gotta go back to pre euro 2008 mode when we were mediocre team the rosso mornar zivokovic tokic tomas days hahaha.
Iznad svi hrvatska but This imo is all on Dalic and his lack of bring new blood and playing them.
Imagine vida and cc get carded and lovren is still not 100 whos playing a back line of vrsaljko skoric gvardiol bradaric?
After 3 years of experimenting, what’s crazy is that Dalic STILL hasn’t found the right formula. We are in one of the worst, if not THE worst spell in Croatian football history, losing 8 of the last 14 games!
For sure, if this team goes “MAGARAC” so to speak, and fails to progress from the group or crashes out in the Round of 16 to the likes of Sweden…for sure Modric will move on, thinking it’s time for a new generation and new coach.
The next 2 (hopefully 3) games will answer a lot of questions and ultimately decide the future for this team…
The sad part is that we actually have a very good U21 squad to choose from, and we didn’t, lol. We could have avoided being so thin in terms of backups, and we could have experimented with these guys during the past 3 years with our senior squad (since they will be the future anyway).
We got greedy and tried to stretch ourselves across two tournaments, during a time when we should have been transitioning our youth into the senior squad.
Many of our U21s are actually 23 years old, so there is no point in trying to push them into the U21 tournaments anymore.
Sosa, Moro, Ivanusec, Majer and several others are probably sick of it. Sosa tried to bail on us because of it, lol. Even Caleta-Car at age 25, was not guaranteed to start this tournament. Luckily Lovren got injured.
It’s a shame that Gvardiol gets his FIRST start for the National Team…but in a tournament, lol. Now people are soft bashing him for not looking like a regular.
He should have played 5+ games before this match, to get comfortable with Duje and the rest of the squad. He did incredibly well considering the position Dalic has put him in.
Yeah but something tells me that if Lovren had started there wouldn’t be that massive hole in defence where Sterling just waltzed straight through to score. It was a massive hole!
Bingo on Modric. Does he want to deal with a new coach and a ‘rebuild’? After a 1.5 years of shit results? I’d put my 401k on a bet that if we crash out in groups or get hammered for our R16 game, Luka is gone.
And honestly, might be for the best. We need to adopt a new formation and new way of playing, based on the players coming up now. We’ve leaned on Luka since what… Euro 2008 really? He’s done everything for us and then some… let him wind down his time at RM and give him some peace.
Not going to provide some comprehensive post on players, who did bad/who did good, etc. You guys have that well covered in almost 150 posts.
I think the thing to keep in mind now, for some of you, is that Dalic is not going to radically change the starting XI, mess with formations, etc. He’s not some master level tactician. I think we have a plan A and B and obviously some options at a few positions. Dalic is gone after this tournament, whether we finish runners up or crash out in the groups. A new generation is going to take over, post Euro and I’m assuming Vida, Lovren and Modric will retire after this tournament.
Point being, I think its on the guys to figure this out. Dalic isn’t going to coach them to some amazing results. Boys need to buckle down, play our brand of nogomet and hopefully get some goals in the next two games.
This game with the Czechs will be a ‘back against the wall’ type game in terms of points. At a minimum, we need 1 point from this one and then I’m assuming it would be a must win vs. the Scots. If we don’t ‘get in gear’ vs. the Czechs, might as well start packing our bags for a early return back to the domovina.
Personally, I think its 50/50 the team figures it out. It’s one thing to be out of sync for a few games – but this has gone on for what, a year plus? If you ask me, we need the morale boost and need to win vs. the Czechs. Maybe a 3-1 scoreline, get the guys in a good headspace and a little wind in their sails going into Scotland – ideally beat them too and then see how we do in R16.
Dalic has had 3 years to fix/solve our problems. 3 years! He has no plan, vision and is now grasping for straws. Blew all these friendly games playing Melnjak and other jobbers. Shots on net, goal scoring and defending se pieces are the biggest issues. Nothing has changed.
Can you imagine if I produced these results at work for 3 years? I don’t think I would have been employed that long.
Yea, he made it seem like he was just using the UNL to experiment with different players…but in reality, he was doing nothing.
We literally got nothing out of those two humiliating tournaments, other than have our ranking drop from 4th to 14th in the World (which will hurt us for next year’s World Cup seeding).
Wow Budimir love is hilarious.
It is simple.
Vlasic has to start although he is likely way more injured than he is letting on.
Rebic needs to play on wing, although he is way more injured than we thought too.
If we want to play Kovacic it has to be in place of Brozo, who may need a break. The espn announcers were way too brutal on Brozo, but he has played worse than normal in these last 3 games.
On the bright side, we didn’t let in a goal off a set piece, so there is that.
I think this team just needs a little spark. There’s nothing like scoring a couple of goals and getting a win on the board to get everyone juiced. Next game is showtime or bust. A coaching change can’t be made right now during a tournament anyway?? Dalic earned his Chance to be here. Lets see if he can produce another good result for the national team. If he doesn’t then you can discuss options. Right now this trophy is anybody’s game. Don’t give up on him/team before it even gets started.
Let’s hope he can make some magic happen and put together a winning formula. Like it or not he’s the coach for the Euros.
Sosa would have made a huge impact in my mind. What a chump.
Gvardiol misses one tackle and people are already calling for Bradaric… Gvar was SOLID all game long, except for a misplaced tackle and a bad cross and now he’s nervous, not ready and too young? Bradaric is just 2 years older and rode the bench all season at Lille! What will he bring that Gvardiol doesn’t? May I remind you all that after Gvardiol’s missed tackle, Brozovic left his man unmarked and DCC was caught in no man’s land? How is that Josko’s fault ffs.
I agree that it was not Gvardiols fault
It was vidas fault for being a tool again and Lovakovic not coming out of his line fast enough
Suba would have smothered sterling
Yea, Jose Mourinho made comments about the game and blamed Vida for the loss lol
Yes would Jose fix our problems
He seems to take a real interest in Croatian football
and would iron out some of our glaring problems
I fear that Dalics time is already up
Need fresh ideas
Yea he seems to love Kovačić.
Imagine hiring Mourinho as coach?
I think he would mesh well with the Croatian mentality.
Not sure why Rebic looked like he needed an energy drink early on in the game as if he ran a marathon before he got there.He shouldn’t be gassed out like that. Kramaric must of drank an invisibility potion because I didn’t see him do one thing the entire time he played. I hope this loss works in our favor and we get second place but we still need to get our act together.
You can’t win if you can’t score.
I wouldn’t put this same exact squad/formation out next game. It needs some tweaking still. Dalic is the one getting paid to do that so let’s see if he can create an improved product for next game!
Rebic seriously needs to develop a first touch
It’s not that fucking hard for Pete’s sakes
It kills our momentum every time
Well the good news is that Brozović can only play better.
It’s also likely that we won’t see Rebić in the špica role these next two games either. Dalić will make changes to our forwards.
Not true. Brozo can play worse. Brozo isnt great, he’s barely good. Too many people are too hyped on Brozo.
Off topic here but another thing I noticed today was Dalic squad selection for the tourney… he didn’t find a place for Orsic?… the kid is explosive.. I believe he was closest to a future starter roll or first choice sub for our attacking wings throughout the latter part of the qualifying campaign.. I do like Ivanusec but I believe Orsic deserved it more… what yall think?
I agree but how exactly does he fit in the lineup? He did singlehandedly beat Tottenham in the Europa Cup. Next game have Orsic, Budimir, Bradaric, Ivanusec as subs. Maybe even Badelj.
Doubt that happens. Players like Bradaric, Orsic and Budimir are truly 2nd/3rd string backups. I think the only event where they come in is if we pickup injuries or get in trouble with card.
Not related to Croatia’s performance but most of the games so far have been boring so far in the tournament. The only game that was entertaining was the Dutch and Ukraine or the North Macedonia match. Looking forward to France vs Germany, Spain vs Sweden, and England vs Scotland.
Hey at least Cilic won his first tourney in 3 years overnight, having defeated Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime on the way 🙂
Sosa knows. He is a chump, but we need him. Big problem and quagmire for the HNS
CiganJeCigan, this one is for you and all the other guys in the start Budimir crew. I would have replied, but I wanted to make sure you and everyone else sees it.
I said I’ll gladly eat my words if I’m proven wrong. I did more research and here are all 11 of Budimir’s league goals this season. He is definitely better in the air than any of the few times I’ve watched him for Osasuna (mostly against Barca and the Madrids) and his few appearances for us.
Header vs. Atletico: https://youtu.be/esErCswh08E?t=214
Header vs. Valladolid: https://youtu.be/l9FW-248kdM?t=83
First goal vs. Granada: https://youtu.be/k0nQK62NHBU?t=135
Header (second goal) vs. Granada: https://youtu.be/k0nQK62NHBU?t=204
Goal vs. Eibar: https://youtu.be/GusA8ECZAPk?t=588
Goal vs. Levante: https://youtu.be/yEDxAVx15hY?t=408
Header vs. Villareal: https://youtu.be/h8XBKcv93fM?t=490
Header vs. Bilbao: https://youtu.be/3vf8Hz17o2U?t=536
Header (1st goal) vs. Cadiz: https://youtu.be/OfYV2KFLWqM?t=117
2nd goal vs. Cadiz: https://youtu.be/OfYV2KFLWqM?t=431
Header vs. Atletico: https://youtu.be/6p1mnW651w0?t=693
HOWEVER, I still don’t think he would be anywhere near as effective for us. I stand by my opinions that he is physically weak for a target man and not fast enough to get in behind the defense. In the few times he played for us we swung tons of crosses in and he really didn’t come very close to scoring one. Granted our service was not the best, which was also true for the most part today. If you watch these headed goals, most of them are pretty uncontested, which means one of two things: Budimir is very good at creating space or these are near perfect crosses, which of them it is I’m not quite sure as these are only highlights after all. From these clips it does look like he is good at finding space to be open, but I’m not sure he’d be able to replicate this with us. There must be a reason why Dalic refuses to play him or even try him out in any of the recent friendlies. I think Budimir is a good striker, but I simply don’t think he would work with our play style.
Maybe if we played like Osasuna, who’s attack is (or at least seems to be) crossing the ball until they’re blue in the face, he would be the best option. I wouldn’t have minded to see him thrown on late in the game today when we were doing exactly that as all Petkovic did was get the ball and shield it basically wasting time. Although most of our crosses were from Vrsaljko who was sending in pretty much only low crosses which would mean Budimir would have to find a way to get in front of Mings who I believe would have been too strong for him. The Czechs and Scotland are a lower level team compared to us and England so I could see Budimir scoring if we do start him, just like I could see Kramaric scoring and maybe even Petkovic (although I am really souring on him after recent performances). However, I could also see Budimir struggling with the physically strong defenders that the Czechs and Scotland have.
Maybe I’m still wrong, and if I am, then by all means, someone prove me wrong so I can learn more, I’ve never claimed to be some expert on here, I just give my opinions on what I see because soccer, more specifically, Croatian soccer is my passion and I enjoy discussion on it. This is why comments like yours are just so strange to me. I get you’re frustrated we played badly in attack and so am I, but no need to get that upset and claim I “only write fallacies” or I’m “trolling” or I “don’t follow soccer” when I would say it’s pretty obvious that I do. I give analysis based on what I know. Unfortunately, I just don’t choose to watch Osasuna every week when there are other games on at the same time that I prefer to watch. You could easily just say “actually Budimir is quite good in the air and has 7 headed goals this year, which is more than Benzema” (even though that was not a good comparison in my opinion because that is definitely not how Benzema scores most of his goals) and then explained why you think he would be effective for us. But hey, you do you. If you want to be upset and not provide
I am hoping Dalic figures it out for the game on Friday as he knows more about our team than any of us on here, even if he does make some choices that make us scratch our heads. Who knows, maybe Budimir gets the nod, but considering Dalic threw Pasalic on before him (which I don’t agree with by the way), I’m not sure he will.
Wow! This is the most thorough comment in the website’s history. Fair play to you Vuki, fair play!
I hope Dalić doesn’t try to re-insert Lovren into the starting eleven.
Ćaleta-Car and Vida did well considering they couldn’t rely on Brozović today.
Changes need to be made up top.
Teams that have lost that have gone deep or struggled in group stages. Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece. We’ll get a win.
With Borna Sosa in the lineup and pushing Gvardiol into more in the middle might have made a difference.
I know Sosa an ass, but I think it might have made a difference to the overall plan of attack.
Thoughts?
I’ve read the comments and most of them I disagree with. Why is everyone panicking? It’s one game against England who barley outperformed us. The fact they struggled against a Croatian side that has a few new faces: Livakovic, CC, Gvardiol and new starting striker. Not to mention Rakitic retired. I’d say I give the team a solid 6/10. The defending was strong considering Vrsaljko was injured and Gvardiol is 19. The only goal was a failed tackle and sterling split Vida & CC. Lots of good ball clearances, Livakovic made a few good stops, won the 1v1 battled. The only weakness I saw was three and one was major. The first was Brozovic’s form. Yes he was off today but he’s still a starter and can’t be replaced. The second was slip ups in the mid. Giveaways were too prevalent, especially in the first half. The major one I’m worried is our scoring abilities. We can score but nobody stepped up. We’ll find the goals eventually but no long balls, decent crosses or plays in the 12 yard box to challenge the England defence. Yes we lost and I wasn’t happy with the overall performance. The defence has certainly improved and Livakovic is a good keeper. Keep your heads high. Two more matches and we still have a good England squad a challenge. I’m pumped for Friday.
I agree with you here. We struggled to attack efficiently, but other than that there were no true glaring issues. I would still say reward Kovacic for his performance and start him over Brozo the next match which would hopefully motivate Brozo to perform well again. If we struggle against the Czechs, then we have reasons to be truly worried.
Czechs won’t be a walk in the park. I’m hopeful for the Scotland will draw them. Last euros we tied and gave up a two goal lead.
Finally a comment I can agree with. We didn’t play amazingly, but neither did we play horribly. It was a game to miss but not a game to forget.
England, though not the amazing team they like to believe they are, had a good game and a solid performance. They did what was asked of them, and had our team sussed. They gave Brozo a torrid time, and he couldn’t match it. But he’s still a key player, and can continue to be a solid CDM we’ve come to expect of him.
The major weakness of not scoring goals is our main and only problem. A pretty crucial one given the needs of the game. And it is this we need to figure out, and fast. But short of making the changes to a front attack that can score goals, I didn’t see anything to suggest that changes to our midfield or defence are required.
Not overly concerned. Our tournament hinges on the next match. Today we showed that we can hang with one of the favourites. Not impressive by any stretch of the imagination but also not totally woeful. Some glimpses of hope.
If we can build up some positive momentum in the next two games, we could go deep.
It is well known that it is often teams that have slow starts who end up going all the way.
Ajmo dečki!!!
Bog i Hrvati!
Great analysis, 100% agree…..
Ajmo dečki
Bog i Hrvati!!!!!!
Didn’t read all the comments yet so sorry if it’s repeated
But caleta played a nice ball later in the game
Why didn’t we try this more or we did and I didn’t notice?
Not talking Hail Marys but perhaps a few balls and bounce the right way
Much more effective then livakovic firing it in to no in particular
I agree, nice long ball.
So the result is actually fine, a narrow loss to Engerand means 2nd place is up for grabs for us, but yeah, the prob is we never looked like scoring. Anyhow i feel like our tourney gets underway next match, i wasnt disappointed with this result since we want to come 2nd at best.
I’ve read the comments.
And it’s actually quite funny.
We (me too) claim that Dalic is stupid because he doesn’t start with the formation we’re suggesting.
And then… we’re all suggesting different lineups.
If we’re all are right, then they’re about 25 possible great lineups. Only Dalic uses the one that sucks.
I think we should trust Dalic in this. He probably knows best.
On a side note, an absolute classless booing of our Lijepa Nasa. What is it about the English fans and their lack of respect? Sramota.
Meh, this happens plenty during games where anthems get booed. Don’t bother me one bit.
We are an AVERAGE team why do expect above average results every time we take the pitch ???
Because we have a history of punching above our weight. It’s our calling card, really. Our team is average now. Maybe in the next WC and Euro, with some of this young talent we have maturing, we will be above average but in this tournament, we’re a middle of the pack team. I hope they ‘turn it on’ vs. Czechs and Scots and prove me wrong, but the body of work from the past year and change says otherwise.
Kovačić was good.
I would play Vlašić – Modrić – Kovačić.
Brozović off the bench for Czech match.
Budimir starts vs Czech to lead our line.
Rebić LW.
Perišić RW.
Bradaric in at LB.
We need to get our offensive mojo going this Friday.
Budimir should have started this game and should start going forward!!
@ Mr Black
Agree with your comments. Since we do lack a no 9 maybe Perisic could be the answer. Rebic can go back to LW and Brekalo on the right. Only thing is it would have to be Vlasic playing behind him and no way he and Krama would be able to play in a cohesive manner.
What’s with the meltdown with some of you? Think this through…it was an away game against England. It’s not like we were thoroughly outplayed. Yes, England played a bit better and definitely created more but we were not outclassed. Just lacked creativity.
@ Slavonac
Gvardiol started a bit shaky but I felt he grew into the game. His foot deflected the Foden shot that hit the post. He started to play much better in the 2nd half.
at the end of the day, nothing to be too worried about
and you need to focus on long term good over short term gain… ultimately, as previously discussed, 2nd place or even third looks better than first
granted the margin for error is now slim and one can’t have a great deal of confidence croatia will win/tie its next matches
My algo has croatia’s chance of advancing to the round of 16 dropping from about 75% to 50%, but it’s chances of making the round of 8 actually increasing from 18% to 22% so for those who want to shoot big…not a bad day
the game overall was fine. it was england in wembley… england rarely loses
after the first 15 to 20 minutes which were terrible, the game was fairly evenly played and maybe even in croatia’s favor with possession finishing 52 to 48 england and shots (on goal) finishing 8(1)- 8(2) .. .
the sterling goal was a bit of an ok goal against the grain of play
as i mentioned, I thought the big weakness to start was having modric up top on the high press because it left the midfield too low on players and quality. modric high press did nothing and meanwhile england’s press became very effective
once modric dropped back to a deeper and more central position, the flow of the game was much improved for croatia. england also started to get tired and their press slowed down a bit as well
at the end of the day, kramaric is arguably the most talented croatian striker since suker so I still think if you want to win the tournament or go far, you gotta find a way to play him. You could pull him out and sub in vlasic and go much more defensive, possession oriented and try to bunker your way through like greece but we all know croatia will never play that way
I thought the defense was kind of fine, especially given the pressure they were under to start. The Foden shot off the post was actually decently defended, it just would’ve been a real good goal on a broken play. The sterling goal obviously coudl’ve been defended better but so it goes
on a side note, I know it’s trendy to say the future for Croatia is bright, but it’s really not.. It’s looking quite average. Once Modric is gone, there really is no elite level player left and it looks like there is none coming down the pipeline. Brekalo looks like he’s falling short, even if Gvardiol is good a defender will only do so much for you, and Sucic is practically in diapers.
I agreed with everything except the youth bit. Our U21 team is the best its ever been and the guys in the younger categories are even better. Not sure what makes you think we have no elite talent coming up. Ever heard of Gvardiol, Vuskovic, Saranic, Biuk, Sucic, Katinic, etc
Agreed. But those guys won’t get into the mix until post Euro. Guys like Saranic, Sucic and Biuk are 18-19. I bet we don’t see some of them until 2024 Euro qualification…. Unless one or all of them truly start lighting it up with their clubs. I don’t agree with that philosophy, but we don’t don’t traditionally thrust teenagers into the senior repka unless its just to ensure their tied to Croatia and can’t be capped by another country.
Modric, the hands down best player our country ever produced, wasn’t capped until he was what – 20 or 21? And people knew he was going to be something special when he was 17-18-19.
Srna was 20 when he first got capped.
Kranjcar was 20.
Corluka was 20.
Mandzukic was 21.
Looking back at last weeks friendly loss to Belgium we looked good for 20min.. lets face it that’s because they weren’t even trying.. when they decided to play it was easy for them..
Our play today was stagnant and on top of that there is not much will to pressure.. these guys need to fight for the ball but most importantly hold on to it! Our mid was not able to control the game as we wished… that’s because we have no buildup through our backline.. our mid had to drop way to to far back and this takes away and gives a feeling of stagnency(Our D shit the bags cause of Sterling).. nor Vida or Car are confident to push the ball forward cause of this..
——————–BUDIMIR——————–
—-PERISIC———————-REBIC——
——————–KOVACIC——————–
————MODRIC–BROZOVIC———-
-BRADARIC——————-VRSAJKO–
———–GVARDIOL—CARE————–
——————LIVAKOVIC——————-
I believe this is the best lineup.. Either or Kramaric being there instead of Budimir just would like to see this as I believe he could be more decisive on corners and set plays then Kramaric( both have pluses and minuses but seems having Krama and Rebic together is not working well). Hopefully against the Czechs we can find a way forward.. but today this tactic and selection is not the way for us to play.. If we continue pushing this I believe we will suffer against our latter two teams in this group..
Moving Gvardiol to the CB position will give us more confidence to move the ball forward and give way to one more offensive wing back option in Bradaric(wish SOSA debacle never occurred and he was here with the team) which I believe will alleviate this stagnant play from our backline to attack improving our overall stance in play
Well I hope Dalic sees this.. anyways let’s hope for the best next 2 games!
I think Brozovic had his worst game for Repka, because he was distracted by what happened to his friend and teammate, Eriksen. Who almost died.
Look to see Brozovic bounce back the next game.
@Razbijač finally someone in this chat who understands soccer. Brozović is usually our most reliable player (outside Luka), but today he was the worst player on the pitch. He made at least 5-6 critical errors, the most important mistake leading to England’s only goal. In the past our weakness was in the back but in the present, the obvious and glaring weakness is that we do not have a true nose for goal scorer. Either way the result wasn’t that bad and we should progress out of the group. We will not win this euro, but we have a promising future. The day Luka retires will be a sad day for all of us!
Exactly….Broz had a terrible game but he us known to be a very moody/emotional guy. His buddy almost died, and everyone deals with these things differently. I really think it may have thrown him off badly.
Predictions
Scotland 1 Czech 1
Croatia 0 Czech 0
England 3 Scotland 0
Croatia 2 Scotland 0
England Vs France
Croatia Vs Spain
Here’s Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic…
“We made a mistake that we’ve trained for a whole week to avoid,” the 54-year old said.
“I congratulate the English but I have no complaints about how my lads performed. We’ll move on, our goal remains to reach the knockout stage and I am confident that we have it in us.”-
“is this guy really that dumb? He’s making the cable guy look good- no complaints on how we performed – this is from London paper.
When the coach isn’t self critical anymore we have a problem. I noticed the same with Kranjcar and Bilic near the end of their tenures.
Two things I liked about this game, in spite of the lack of excitement: 1. Only one goal conceded against a very strong attacking team. 2. Few yellow cards and very little fatigue. It was boring because the boys played it like it was a warmup match. While we don’t enjoy watching that, keeping our players available is crucial too. One thing that hurt us in 2018 was exhaustion. That style of play was the most fun to watch, but this new version of the team needs to be more clever and rely less on pure velocity. Think Portugal in 2016. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked out for them
Oh well, not what I wanted, especially against those kick and run take a knee hacks…but we still control our own destiny. We should be able to take care of the Czechs next game…and then even a point vs Scotlan and we should be good….
Absolutely disgusting those inbred rotten teeth limeys booed our anthem. Such classless scum…and I can’t wait until in the second round they get their a.sses beat by either France/Portugal/Germany and its “not coming home”.
As for us, Rebic and Kramaric were invisible. And Broz, another bad day and defensively simple throw ins twice to Sterling send him away with Broz no where to be found…..
PS Very proud of our boys for not taking a knee. F that shit. We kneel only for God. Not these racist vilent blm scum.
Now lets beat the Czechs and start a run….
Why did they boo?
The backend should remain the same. Grant you that Gvardiol is prepared. Perhaps throw in Bradaric. The long balls towards Sterling and Foden. Besides the opening 25 minutes which was the worst, the defending was fine and especially in the centre backs. It’s just scoring chances we lacked. Get more bodies in the 12 yard box for crosses. Orsic at left wing, Budimir striker. Just please play them.
This game felt like a friendly to me idk what to say. Brozovic koji kurac katastrofa not a good.
No organization scared to attack no need a new tactics we cant score need to play brekalo vlasic and a striker budimr or petkovic as number 9 and kramaric should stop being a bitch and just play the 9 position or go on the bench.
What everlineup i think of in my head wont get job done this is what we are since the silver at 2018 mundial.
It is what it is next game most likely
Livakovic vrsaljko cc vida gvardiol/barisic i heard dalic isnt happy with barisic and bradaric why the f you call them then.
Modric Broz Vlasic Brekalo budimir Perisic
Gvardiol and Caleta-Car looked extremely shaky and uncomfortable. This is understandable seeing as they haven’t played an opponent the class of England, so I’m expecting more confidence vs the Czechs. Personally would rather see Bradaric over Gvardiol if he continues to fear touching the ball.
Anemic is right and I don’t see us scoring more than 3 goals combined in the group stage. We were spoiled with the 2018 run.
Agreed..scoring has been an issue since Mandzukic left and Perisic doesn’t have the keys anymore. If I’m Dalic I would change the formation and next game. Play with three attackers because I’m telling you right now. Goals will be hard to come by. We have to get gritty and press hard. Czech defence are strong, tall, and they don’t concede often. Put Orsic at striker. Vlasic and Rebic on wings… or Brekalo. Have three upfront.
I caught the second half and Gvardiol impressed me with his composure. Sure, he missed that crucial tackle, but I liked him.
Not a good game. My bullet points:
-Brozović had about the worst game he’s ever played for us.
-What was the point of Pasalic?
-They were killing us with some long balls.
-Dalić playing guys out of position hurts us again.
-We should of lost by 3.
-I thought Gvardiol played pretty well. Amazing that he’s only played 45 minutes for the Senior team with much of our core being subbed out. It speaks to Dalić lack of prep integrating a guy into the A team while he was wasting time with Barisic and Meljnak. Big failure on his part.
-Livakovic looked much better than he has. That’s Encouraging.
-Kovacic did play well, but it’s not worth changing the formation that has got us the best results to make sure one player fits in well.
All that said, I think we’re fine against Czech if we just play people in their natural position.
Well said agree with all
That is true and Gvardiol probably isn’t his only failing.
Realistically all Croatia can aim for is 2nd place, and to secure it they will need to win the next 2 games.
The thing is, Croatia haven’t done well when they have had to go into the final game of the group stage needing the result. The million kuna question is: will they lay a massive egg against Scotland away??
There is gonna have to be major improvement in attack and defense to avoid this dreadful fate…
I think a tie vs Scotland will be enough barring we get 3 points vs the Czechs. A good chance Scotland and the Czechs lose by more than 1 to England
That’s why Dalic has no choice but to UNLEASH the FIREPOWER against Czech republic–there is no other way! Score a buncha goals.
I’m thinking Brozovic, Modric–Rebic, Kramaric, Perisic–Petko for the midfield and attack for the Czechs….
Petkovic mid? How about we throw players like Budimir, Orsic, Vlasic in.
What I mean is a midfield-attack which is (2-3-1) Brozovic, Modric—Rebic, Kramaric, Perisic—Petko.
Petko wouldn’t be a mid, he would be a striker. But now I’m starting to think Budimir would be the better target man. I just hope our offense clicks the next game!
The lack of readiness was markedly present –
They looked like a team that was prepared to lose- couldn’t make 3 feet passes- guys giving each other evil looks- the team is a mess- Being ready to play is on the coach- sure making 2018 look like a mirage- I don’t think we can score a single goal-Dalic is gone-
Time for non Croatian coach – someone technically sound- these guys looked like U6 Mississauga Croatia – bloody shameful
Losing to England 1-0 away isn’t the end of the world. What worries me was the lack of chances created. I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said in this comment section already, but I will say that I was actually pretty happy with the way Gvardiol and DCC played.
We are stuck in a limbo between playing as we did in 2018 and adapting/playing modern football.
I loved our team in 2018 but let’s face it we didn’t get 10 chances per game either, and our passing play in attack phase wasn’t brillant by any means. We won games with strong team defense, a little luck on our side, and because we fought like lions.
We are just way too predictable now: pass it to Sime on the right and Perisic on the left, and let’s pray.
No wonder why our most lively performances these last years were when we played 4-1-2-1-2, with vertical playing in the middle of the park.
Unfortunately I’m not sure this is the solution now, however sticking krama as our n°10 could help tremendously our link up play and creativity.
It is not the end of the world, but Dalic has to keep “experimenting”
That is just sad.
I can see us laying a few more goose eggs now that Dalic thinks Kova played so well today in place of Vlasic
My other worries, Rebic playing at 80% (up from 70% v Belgium) strength and Vlasic at 80% strength.
Vlasic looked like he tweaked his knee, so he might not even be 80%
Brozo hate is dumb. Guy is world class but is a ticking neck tattoo on and off the field.
Gvardiol had a piss poor game offensively regardless how much ppl want to spin it. I am ok with him starting but just calling a spade a spade. Would say he played well defensively had he not been primarily responsible for the English goal.
Pre tournament hate for vrsaljko was dumb. He is only 90% back but by far our best RB, on BOTH sides of the ball.
It is all about how well players mesh for us. Kramaric will never mesh with Rebic and Perisic.
We will never score enough with Kova replacing Vlasic.
Refs will never give us enough extra time against elite teams. Had we been winning, England would have received 6 extra minutes.
My assessment and takeaways of the game.
1. Scoring and generating chances was difficult. No threatening chances and no one got in the 12 yard box to play tough and get gritty.
2.England back four players solid and were tight on our offence
3.England’s midfield have improved since last time I saw
4.Modric can’t play all group games. Win vs Czech then save him against Scotland.
5.Livakovic was fine. He made some really good saves. That goal was caused by a missed tackle. Also CC and Vida were out to lunch that play.
6.Gvardiol looked decent. Guy makes a mistake that gave a goal but don’t be hard on the guy. He’s 19 and it’s am adjustment playing against England from the HNL.
7.Kane can’t do anything for England unless he gets a penalty.
8.Kovacic man of the match for Croatia. Phillips for England,
9.Pickford wasn’t challenged at all. Guy could’ve played with the grass the way our offence looked today.
10. Formation should change. Brozovic isn’t good enough to play without Modric.
I said it before I’ll say it again. Bring some new fucking players on. Kramaric can’t do shit alone, Rebic was out to lunch and Perisic was garbage. Start Orsic & Budimir next match. I have no clue why Petkovic was subbed in. Vlasic should start a wing. No offence was produced. If I’m Dalic, you juggle the lineup. Modric was gassed after halftime. The guy is finished after this tournament.
Perisic was our best player, only consistent threat out there. Rebic needs to be back on the wing. Modric was more than fine. Two more of him on the park and Croatia wins the game. I’d insert Vlasic into the line-up, Kramaric sits as an option off the bench. Gvardiol is young and had a few fumbles but he will be a star and playing him now will pay huge dividends in the future with little cost.
Saying offense is anemic is too kind, no creativity what so ever. I think only one corner coming in the 70th minute?? I think Gvardiol did well, need to pick up pace next match. Brozo also horrible
I’m more optimistic about this team after than before this match.
The first 20 minutes were a disaster but afterwards we were decent.
Vrsaljko starts to play better and better.
DCC and Vida were okay.
Okay, Gvardiol was partly at fault for the goal, but I think he improved during the game. This will make him stronger.
Brozovic had probably his worst game for Croatia. I think Southgate ask his player to attack Brozovic when he had the ball (since he lost some balls too against Belgium).
Kovacic & Modric were great.
The strikers had an extremely hard time against a strong English defense.
A 1-0 defeat against England at Wembley isn’t the end of the world. Teams like France, Germany or Belgium could lose in England too.
As for the striker. We need someone to finish it.
The way I see:
Budimir, Rebic & Orsic have the energy to be were they should be but lack the technical skills to actually finish it.
Kramaric & Petkovic have the technical skills to finish it but lack the energy to be where they should be.
I see only one solution: Put Perisic as number 9.
He easily scores, is good in the air, is smart.
Okay, we lose a great winger but we can put Rebic as LW, his favorite position.
About Petkovic
I saw Perisic and even Vlasic with angry looks towards Petkovic because he wasn’t close to the goal to collect their passes. I don’t think Petko is lazy, I think he just doesn’t have the engine to produce enough high intensity runs during a game. That’s probably the reason why he still plays in the HNL at 26.
But overall: this team could grow and I think we have a smart coach in Dalic to make things happen for Hrvatska… but we’re gonna need some luck some times. Like we had in Russia.
Bog I Hrvatska
A 1-0 loss isnt so bad.
Game 2 is always our best.
4 pts might be enough
Playing England in Wembley would always be tough. They came out hard in the 1st 25 minutes and (luckily) we weathered it. However, we needed ALL our players to ramp up the energy as the game went on and this never happened. Brozo had a really bad game. Stray passes, poor tackles, sliced shots. Very unfocused game from him and his play/lack of doing his job properly added more stress on the D and pushed back our MF so they couldn’t distribute the ball forward. Kova and Luka did the best they could given the circumstances and I didn’t agree with Dalic subbing Kova out. But…we will get past this and move on! We are fighters and it’s just beginning.
So the Guardian reads ‘England sinks Croatia’. Should read ‘England sink themselves’ This is perfect. We will get a favourable draw in the next round whilst they are absolutely fucked against a group of death opponent. Ajmo hrvatska!!!
Gvardiol definitely looked nervous and that slide that led to the goal was very bad, but I wouldn’t say he had an absolutely horrible game. He was definitely very shaky up until after the goal. He seemed to come alive a bit. Definitely not his best performance. He’s still only 19. I have confidence that he will pull it together.
Brozovic was obviously whack. Kovacic was pretty good. He looked lively, but I think he can provide even more still. I think the tactics were not absolutely horrible, but not great either. Didn’t fit our players. Switching Modric and Kramaric when we didn’t have the ball so that we had some sort of press was a good idea, but it just wasn’t intense enough. Rebic’s best moments came when he was aggressively pressing. But he doesn’t have the same stamina that Mandzukic had so he’s not capable of doing it all game.
Dalic needs to figure out a system where we don’t have to rely on our press to create chances. We did almost get something after our pressing a few times, but just no ruthless finishers in the box. Which leads me back to Kramaric. So he can’t play lone striker, but when we use him in the role we did today, he is no where near the goal, because he’s playing center mid when we’re defending. Rebic and Perisic had the best chances, but they rushed them both instead of trying to take a touch.
I thought the defense was fine today. Gvardiol was again no where near his best. Vida and Caleta-Car were solid enough, Caleta missed badly also on his attempt at a tackle on that goal after Gvardiol’s unnecessary slide. You can see Vida yelling at them both after it. Just a sudden lapse of concentration all around back there. I say keep it the same. Lovren hasn’t played for a while so he won’t be fit and I personally wouldn’t start him unless someone is suspended.
So what’s the answer for the attack? I still don’t think it’s Budimir. If he plays and ends up being the answer, I’ll gladly eat my words, but I just don’t see it. I already said on a previous thread why that is, so I’ll keep it brief. He is worse than Rebic has been lately with the ball at his feet. He’s not actually that good in the air, just tall. And he’s quite slow. So how does he fit in to create a difference? Please I truly do want to be enlightened and proven wrong.
So then what about Petkovic? What did he do when he came on other than receive the ball and turn away from the goal to shield the ball? And then Perisic had a great header across the box and not a single soul was in the box when we were meant to be pushing forward trying to equalize. Dude only had to run for 10 minutes and he couldn’t do that. If he can bring back his form from the Euro qualifiers then by all means he should start, but he just hasn’t shown any of that recently for us.
As much as Kramaric is not a lone striker, he honestly might be the best option. Bring Vlasic in for Brozovic and swap Kramaric and Rebic for the rest of the group stage. Then, we can have Vlasic press high to compensate for Kramaric’s lack of pressing. I didn’t think Kramaric was bad in his position today it’s just that he had no influence on the attack apart from his long passes to nearly put Rebic in behind. We need him in the box if he’s going to have any affect on the game. If we struggle to score against the Czechs we will have a real problem on our hands.
I was very surprised that Barisic and Orsic were the ones left out of the match day squad with Lovren. Not that either of them would have played, but does that mean Barisic is now the 3rd choice LB behind Gvardiol and Bradaric? Also Orsic is obviously not going to play much over Perisic, Rebic, and Brekalo, but I think maybe he could have provided something different as England was very compact and our chances were coming from the edge of the box which is where Orsic tends to score from. Not sure what everyone else thinks about that.
Again, our defense was actually quite solid, so if we figure out the attack we can be a dangerous team again. I hope Dalic does select an attacking lineup against weaker sides like he did in the World Cup. We really do miss Mandzukic right now.
Great comments Vuk!
“He’s(budimir) not actually that good in the air, just tall.”
sighhhhh, why do ppl on this website like you continue to write blatant fallacies. dont follow soccer? trolling? or u just write wut sounds good? Budimir has something like 8 header goals this season, even more than benzema, which makes him la ligas most prolific header. That is why he fits in to create a difference. cuz petkovic, the futsaler, apparently never scored a header in his life. and rebic is invisible as striker both for milan and us. Budimir playing up there gives us another form of attack which has been non existent since mandzukic left.
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“He is worse than Rebic has been lately with the ball at his feet.”
rebic is a better dribbler, while budimir has better first touch. rebic is ineffective as striker, everyone saw this when ibra was injured.
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“Then, we can have Vlasic press high to compensate for Kramaric’s lack of pressing.”
Or we could literally just play rebic, one of the most hard working wingers in europe, as a winger, which he is, and vlasic/krama as number 10 role, which they are.
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Also, this is what happens when you prioritize a meaningless U21 tournament over the Euros.
Vrsaljko is not looking good. Now, we have to hope he gets better, or that Juranovic (who plays in the Polish league) can play in this tournament. Dalic probably won’t take that risk.
However, we never called up Atalanta’s Bosko Sutalo (who played very well for our U21s at RB). With the lack of depth at RB and question marks around Vrsaljko’s health, this was a no-brainer callup.
Also, we can all agree that Brozovic was off…but we have no replacement for him.
Why was Nikola Moro not ever called up? He can play in that role.
All in a blind attempt to win the U21 tournament, we never called up and tested some potentially very useful youngsters in Sosa, Moro, Majer, Sutalo, Ivanusec, Gvardiol in advance of these Euros.
We called up the latter two for this tournament, but without any reps for the senior squad. Stupid and unnecessary risks.
Mamimjo,
Sutalo didn’t even play 20 minutes combined for Atalanta in Serie A this season. Sometimes he didn’t even make the bench.
And he said himself that he sees himself as a central defender and not as a RB.
I’m not saying he won’t be a (very) good player one day… but not now.
A loss is not the end of the world, but as many of you pointed out, we have some problems that need to get solved, and fast. We must win the next game convincingly! Gvardiol’s inexperience showed vs England…hopefully he improves and gains confidence next games. If we can get our attack sorted out, we will get better and better. If not then it’s an early exit.
Don’t get all this Gvardiol hate, he looked fine what are you on
would be cool if dalic decided to play everyone in their actual positions:
………………………Budimir/Petko………………….
Perisic……………Krama/Vlasic……………Rebic
………………Broz/kova……….Modric……………..
Gvardiol…………DCC……….Vida………Vrsaljko
……………………………..Livi……………………………
He probably will for our next games. I’m pretty sure he tried to use Rebic solely for pressing so we could press a little higher than at centre and whether it worked or not, I completely understand what he was trying to do…it’s up to our players to execute!
Im on board for Budimir. A proper #9 is needed and Id prefer one that bags goals in La Liga, not the HNL
All in all, this wasn’t too bad. If England is a favourite to win this tournament, we at least gave them a decent battle. Scoring is a problem. Rebic is a winger. He was terrible today. Kovacic was our best player. Hopefully this really will be the tournament that finally awakens him. Gvardiol showed his age, but he definitely belongs. It’s hard to blame a goalie when someone comes in alone on you, but a good goalie saves a ball that’s pretty much kicked straight at you. England didn’t impress me too much. Hopefully that speaks to how well we actually played. Their best player was Brozovic. Dalic is a donkey for not recognizing at half time that his head was not in the game. He should have been subbed out.
Good assessment! Really did seem like Broz didnt have his head in it. Im not too worried. Like you said a tournament favourite and at home.
Unfortunately, England is not a favorite.
They will be bounced in the Round of 16.
Dalić pulled a Čačić today and waited too long to make his subs (he had five of them) but I guess there was nothing we could do improve our play with or without subs.
Poor showing today.
Why the hate on Gvardiol?
He made some mistakes (mostly on offense), but he did deflect Philips’ shot into the post, and he made some nifty passes to advance the ball forward (which is more than most players on the field did).
He did more than what Barišić would have done in a match where nobody was doing anything on the offensive end at all. The back four got very little support.
I felt sorry for our back line, having to deal with England attacks after our midfielders and forwards couldn’t string more than one pass among each other…and most of them not even trying to track back defensively.
Ćaleta-Car had a handball and was sometimes overly physical… But he did really well considering the circumstances.
I was glad to see Livaković look comfortable, especially with all those pass backs. I thought he would panic or botch a clearance. He was alright with the pressure.
If we had Lovren or Barišić playing in this death trap game, we would have lost by more.
I agree, people just look for a scape goat and he’s young. Probably just because of that missed tackle.
Yeah, on that English goal, Croatian defense was just too poor! Gvardiol misses the ball with the sliding tackle and CC gets totally beaten. At least one of those two guys should have stopped England’s advance.
But I’m not disappointed, it was always going to be tough win away against England.
I’m just concerned about a lack of quality in the final 3rd.
Maybe a loss is a blessing in disguise, as it sets the Vatreni up for a second place finish.
I didn’t get a sense of any real urgency in the players to come back when they were a goal down, they seemed content with just tying to contain England.
Dalic is brilliant. He wanted to lose this game, so we have an easier route to the late stages.
He literally played the lineup that guaranteed ZERO goals. Brilliance.
Ask yourself how you can make the team less listless than every other game in which Kovacic and Kramaric started together?
Answer: Play literally the best defending wing in all of Europe (Rebic) and switch him out of position with the least tenacious player on Croatias team (Kramaric)
Brilliance, guarantee not winning the group!
When Dalic said he was “done experimenting” with the lineup prior to the Belgium game, he was just joking.
Dalic’s greatest experiment is this:
He found the most effective lineup since Mandzukic retired when Petkovic Vlasic Rebic and Perisic saved the qualifying campaign in front of Brozo and Modric. The scientist Dalic, then said, now that we have good results let’s NOT ever play lineup again to see if we can look listless for years to come.
Fucking brilliant!
@ Great Anonymous Doom
Agree. England created more… Kova was our best player IMO (hard to believe)
Gvardiol got better as the game went on but the biggest disappointment was Brozovic. Really poor today and possible that he sits next game. He wasn’t great in our last friendly vs Belgium either.
I think it’s time to try Krama in his natural position with either Petko or Budimir upfront. Krama might be the only guy for us who can score.
Brozovic was balls! Toothless timid and a step behind. Kova was alright. Caleta Car, Gvardiol, Vida decent. Too many softies. Brekalo should’ve stayed on the bench. Vlasic didnt bring any energy or assertiveness. Perisic was hustling and leading. Rebic too but no service.
Oh well. Hopefully we see a little anger in them moving forward and we take it out on the rest of the group. 2nd place and avoiding the group of death is there. All to play for still.
Gvardiol tried to slide and cut off the pass, Vrsaljko pussy foots a last second tackle (should have easily cleared that), England score a goal on a play we gave them!
Perisic gets the ball into the box with less than 10 minutes to play and Petkovic is 20 yards behind the play!
All I’ve heard for the past few weeks is that Kovacic and Vida are shit, Petkovic and Gvardiol have to play.
Sure, I agree Gvardiol has to play but he was terrible…and trust me, some of you might regurgitate the same shit week after week by saying the same garbage but you really need to watch the game and make your opinion based on the game, not from what you read!
England was far better than us for the first 30 minutes of the game, after that, they weren’t as dominant…we just didn’t flow well and Gvardiol was on of the reasons! Would I still play him…yes…but after all the constant bullshit talk about how shitty Vida and Kovacic are for our lineup…I’d like to see anyone put blame on either of them for this loss!
no one said kovacic is shit, we say he is “toothless”, cant attack. there is a time and place to play kova, but having modric, brozo, kova all play at the same time is alittle overkill imo
Kovacic got between their pressing and advanced the ball today, he did his job and he wasn’t our problem! We struggled down the wings and then Rebic’s first touch was way off today…poor service!
England barely did enough to win and we basically handed them that goal. Like I said earlier…first Gvardiol and then Vrsaljko both missed on their chance to break up that play!
No ones putting this on Vida or Kovacic and Gvardiol is basically a kid. A very large one at that but he was very serviceable all things considered. Broz was the one not tracking Sterling. Not anticipating that that ball might get through to him. Leaving him for no one
Vida rules! Kept Kane in his pocket again 😉
Yes I know Gvardiol deserves to be supported but in the overall conversation, we spend soo much time criticizing Vida and Kovacic and we don’t have the same standards for some others.
The goal they scored started when Kovacic pressed high, then Gvardiol missed intercepting the pass, at the end of the play, watch how Vrsaljko had basically a 99% chance of getting the ball and it looks like he kinda pulled back! If that was Vida or Kovacic, everyone here would be all over them!
I thought Petkovic was wayyyy to far behind the play when we went forward for the few minutes he came in! Not sure what he was thinking when we needed a goal. Perisic put a beautiful ball in the box and nobody within 20 yards…that’s Petkovic’s place to be!
I 100% agree on the Kovacic point but if you think Gvardiol was bad you must be brainless… yes it was a badly timed tackle on their goal but name me another thing he did badly. Saved our asses on that Kane run and made many good runs up the left side. He’s fucking 19 years old.
fuck you dalic! he started kova to play for the 0-0 boring draw and we got burned.
-kovacic is toothless!
-krama/vlasic is not a winger!
-rebic is not a striker!
-we need petko/budimir starting!
You’re blaming this on Kovacic and saying Petko was needed today? WTF game did you watch?
when did i blame kovacic?? kovacic is who he is. i blame dalic. its a fact that when kova plays our attacking play is hurt.
Im more for budimir starting, but yeah, i believe we would play better if we have an actual number 9 uptop
I don’t think one can really blame Dalic for this loss. He made a lineup that was effective in many ways. He made the right substitutions. England was just the better team, even if only marginally. They were able to be dangerous, and we just weren’t. Petkovic was ineffective at the end, not getting to the right places on time. We had pretty good momentum toward goal at the end there, but nobody to finish the plays…
England got the result. But they will not advance to the final. A real power team would off blown us out. There were many reasons why we lost this game. I don’t like our chances going forward in the next two games. Dalic needs to recognize where our weakness is and correct it. Our players play for the best in the world . And when they play for Repka they need to play like they play for club. We have no Offense fire power , and goals win games
There aren’t too many blowouts at the highest levels of tournaments. England will get exposed by a better team though. They’re similar to us. Great at times going forward but pretty shaky at the back.
Listless attack. Brozo was awful.
Not unhappy to finish 2nd or even 3rd and advance. Problem will be the last game against the Scots. They are tough and will be playing at home.
We need to figure out our attack….and fast.
Dalić playing 4D chess.
He’s following the Portugal model for winning Euros.
Squeeze into the knockout rounds with three points, then win the Euros with as little offense as possible.
I dont understand… We are losing there is no urgency we are just walking aroubd. No one is in attacj when we get the ball. …
Why are we walking around when we are losing..
Interesting to hear the commentators just trash brozovic from the pre game till he was subbed out
Saying he can’t defend, inter had to change their tactics mid season to cover for his poor defending, saying you knew as soon as he gave the ball away he’d get a yellow card cause that’s what he does
Pretty true. Ive watched a lot of Inter. Some days he looks great. Other times frustrating as hell. Not sure where i heard top 3 DM’s in the world but there are dozens better than him !
This feels like a friendly to me
Boring fucking game
This is really lame 😒
BroZovic worst game ever for Repka
Little help on the links please. Cant watch and would like to…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0HNXehWQQ
this one :)_ dude ..
Hvala! Wow, Thai?
I think this first half was part of the game plan albeit a little dangerous. Absorb the first push then slowly get into the game..good ol rope-a-dope.
Kovacic was our best player. He was actually moving forward. Brozo has to be better as he is key for us.
Rebic and Krama showed very little. This has a bit of the feel of the 2018 game minus the England first goal.
Vrsaljko seems to be getting better and shaking some of the rust off.
All in all I’ll take this scoreless half.
I think the problem was modric being pushed too far up the pitch almost in a pressing role
Ultimately it didn’t give croatia the numbers and the quality in the middle of the field to maintain possession and get out from pressure
I saw modric start drifting back deeper and toward center as the half wore on and Croatia start to look better
If dalic knows what he’s doing, I’d expect that to be a formalized move to start the half
There is also a question of just doing vlasic or pasalic kramaric to really commit to a defensive possession game
rebic sprints his heart out to pressure the goalie, and the goalie easily just passes it to his left back who is wide open, krama is no where to be seen lol. dalic plz just play ppl in their positions
Was there a reason why perisic didn’t try to take a first touch rather than just blasting it over the bar
Vrsaljko was slowly improving through the half
Gvardiol got into good positions but his inexperience came through
Kovacic and Modric were our best players in the first half.
We knew they would have pressure early
Let’s hope the next half comes out stronger for us
Very uninspiring
Kovacic was actually the best player
Now that’s saying something
Getting frustrated with rebics first touch
I wish kramaric would find a way to get into the game
Are we playing for a nil all draw then so be it
im not getting frustrated with rebics touch im getting frustrated with dalic. we all know rebic has a bad first touch, he is a winger not a striker. kramaric is a central attacking player, not a winger. Dalic is sacrificing rebic, krama, and not playing petko/budimir, just so kova could play. therefore, our attack will not be fluid at all
Yikes.
It seems like Kovačić’s toothlessness has spread to the rest of the team.
OId school question I guess, but anyone have any links?
I got one to watch with Portuguese announcers (anything but the English!!!), but I can’t seem to find a working HRT2 one
Heck, I’ll take any link. Can you list it below?
http://realstreamunited.tv/soccer/england-croatia-rsu5habc5?l=1661424412
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0HNXehWQQ
this one :)_
Does anyone have the link to watch on HRT2?
Nice to see that Gvardiol is starting. I think these are the best 11 we have on paper (aside from playing their ideal position)
I’m interested to see if Krama does actually play behind Rebic…which means Vrsaljko will have to play a bit more of RWB.
Either way Ajmoooooo momci!!!
U Boj!!
He’s been good.
Made some mistakes offensively, but defensively he’s very good.
He got a toe on that Rice shot, which made it hit the post.
Kovačić is the X factor.
It’s his time.
Kramaric is a world class finisher.
Rebić is going to press the back line English scrubs.
Perišić will be inspired by Eriksen.
SPREMNI!!
From The Guardian:
Some utterly baseless comments from Luka Modric on the fine and noble workforce that is the English press: “That arrogance is not so much related to the [England] players but the people around them, some of the journalists and commentators.” Well I never.
Less contentiously, he also says that his opponents today will be given an advantage by the presence of a home crowd. “I think so, yes. It’s a shame there won’t be a lot of Croatia supporters because we always feel their presence when they are there. But it is how it is. We need to focus on the pitch and don’t get bothered about the environment.”
Will this be Modric’s last major tournament? If so, we should drink in every last second of it – for my money the most watchable footballer since Zidane.
Excited the Euro cup is finally here!!
Croatia vs England in the WC18 semifinal is the best and most enjoyable soccer game I’ve ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Perisic was such a beast in that game!! Karate kick goal!!!! Header assist to Mandzukic with the class finish FOR THE WIN!!
If Croatia smashes on these “bloody” fools and gets the confidence and momentum going for this tournament that’s all it will take to get this team back on track and it will be a great summer.
I’m really hoping this Tournament will be Kramaric’s break out performance on the big stage!!
Overall if this team can perform to it’s potential this should be a great Euro.
Decent line up on paper
Will it work out we will find out in a few hours time
It will be a master stroke or a big flop
I am hoping for a big defensive performance and Gvardiol to be boss
The rest will be fine with perisic and rebic causing havoc on the break
Also hoping for a classy goal from kramaric
This is his time or he can go home
I don’t follow Czech. How you think we will do against. Or what to we need to do?
That’s a big league front 6!
Will they try to exploit rookie gvardiol or try the probably weaker side of Krama and Vrsaljko?
I’m stoked that dalic has the balls to start gvardiol
Somewhere Sosa is crying in his u21 jersey
It is what it is
We have shit the bed for a while but Ajmo!! Anything can happen it’s tourney time
Heck Eriksen nearly died. Let’s be glad we are all here and the boys are healthy
They will come to fight tomorrow
Considering that England’s weaknesses are her midfield and goalkeeper, this unconventional approach could be effective. These are almost all players who can hold possession. DCC can make great long passes, and the forwards are all pretty adept at winning position and bringing them down. I expect a lot of long balls on the attack and a lot of ball recovery by the midfield and stinginess short passing. Either that, or a wild open game like the Portugal one, in which Kovačić scores more goals. 😀
problem with this lineup is; defensively, perisic is gonna help out gvardiol on the left, but who is gonna help out Sime on the right? Kramaric is useless defensively and will not track back, which means once again modric will carry the burden. once again, this can all be solved if dalic would just play the players in their preferred positions.
If we are losing in the second half, take out kova and put in petkovic/budimir, move kramaric to CAM and rebic to right wing. a little later sub in vlasic for krama
Agreed. We have the talent to play people in their natural positions. It reeks of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole like Kovac 2014 playing Pranjic DM against Mexico.
I like this lineup…I think Rebić will drift to the wing and Krama will come to the middle, causing some trouble for the englezi.
At the end of the day you need kramaric in the starting line up
This team struggles to score goals and they are really going to bench the only guy who can consistently make something out of nothing and scored the most goals of any Croat in a major league in who knows how long
And this wasn’t mandzukuc banging in headers and tap ins on an overpowering Bayern team
Yup!
He’s our X-factor. We need to unlock him. Rebic can produce too and I probably just like him better but Kramaric for me is much more clinical.
We have a very strong side. Let’s go!
We are a very strong side. Let’s go!
Engerland often bangs in an own goal when playing hrvatska. Let’s hope their young guys wilt under pressure …
35 goals amongst Perisic, Rebic, and Kramaric. I have never seen two Dinamo players in the starting 11
Get Kovacic out!!!
Can’t ask for much more, Sime needs to show up
He really does! A huge difference when he’s playing well. Been awhile since he’s looked dangerous though