Yes!…it’s finally true, HNS met with Dario Cvitanić on Thursday extending an open invitation for him to join the Croatian national team; and he gladly accepted! So what does this mean? Well nothing as of yet. It only means that the Federation wants him to play and that Dario is on the same page as them.
The date we should all now mark on our calendars is August 20th, which is the next match Croatia will play- a friendly versus neighbors, Slovenia. The way international football works, as my good friend Agent Argentina has explained to me, is that their is no contract or signing or anything like that. The team calls you up and should you accept, join the team for a match for the very first time. Once you put on that jersey and step onto the field, even if it’s only for one second, that is the only country you can play for the rest of your life. It’s a bunch of ‘legal-eagle’ talk which won’t even matter in this situation because Cvitanić looks like he can’t wait to get on the field for the Vatreni. Unlike his good friend, Daniel Biloš, who was in this exact situation 3 years ago, but decided to holdout for Argentina to call his name instead, Cvitanić said he would not make the same mistake.
Net.hr has confirmed all of this and the only thing we now have to wait for is Dario suiting up vs. Slovenia to make it absolutely official. Slaven Bilić and company will be in Amsterdam to watch Cvitanić play for his new club, Ajax, while they play in a pre-season friendly tournament with Arsenal, Sevilla, and Inter on August 8th and 9th. This will be his first shot at impressing the Croatian bosses.
Cvitanić has said that he wants to wear #20 for Croatia which is currently Igor Budan’s number, so we’ll see where that puts Budan in regards to the team as well as other number exchanging scenarios.
When Bilić and Co. were asked what they thought about Cvitanić’s inability to speak Croatian well, they said, “He doesn’t have to speak Croatian well, he just has to play Croatian soccer!”
I just hope England has a plan for this ‘inferior’* country this time around after being embarrassed at home by the Croatians.
*- English press called Croatia and the rest of Euro qualifying Group E inferior countries and predicted that England would cruise through group stage back in 2006. They got what they deserved.
Fact… it’s not deemed official by FIFA.
like I said
if its a FIFA official friendly then yes
Official if not
I am not 100%
I’m not convinced Agent Argentina about that…. if that were true then Daniel Bilos after friendly vs. Croatia in Basel would have made him ineligible but he was eligible to be called up by Croatia even though he played that game with Argentina according to FIFA.
Friendlies are not sanctioned by FIFA… you can see that the game is not deemed official on the FIFA website.
If its a FIFA Date friendly then its official
Under 20s/18s/17s, etc are not official but Friendlies do count
Are you 100 percent sure that this friendly is a sanctioned FIFA game. Remember when Croatia beat Argentina en Basel, Switzerland 3-2. This was supposed to lock Bilos into Argentina’s squad but was not sanctioned because being a friendly, what makes the game against Slovenia different?
And can you provide a link which says this game is an officially sanctioned game by FIFA?
I believe it makes it official if the match (even if its only a friendly) is a sanctioned FIFA game. Remember that only a handful of friendlies are officially sanctioned by FIFA, and Aug.20 is one of them.
Cvitanich holding up the Croatian jersey and playing in the match vs. Slovenia does not make if official guys.
According to FIFA rules, the match has to be designated an official match and not a friendly. FIFA considers friendlies in general unless they are tournaments or qualification matches just friendlies.
That means that it would only be official when Dario gets a call up for Qualification match for World Cup 2010.
But, it does mean that Dario has welcomed the invitation and makes his clear his intentions if and when he gets a call up for Qualification matches.
Now, the only thing to make this into a drama is if Basile, coach of Argentine national team starts talking to Cvitanich’s agent saying yeah… we’d like to give the kid a shot with Argentina…
This is how the Argentine Federation and Media destroyed Daniel Bilos’ career. He believed that their intentions were sincere and they used him like a puppet.
The moral of the story is this: DON’T TRUST THE ARGENTINES… they are notorious liars and are only happy to screw and create problems for others. It is one of the most corrupt and egocentric countries in the world. Stealing and cheating is a way of life in Argentina that many would never understand. It’s a national epidemic which has no cure.