Zlatko Dalić grilled the Croatian media on Tuesday while protecting striker, Andrej Kramarić, during a press conference in regard to Krama’s role on the Croatian team. “You in the media create drama. Instead of asking how he (Kramarić) scored the goal, you (the media) ask him about his position. Don’t you have better questions? You make something out of nothing. You (the media) like to tell him what position he should play. Well, this isn’t Hoffenheim. This is the Croatian national team and you play as the coach tells you. For the past two years Kramarić has beat himself up over his role with Croatia. We don’t have the position he plays at Hoffenheim. That’s that!”
This is some Grade-A posturing from Dalić. Absolutely world class to build on Kramarić’s current confidence and momentum from the Canada game. It also shows the rest of the team that Dalić has their back in front of the media.
I don’t know how many times Krama has been asked about his striker role with Croatia as I cover this team and its players from 6,000 miles away, however, I do know it gets annoying (for everyone involved) when the same questions are being asked to the same player by the same media. So we have to applaud Dalić on canning this conversation — with live media — for the time being.
However, there’s a reason this question is being asked so many times. Because we know Kramarić has been played out of position for the past two years. Dalić can say the media has gotten to Kramarić’s head all he wants, but the dude is a professional baller who plays in the Bundesliga. Being asked questions about your play on the field is part of the gig. Krama has been played out of position just as Kova has been for the past two years. (But I’m going to save the Krama/Kova/Canada/Out Of Position article for tomorrow)
Once again, great move by Dalić to defend Krama and the non-stop questions. Maybe this means Krama is officially done playing the #9 for the Vatreni. One can hope.
I don’t think anyone gives Dalic enough credit. Considering how poorly the coaches of Canada and Belgium have conducted themselves. The Belgian coach just stated that “the Belgium 2016-2018 era wasn’t the golden generation. I don’t know what pipe he’s smoking. Belgium were the ones to beat Brazil, England twice, Portugal and make nations league finals. Truly a deluded midget. He said that it couldn’t be compared to the golden generation of England not capturing a title. Meanwhile England didn’t even get to a SF until 2018 or a final until 2021. We have a coach who’s a mental giant. Not many managers are like that around. They either aren’t humble, uplifting nor dedicated. Dalic possess a lot of knowledge, calmness and comprehension of the game. Belgium, England, Canada have all have trash coaches. Dalic is our man to lead us. A win and we’re in and nothing less. Unless Morocco somehow score a absurd amount of goals. We shouldn’t avoid Spain. Bring them on. Japan would be an interesting test too. Germans are out imo.
How do we sleep tonight? I’m going 🤪🍻🇭🇷🔥💪⚽️🥇Let’s Go 🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷
It will be tough. I hope Dalic plays Stanisic over Juranovic. Croatia 2, Belgium 1.
Sportske Novosti says it’s gonna be the same lineup.
They questioned whether Stanišić would replace Juranović, but according to their sources, he ain’t.
“Pojavila su se i nagađanja hoće li možda umjesto Juranovića na desnom beku biti Stanišić, ali prema vijesti s posljednjeg treninga to se neće dogoditi. Sastav Vatrenih bit će u formaciji 4-3-3”
Excellent
I am SCARED
i have a bad feeling like in 2002 and 2014 when we had an impressive game 2 and the failed in game 3 badly.
I just feel uneasy with belgium playing badly, all the infighting and supposed problems, feels like it is set up for them to turn it around with siege mentality.
I know im ALWAYS scared and tend to expect the worst while hoping for the best but yeah i have serious worries
HOLD ME !!
We will win! Don’t be such a pussy.
Exactly lion. We will run it up. Just how much is the question
These past 2 games modric has played poor for his standards. Hes not a RB, CB, or even a CDM, hes a CM and we need him playing CM. Far to often Modric is stuck with baby sitting other players positions. Defensively he has to help JJ, and offensively he has to fall deep to help lovren. When we look at the heatmaps for each game, it becomes all too obvious of what is happening.
https://twitter.com/HNS_CFF/status/1597629676809179136/photo/1
Go to sofascore and check modrics past 10 cro games, notice the players around him (CB and RB) and how it affects his heatmap and overall score.
He steps up in big games. The Scotland game he did in the euros. He didn’t play that bad against Canada besides getting the yellow card which he didn’t deserve. You have to take into consideration he’s 37, starts for Real Madrid with lot of minutes played. Modric has mileage. I’ll call him mileage Modric. He can’t be everywhere on the field. He doesn’t have the speed of KDB. That’s why Stanisic should start over him. Give him credit man sheesh. He’s our most capped player and has scored at the last three tournaments. Modric had a goal and assist in nations league. I personally think Dalic should sub him off 50-60th minute if we are leading,
you completely missed my point
Yes indeed
Anyone see any lineup rumors? My guess is they role out the same team sheet, but you never know…
Hrvatska against the 🌍 🔥
Feeling nervous about tomorrow. Some pundits have us down as favourites. Always feels weird when we’re not being written off.
For what it’s worth, the books have it as a tossup.
•
This from pinnacle.com:
Croatia +173
Belgium +174
Draw +238
Argentina rewarded with a bullshit penalty of course
Then Messi the bitch ass gets saved
Ajmo Polska! Fuck fifa always screwing the little guys
FIFA didn’t want a possible Argentina/France 2nd round match. So again, VAR is just a tool, as far as penalties are involved, to give advantages to favoured teams. If you think VAR would have reversed the French goal today, if the game meant something for France, then I have swampland in Florida to sell to you. And it’s a bonus for FIFA, they can say look how we’re not biased to France. Yeah when the game means nothing, sure.
Stanisic for Juranovic??
I don’t see any other changes happening
Herdman trying to say he didn’t ignore Dalic after the game – “”When I turned round, (Dalic) was already off down the touchline, which is his right to do. He’s celebrating. He’s just beaten Canada. It was a big celebration for him. He was off and I couldn’t get to shake his hand. I went into the field, shook the ref’s hand, shook players’ hands. And didn’t get to see him.” The hilarious part is when he says “he’s just beaten Canada. It was a big celebration for him.” Dude, you are Canada, not Brazil. In a group match, where you were destroyed. And the guy coached in the World Cup final.
Hey Mile- Terdman is a joker. He messed up Canada and made it about him- he will be gone and coaching some U 12 team by next summer- what a farce at the Trudeau level or worse.
Globe sports columnist Cathal Kelly has been ripping Turdman pretty good. I was going to post latest here but now it’s behind a paywall. Wasn’t earlier. • There was a pretty good line in there about him not taking back what he said and that smug smile…
Maybe the TV repair man is a lot slicker than we think?
Ante cacic is the tv repair man
Zlatko is “holy one” especially if we win this tourney
He will be elevated to saint status in Croatia
A good chance for Denmark to go home at the expense of the Aussies
Maybe they weren’t as strong as we thought going into the cup
Is this the same Kramaric that said after the Euro’s that he was played out of position to the media?
How quickly everyone forgets.
No, it appears that this is a reborn / born again Kramarić. If he can keep scoring it’s all good!
If Dalić said he does not complain, then perhaps Kramarić was simply stating he prefers to play elsewhere.
As for the Brazil statement, I did no like it; however, I think Herdman (for example), would have been better off to say Croatia is favoured, and a quality team, but we will do our best to get a result.
If and when we play Brazil, and Kramarić plays his very best ( more important what’s in the heart), I could care less if he ends up on the scoesheet and we get a victory.
Correction: I couldn’t care less.
Is this the same Kramaric that said Brazil would win the World Cup before the tournament started?
Does Lovren have 2 yellows?
We didn’t get any yellows the first game against Morocco, so no he wouldn’t have anything other than the yellow he just received against Canada.
Frankly, I love it. Dalic a little fired up , players fired up- us against everyone . A page from the Belichick play book. I wish he just kept repeating- we’re on to Belgium !!! and another of Bill’s classics- I love – that’s not a good question!!! Good luck Boys, we’re all cheering hard for Croatia here in Canada
have spent the last day arguing and trolling Canadians on Reddit about why herdman is a douche and why borjan should stay out of international politics. draining, but love the win! staying off reddit today for sake of my blood pressure
Don’t waste your time. Herdman showed he is not qualified to be a coach at this level and Borjam is finished- on to 2026 for Canada.
Don’t waste your time. Canadians are a lost cause.
All of them with Ukraine flags as their avatars, but ignoring the fact that Borjan vocally supports a Ukrainian-like situation to what happened to Croatia in the 90s.
They just support the position of their government or other bodies (Canada Football), and will argue on its behalf (no matter how obvious or contradictory it is).
Maminjo don’t group ALL Canadians as a lost cause,I’m fairly certain this board is littered with Canadians who don’t agree with our pretty boy and his liberal LGBTQRS pandering agenda and his latent corruption.
We can find fault in a lot of what you yanks have done.VIETNAM or The weapons of mass” distraction!” To start!
DESTRUCTION of an entire region,and how Canada has taken in a lot of those innocent displaced war victims could be a beginning?Taking in 100’s of thousands of Ukrainians as we speak as your lot still rants about building walls.
Now the orange guys red neck followers are calling us communists for outlawing assault rifles.
I mean you ain’t a free bud light swilling Merikin unless you have an AK-47 in your trunk in case you gotta mow down an entire class of 3rd graders or people watching a concert right buddy?
Now if you do survive a shooting let’s hope you have health insurance 🤔
Lololol
As a fellow Canadian CROAT 🇨🇦 I approve this message.
Me too
Lol. This can’t be real.
Very real dude
Maminjo. We are all in this together. Stop it. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, North or South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, there is no need for in fighter. Is it safe to assume you from Amreeka? We get it then. You keep doin whatcha doin. No infighting please. We need a result tomorrow. Fuck this nonsense you’re spewing which I’m surprised you’re doing because you’re a smart lad.
No infighting here.
I consider everyone here a Croat.
The user (Tone) said he was arguing on Reddit with Canadians about Herdman and Borjan.
I doubt he was talking about Croatian-Canadians. I definitely wasn’t either.
I’m sure Lovro was just kidding with his post, but the good thing about Croatian-Canadians is that they don’t live with the same inferiority complex that the Anglo-Canadians do toward America.
Nothing would be more embarrassing than seeing two groups of Croats arguing with each other on behalf of America and Canada.
Good. And stop it with different nations we are born in, but we all have the same mission and task at hand. First, a result tomorrow then on we go.
Don’t be an ass. Stop it. We got a big game tomorrow and you’re being a chump.
Don’t be a chump. We all brothers and sisters!
No
Yeah Maminjo wasn’t referring to Cro-Canadians. Take it easy guys. Let’s stay strong and stay together 🙂
MAMINJO’s agent or Brother ?😉
What I did not like about Dalić’s message to the media was when he said it’s irrelevant whether a guy is playing a meter this way or a meter that way. If it was just to tell them to stop with that positional questioning that’s fine.
However, if Dalić sees no value in attempting the same set up in the future , I disagree. I for one always felt like a fish out of water and did not perform as well when asked to play positions I did not like / was not used to playing.
If a guy is producing good results leave him there.
I get that as a coach he needs to figure out the opponents strengths and weeknesses, and come up with a plan to come out with a victory.
However, Andrej had like 5 good scoring chances and put the ball in the net on 3 (one offside, but all skillfully delivered). He looked very comfortable and should be given an opportunity to do it again.
I want to see if he can continue to deliver with Livaja -Livaja also scored a nice goal and had at least one other great chance.
Belgium will be different than Canada, but if we can get 1 or 2 goals from Kramarić / Livaja and a second or third from someone else, we likely wont need anymore.
I think Dalic has been spending too much time on CroatianSports.com and it’s finally gotten to him 😉
To be fair, Kramaric played as a spica too at Hoffenheim and had success.
He’s also played on the wing and as second striker, and was successful too.
Granted, we’re all not watching 20+ Hoffenheim games per season for the past several years…but he definitely was a more prolific scorer with them, and neither Dalic nor the Cro media got into the details of why. So, people are always going to ask the question.
I think the combination of Marko/Andrej worked out great, in conjunction with beautiful crosses coming from both Perisic/Sosa, make us insanely dangerous. Sosa from Strinic , and Gvardiol from Vida makes us a better team than the 2018 version.
Final KISS change list adjustment:
Change out Juranovic for Stanisic.
Wear Blue Away Kits
Everything else is fine, like Deck lounge chairs on a seaworthy boat made in Dubrovnik before the invention of the steam engine.
Completely agree with switching Stanisic for Juranovic.
Also, hopefully Lovren picks up a yellow against Belgium so either Sutalo or Erlic slots in his spot and I think we have another legitimate dark horse chance.
Hehehe you took the words right out of my mouth re 2nd yellow for Lovren =p
To get the best out of Kramaric, we have to play the ball to his feet but we’ve tried to send crosses even though he isn’t tall to get on the end of them or outmuscle defenders. I want to keep seeing this setup like the Canadian game because that is how the only way we are going to score goals in this tournament and break teams down, then we can then look at other options to come in.
The criticism was justified and the questions were justified in regards his poor form and what was he’s position because he was never able to suit a role in the Croatian starting 11 and he wasn’t good enough.
I always thought Kramarić could do better for Croatia based on what he was achieving for his club.
I hope he can keep it up!
As for Dalić, in essence he took responsibility for Kramarić’s positioning/ past performance – by saying that was what we had to offer him.
Furthermore, Dalić said whenever Kramarić was asked to do a certain job for Croatia, he always did it without complaining.
100% agree I want him to do well but he needs to be enabled to do another Canadian performance again and it’s heavily based around Dalic’s system.
Dalic is definitely in the right to defend Kramaric because they need to keep the focus and momentum at a high level because we need to top the group.
I also respect Kramaric because he doesn’t cause unrest and toxicity like what Rebic would’ve done.