Croatia slept through the 1st half against a much more energized Turkish side. The defense looked out of sorts today and could not manage Turkey’s long balls into their offensive third. What was Livaković doing coming out for that ball???
Musa got little to know service in his first start as the Croatia #9. Beljo needs to put that ball in front of the keeper in the back of the net. Petković is incredibly slow and show have scored once. Pašalić invisible on the right side. Brekalo did well on the left but could have been more aggressive.
All in all, a shit game from Croatia and their first loss this qualifying campaign. The stadium looks great in Osijek but a shame our boys couldn’t deliver a victory which would have all but locked up qualifying. Not the end of the world, I just hate when they play so badly.
PS That was not a penalty on Turkey at the end of the match.
82′: The ball drops to Beljo right on the goal mouth and he kicks it right to the keeper. Should have scored there.
81′: Barišić out for Sosa. Kovačić out for Beljo. Croatia going full attack for the last 10 minutes.
80′: Majer gets the ball on a break away, shakes the keeper, but cant put enough power on the shot as a sliding Turk stops the ball at the line. The play was called offside anyway.
63′: Musa out for Petković. Brekalo out for Vlašić. Pašalić out for Majer.Triple change from Dalić.
60′: Croatia have been the more aggressive team after halftime but still don’t have a serious chance on goal. Turkey are containing them and still pressing hard up top.
HT: Not a good half from Croatia. Defense looks shaky. Musa not getting any service. Livaković with a huge blunder to help earn Turkey the lead. 1-0 Turkey in Osijek.
32′: After a long VAR check for offside, the goal stands. 1-0 Turkey.
30′: Turkey play a long-ball down field and Livaković comes out only to be left in no-man’s land. He has zero play on the ball and Turkey score with an easy shot on an open goal from 30 yards out.
13′: Turkey is pressing and has another dangerous chance. They now have three good looks on goal as the Croatian defense looks a bit slow to start the game.
11′: Brozović picks up a yellow card as his trailing leg knocks into a Turkish player. Total soft yellow.
Official lineup has been announced. Barišić starts on the backline. Brekalo on the left wing. Pašalić on the right. Petar Musa gets his first start for Croatia as the #9.
Croatia will have one foot in the door for Euro 2024 next summer in Germany with a win over Turkey tonight. With Perisić. Petković, Kramarić, Ivanušec, Šutalo all out with injuries, it will look like a brand-new Croatia team outside of the core midfield of Modrić, Kovačič, and Brozović. Musa is expected to start in the #9 spot with Josip Brekalo on the left wing. Does Dalić move Juranović up to play the right wing with Stanišić behind him defensively? We will know in a few hours. Regardless, this team has enough talent to win at Opus Arena with their B-team.
Dalic is not a good coach, he’s always been dipped shit. Croatia played like crap and Livakovic made a boneheaded move therefore copping a goal. There’s a reason no clubs have sniffed around Dalic even with his lofty record at World Cups, he’s a mediocre coach that has lucked out. Luck runs out at some point.
Yupp shit game nothing to take in from that one….
This was one of our worst games I’ve seen since Dalic arrived. we played long portions of the game at a snails pace. we weren’t urgent at all…very few difference makers on the field.
I have seen many saying Brekalo was good…or one of our better players and I’ll agree with that. Brekalo was one of the better players on our worst game in several years but I’m curious to know what he did? I know he made two nice combination passes but I don’t think I saw him beat his man on the wing even once. did he make a cross? did he have a shot on goal? when we measure a players contributions I’m not sure its smart that we compare him to the worst, saying he was one of the better players. I’d still like to hear from some of you…what did he do to change the outcome of the game?
I’ve been hard on Kramaric over the years and now I’d have given anything to have him in the lineup. He can score goals…I’m curious to know when Musa looked threatening? Look folks, I want Musa to be as successful as anyone else but the truth is, he is looking to be as effective as Budimir. I think he needs more chances, he does demonstrate he’s got some nice touches but he hasn’t been that killer goal-scorer we really want and need. the chance that people are saying was easy for Beljo really didn’t look that easy to me. It was a very fast play and the ball looked to be too close to his body and kinda behind him…all of us have been in his shoes, that wasn’t easy to get a good shot off.
Other than Gvardiol, who did extremely well in the first half to cut of some fast attacks from the Turks, our defense looked really bad…Stanisic looked lackadaisical at times and other times he looked decent…too inconsistent if you ask me. Barisic looks like a gimp, there’s no other way to describe him.
our 3 midfield had a really bad game…all of them! Kovacic was terrible but Modric wasn’t much better and Broz was getting soo many of his attempts to cheeky passes, cut off. turnover after turnover…just a terrible game.
when I looked at the replay of the Turkish goal I noticed Brekalo had possession of the ball, he carried it down the left wing and then cut in, attempting to make a pass along the ground through several Turkish players. Turkey then counters us and Liva gets caught looking like a fish outta water. I’m shocked that nobody mentioned how carelessly Brekalo lost possession of the ball…for absolutely no reason, no pressure…just foolishly attempts a pass along the ground, through the middle of the field!
we are much better than this and I think the players know this. hopefully we play a much better game vs Wales.
I’ll bite. I said Brekalo was one of the few bright spots at the first half break. I saw him make a couple of runs at his opponents and they seemed to be the only times we looked somewhat threatening. When you have hardly any chances all game, it was a bright spot to see someone pushing the ball upfield.
Dalic refuses to adjust and play to strengths of his players. 4-3-3 doesnt work without attacking winger. Brekalo was OK, but he doesnt scare anybody. Pasalic needs to play central and behind forward. That is his best role.
Atmosphere at game yesterday was not good.
We had to lose this game as per eufa instructions….way too many turks in Germany for them not to qualify.
Bog i Hrvati
For the pot 1 seeding at Euro 2024, there is still a chance for Croatia, but it is slim. Portugal, England, France and Spain are on track for at least 19 points (barring big upsets), and would likely have the goal difference tiebreaker over Croatia, should Croatia win the last three games. That would leave one top spot left. For four or five of the other six qualifying groups, Croatia would probably have a better record than the group winner. The big one is Belgium’s group. They and Austria both have 13 points and they play today. Problem is, whoever wins would have 16 points and two games left (Belgium 2 games at home, Austria 2 road games but at Azerbaijan and Estonia). A tie wouldn’t help Croatia much either, unless both teams dropped points in the last two games, which is unlikely.
If i were coach last night i would have played 4 4 2 same back line but broz modric brekalo majer beljo musa why nit change we have no wingers we play 4 3 3
Good point Miki. Dalic will need to make some tactical and player changes for the match against Wales. Sutalo is having problems at Ajax and I would start with Gvardiol and Erlic against Wales. Stanisic had a shocker so maybe bring in Juranovic if fit. Barisic did very little going forward so the option is to play Sosa at left back.
Up front we don’t have much choice with all the injuries, so it has to be Musa or Beljo or as you suggest start with both.
I posted afew days ago rebuild is needed and dalic isnt doing it can rely on luck and one player magic to get results need to play as team
There was a person who was considered an important figure. He is Theodor Herzl {Aurstrian Hungarian Jews} whose photo was displayed high on every Israeli building.
At that time he was a politician and journalist
is there anyone familiar with Der Judenstad?
which means the Jewish state, he was the pioneer
of the ideology of the Jewish state, the founder of the Zionist, which initiated the declaration of Israel state.
Just watched LIVE press conference by Dalic. He is a worried men and rightly so after such a poor performance against Turkey. He has indicated that Petkovic will not be travelling to Wales and will go back to Dinamo for further medical treatment. Juranovic is fit and will be available for selection against Wales.
He empesizied that our central defenders were poor in the first half with long balls over the top causing us major problems. He is spot on there, yes Livakovic should have never come off his line, however Gvardiols positioning on the half way line was schoolboy defending for a guy that plays in EPL for Man City.
Dalic said that we need to improve on this as Wales will be using a lot of long balls. I’m also worried about long throw ins into our penalty box.
Perhaps we’ll all start to appreciate Kramaric some more after last night’s disaster, after so many people have dismissed him over the years. It was bad to lose Perisic, however at least Brekalo did a poor man’s impression of Perisic last night, although without much of the finer ball control which kind of defeats the purpose. But it was a catastrophe to lose Kramaric as we had absolutely nobody to replace him and what he brings to our style of play in playing off and feeding a Musa or Beljo type player.
Yes Liva was to blame for a massive error of judgement in conceding the goal. But otherwise he had a fairly decent match and saved us at least three times after Stanisic defensive errors.
That was some pretty bad goalkeeping… very disappointing for Croatia. If it was a Italian ref that may have been a penalty.
This was Croatia first euro championship home qualifying loss in history.
Can some tactician on this site explain why our backline was exposed so many times to Turkish attacks? Every time we lost the ball the Turks were seemingly immediately running up against our defenders. Yilmaz looked like Ronaldo. That wasn’t a sustainable condition and it was clear we weren’t able to adjust tactically. Should we have played more defensively perhaps?
Simple, you have Gvardiol and Sutalo defending to high up the pitch i.e. on the halfway line. They caught us out a couple of times with long balls over the top, one of which resulted in the goal. We should have been defending a lot deeper i.e. about 10 metres from the halfway line hence denying them opportunity to get behind our defence with long balls over the top.
It is poor positioning by our central defenders, you cannot blame the two fullbacks who essentially have to follow the two CB when coming out of defence and pushing up field.
My starting lineup for the next match would be Livaković; Stanisić, Sutalo, Gvardiol, Barisić (I thought he was one of the more reliable players against Turkey); Brozović, Pasalić, Modrić; Brekalo, Beljo, Majer.
Tough away match to Wales on Sunday. We need to win to all our three remaining matches to guarantee first spot in the group although seven points might be enough providing Turkey does not beat Wales away in November. The loss to Turkey means that we will not be in Pot 1 for the EURO 2024 draw.
The way we played today and with all the injuries I would be happy with the draw against Wales. We had a tough match today while Wales had a friendly against Gibraltar (won 4 – 0) yesterday and resting most of their starting eleven.
I think we will qualify, however if we were to lose to Wales things could get tricky.
We need 17 points to be certain of qualification. If we end up on 16 points with Turkey and Wales we will be heading to the play offs because our head to head points record against Turkey and Wales would be the worst.
Current head to head points table is: Turkey 6 points, Croatia 4 and Wales 0.
However if Wales was to beat us and Turkey at home ? they would jump ahead of us. Yes it is unlikely? but not impossible.
Why does this knock us out of pot 1? I’m pretty sure pots are based on world ranking, not where u finish in qualifying? Unless this knocks us out of a top fifa ranking? The
I don’t think Pot 1 is out of reach.
There are six groups at the Euro2024 (with Germany taking up one Pot 1 spot). Portugal and France are pretty much guaranteed Pot 1 as they are clean sweeping their qualifying groups.
So there are three remaining Pot 1 spots up for grabs, and we’re still in the mix.
The favorites are Spain, England and Belgium…unless they lose points.
Spain is two points ahead of us (but have a game in Norway to play).
England is three points ahead of us (but have to play Italy again)
Belgium is three points ahead of us (but have a game in Austria to play)
There are also few others on par with us (like Albania, Hungary, Scotland, Slovenia, Denmark, and Switzerland) but I have less faith in those teams winning their remaining games.
Oh well.
Kind of strange that FIFA rank is completely disregarded and a team like Albania could become a top seed.
Anytime we get an idea we are pretty invincible, we get pulled down to earth, and realize we need, our secret weapon.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, God has blessed us with Ditelina S Četri Lista, always underfoot. The Luck of the O’Croats, is always at play, and sometimes it is not pretty, but providence is in our corner rest assured.
Albeit we are trudging through a bald patch, losing Perisic, Orisic, Juranovic, Sucic, Livaja………..etc. all at the same time. Sometimes we are Job, keeping the faith.
Of course will have more thoughts later
Brekalo showed good intent
Some danger runs. Heavy touch a few times. But he put in a good effort
Majer as others said has been good
Unpopular/popular opinion we miss Perisic for his potential flick In headers on those mid height luka corners and actually we could use him taking corners as was quite effective in Tottenham
Jebiga.
I think majer has good potential for those. Majer looks trim and fit
Hope to see more Sunday
Super good cross to petko who just couldn’t get his head on it
Beljo I didn’t think was so bad. That “sitter” came down at a tough angle for him if memory serves me right
Need to see more
Ya i think musa has had like zero service.
Hopefully one of the two can do something
There are only two times I can remember sitting back with no fear when Croatia totally dominated:
Euro 2016 group stage
World Cup 2018 group stage
It seems every game is a straight 50/50 split of barely winning or complete doom. There is just no confidence in looking towards a game and expecting a win. It’s more of a “please don’t lose”.
Even for World Cup 2022 qualifiers it came down to the very last game. And it was 1-0. And an own goal which put them through.
I’ve looked back at conversations with friends. Tie breakers here. Needing more goals away there. Needing a draw and hoping some other team loses with some sort of goal difference so Croatia make it through. It’s always something.
Just when you think they are finally going to break into the form we are all expecting, they just totally implode or collapse.
I didn’t watch the game. I had to view it on ESPN Gamecast. And even viewing that limited update play-by-play, it seemed like a horrid game.
So here we are again now. The same old same old.
Prior to this game, Croatia had one loss (Argentina) in 19 straight games.
Do you honestly expect them to never lose another game or else it’s “same old same old”?
Despite this poor effort, Croatia still has a game in hand over Turkey and will move to first place if they beat Wales on Sunday.
Sucks that we lost today but we’re still the favorites to top the group, let alone qualify.
I think it’s the way they lost. Or maybe the way they played. And their past track record of going down to the wire.
I do agree with your statements and your points. And you’ve given nothing but positive comments. ?
Yea, I’m going to just chalk it up to Turkey’s Italian coach spending his first month on the job scouting us well…along with us being severely depleted and having too many off-games from the players we had left.
Dalic could have done better with his lineup, or made changes at the half (instead of waiting for the last 25 minutes of the game).
I agree with Maminjo….lets not overreact..
croatia had only lost once in regulation in 19 games… not going to win them all.. and turkey is far from garbage and croatia was missing a fair amount of players
and ultimately, despite croatia having a great win-loss resume lately, they aren’t blowing teams out. they are winning by the slimmest of margins, so quite expected at some point to get a 1-0
livakovic transported back into his old body for that goal, but he also made some decent saves to start… is what it is
musa continues to be invisible to me
beljo looked engaged at least
i liked what i saw from brekalo.. at least lively and dangerous.
nothing too much to see. as i’ve said before, the final third is very untalented for croatia and we win mostly by suffocating the game through possession in a slightly different version of greece euro 2004, but when you constantly win games 1-0…this can easily happen
Can’t win the next 3 with a clean sheet – Dalic has to go- Wales etc are completely garbage – let’s wake up people- crap effort and it starts with garbage lineups
it’s not a qualifying campaign unless they float a turd in a match
Only good thing about tonight is the wonderful rendition of our anthem. The young lady brought it!!
Why are some people giving Turkey praise and credit in the comments? They are absolutely horseshit. They drew Armenia, barley beat Latvia and now beat us 1-0 due to a Livakovic error. Give your head a shake! Turkey hasn’t made a World Cup since 2002 and one major tournament win since then. It’s an absolute embarrassment we lost to these smucks. I can’t believe I was considering us Euro favourites LOL not even close. England, France and Portugal breeze through qualifying and we can’t beat Turkey at home.
They are a physical team that can throw you off your game if the ref isn’t calling fouls or giving out cards.
Today’s ref was letting them play physical (without any whistles), and we needed a guy like Perisic who would muscle his way into their box.
Brekalo obviously has talent, but he’s just too slender for this type of game.
If there was any game that we should have called up Marko Pjaca for…it was this one.
Petkovic (despite being a bit out of form) made his physical presence felt. We probably should have got him in there sooner.
We probably should have had Pasalic crashing the box too (instead of playing on the wing) but we weren’t going to the right side at all until we subbed in Majer late in the second half.
I get what Dalic was trying to do by going with the more stronger fullbacks in Barisic and Stanisic, but it was the worst possible time for both players to have bad games.
Nothing like rushing home from work to see your team down by one and then go on to lose the game. 2 failed marriages, 3 shitty kids, 25 years at a shit job, 30 pounds over weight, chronic turkey toe pain, and all I ask Jesus for is a win in our qualifying games. But no, not even that. Jebi ga, what do I need to do to motivate these guys to win against Turkey? Stick a Fez hat up their asses? Someone tell me!!!
LMAO at least one good thing to come out of today is i genuinely got a good chuckle out of your comment, Metak 😉
That was laugh. Probably the funniest thing I’ve read on Cro Sports.
Bad overall game today. Montella outcoached Dalic.
But Dalic made it easy for him by constantly attacking on that left side with with Barisic spearheading our attack, ha ha. We wasted an entire half doing this.
The second half was a lot better, but we kept running into a Turkish wall down the middle. We did well when we finally went up the right side with Majer. Should have brought him in sooner and attacked the right side as it was working.
But still, a lot of people here are overreacting.
– Livakovic made one stupid mistake, but was good overall.
– Barisic and Stanisic were disappointing. We played the two of them because they are physically stronger than Jura and Sosa, but they both had a bad game (especially Barisic).
– Sutalo and Gvardiol were fine. The issue was that they had to cover for Stanisic and Barisic all game.
– Broz and Modric were fine. They log too many minutes for us anyway, and guys like Krama and Majer should be playing more. Maybe start calling up Misic to give Broz some time off too.
– Kovacic was awful and was not even running. He should have been subbed out at the half.
– Brekalo was okay, but shouldn’t have been given the start ahead of Majer.
– Pasalic is not a starter on the wing for us. No matter how many times we do this, he has a bad game in that role.
– We didn’t utilize Musa’s size at all. He got no service from us.
– Petkovic looked good, but was a bit out of form
Overall, Dalic made some questionable lineup decisions, we had 8 missing players, and three key players (Kovacic, Barisic, Stanisic) had very bad games. On top of this, we had a stupid goalkeeping error.
The good news is that Majer will probably win his role back with us, and I think Beljo will get more chances (he looked huge out there).
Majer’s crosses and corner kicks were a game-changer, and he will probably get more minutes on Sunday.
Also, I think this may FINALLY push Dalic to try and give Sosa a second chance. Can’t be serious about Barisic as our sole option at LB.
Seems like Pasalic sweet spot is breaking for the goal, being on the receiving end of the cross, not giving the service.
I had liked the proposed winger idea of Sosa and Juranovic for this game with that said. They might have been able to give Musa some service.
I love Modric, but letting him execute our corner kicks is worse than letting Joe Biden be responsible for memorize the nuclear arsenal release code.
Hmm!…. I heard Beljo missed an automatic couldn’t miss sitter.
Nah. Beljo did well to react and get his foot on it. It came off someone’s head at the last minute.
Breathe boyz breathe ?
All is well
Only saw the second half as I rushed home from work to watch it. Knowing our Croatian mentality we just sat back in the first half and didn’t match their intensity which we knew was coming. From what I saw in the second half we were the better team. I’ve never seen 9 Turks on the goal line defending before. It looked like we have the more talented players from what I saw in the second half. But holy shit are we slow. No one has that sudden burst of speed to beat the defense. And we have no true strikers/finishers. True finishers need half a chance to put it in the net. None of our guys can do it with a full chance. Stanisic – awful. Kova – terrible. Barasic – who? I actually like the hustle Majer put in. He just isn’t talented enough to make something happen. As for the non-penalty shot. I agree that it shouldn’t be a penalty but as someone else on here said, when the ball inadvertently hit Perisic in the hand because a French idiot completely missed his header, a penalty shot was given to France. And that was during a World Cup Final. Still, we shouldn’t leave it to the ref or a fluke goal. We need to come out decisively and score… every match. Especially against these ass clowns who have messed up Bosnia for over 400 years and counting.
Latvia 2-0 Armenia
Despite the bad result – we luck out Latvia helping us
Now need to take care of Wales (they missing Brennan Johnson and Aaron Ramsey)
Stanacic – Plays on bench for Bayern L.
Sutalo – Benched by Ajax
Gvardiol – Occasional starter for MC
Barisic – Starter for Rangers
Kovacic – Occasional starter for MC
Modric – Occasional starter for RM
Brozovic – Starter in Saudi
Musa – Occasional starter for Benfica
Brekalo – Occasional starter for Florentina
Paslic – Plays on Bench for Atlanta
These player need to improve their club form or move to teams where they get more playing time.
I’d really live to see more replays of the Turkey goal. It looked a shade offside to me, but the VAR review looked weird, unless I just missed it. They clip I saw didn’t draw the coloured lines to clearly demonstrate offside.
I noticed that they deliberately did not show one single replay of it (while the ref was checking).
Then they showed a very brief snapshot of it later in the game (that looked offside).
Not enough TV cameras covering the match. There should have been one camera right in the middle of the ground/playing pitch. The camera that was used for VAR check was 20 meters away and not in line with the play.
Lol, so it’s our own fault?
Yes, if you are going to use VAR you have to make sure that you have enough cameras around the ground. HNL use VAR but again they do not have enough cameras in place due to the cost factor.
Turkey was far better than us in the first half. Their speed surprised me. Dominik misplayed that ball which cost us.
We were far better in the second half especially after Majer entered the game. Musa was invisible. Petkovic (who gets a pass because of his injury) looked out of shape and slower than usual. Baresic won 3 corners but he could not get any crosses off. Brekalo is fast but he does little with the ball when he has it. I don’t see Vlasic helping us. Pasalic was basically a ghost. Kovacic seemed just a tick off his game. I expect him to be much better against Wales.
We really missed Juranovic’s speed.
We especially missed Perisic. Those shoes will be hard to fill.
Let’s beat Wales.
Turkey has a good team.
I think Modrić might have made his decision today
lol. All I hear is Musa and Beljo are the future prior to this game.
Just awful. This team will not go far.
Everyone take a deep breath
Let’s not over react to 1 game
Our Teams solid ? ?
flashscore.com:
Livakovic 6.4
Boracic 6.3
Gvardiol 7.3
Sutalo 7.2
Stanisic 6.8
Kovacic 6.8
Brozo 6.6
Modric 7.2
Brekalo 6.3
Musa 6.3
Pasalic 6.3
———–
Majer 6.5
Petko 6.2
Vlasic 6.1
Beljo 6.4
Sosa 6.4
VAR is useless for us. Never now I firmly believe that we will ever get a questionable call go our way.
I’m not saying that was a penalty, but for damn sure neither was perisic in the final. Same damn thing. Pisses me off
We had some good moments in this game but overall we could have been better.
Brozovic, was alright but you can tell that playing in Saudi Arabia is lowering his level. He seemed out of breath at one point early in the second half. Probably, should have went to a more competitive league and waited for the Saudi league later in his career but he will better his life with the high salary.
Modric played good but he is slowly coming to an end of his career. He should find a club where he can continue playing and keep his fitness going. For Croatia, we should either sub him in or sub him out later in the match(At one point near the end of the match Majer passed it to Modric and he was either too tired to get to it or it wasn’t sure if it was meant for him.
Brekalo was impressive with his speed and dribbling. It was odd for him to be substituted.
We all can say that Perisic would have made a difference but he is getting old too. We need to figure out a way to transition this team to younger players for the future of the team.
Even though Belijo didnt score he seemed like he wanted to make a difference when he came on.
Vlasic needs to show more to be on the team.
Also, this was a somewhat new team and they need time to play together to understand each other. Its only one match so we will see what will happen in the next one.
Well, as most have already commented, that was difficult to watch.
Kovacic showed his rust.
Brozovic, while still good, showed that he’s been playing in Saudi Arabia.
Stanisic displayed why Bayern gave up on him and why Leverkusen won’t play him.
Pasalic played like he always does when he starts, terrible. He’s only a sub.
Some people here are commenting that Brekalo was good. I have no idea what they were watching. No touch at all.
I really feel sorry for Musa. He gets no service. Once Petkovic goes on, decent service is delivered.
Majer looked lively. That’s what we’ve all been waiting to see, with consistency that is.
Finally, my dear Livakovic. I’m definitely not his biggest fan, but I won’t pick on his blunder too much. It was awful, but that type of aggressiveness is something most of us have been clamouring for. He did make a couple of big stops before the gaffe to keep us in the game. My concern is that this causes him to revert to his old chicken shit self. That would be a disaster.
whatever happened To Ante Budimir ?? i mean he scores goals in LaLiga wtf??
Would’ve gotten 0 service today just like everybody else who was upfront. Beljo got a bit more but even if Beljo started, would’ve got next to nothing.
If we are depending on a 38 year old, we are in serious trouble.
We saw tonight why Modric is on the bench at Real.
With three games to play can we not finish at top of the group if we win all of them?
Yes, if Wales beat Turkey in the last qualifying game.
Actually, if Croatia win all three games, they get 1st place no matter if Turkey wins their last two games because Croatia has the tiebreaker over Turkey since they beat them 2-0 while Turkey beat Croatia 1-0.
The only good chance we had was in the 81 minute when Beljo should have scored. Turkey fully deserved the win which in reality should have been more than 1 – 0. This was our first loss on home soil for EURO qualifiers.
Play like this against Wales and we could be in for another loss.
With the goal Livakovic should have stayed on the line and Gvardiol got caught out on the halfway line. Majer played well when he came on.
Tactically Montella outsmarted Dalic. Turkey was a constant threat during turnovers. On top of that our midfield was indisposed. I think Brozovic’s time in Saudi has weakened him defensively (normal, considering the competition is a lot less demanding than Serie A). Modric seemed to have no energy and Kovacic made lots of mistakes. I think Dalic took out Brekalo (who was good) because he saw he was beginning to lose his composure.
A loss or draw to Wales Sunday would put us in jeopardy. We had possession all second half. Nobody can finish upfront. That was agonizing to watch. We lost a crucial game at home due to a goalkeeping fuck up. I don’t understand why that penalty wasn’t given? Is it because it made contact with only his shoulder? It looked like it hit his bicep a bit.
It was classic Pletikosa and Ladic post 98 world cup. Free points due to a goalie blunder. Brutal. I know its just one loss but we have zero speed up front or finishers. Brozo will only get worse playing in Saudi. Modric is on his last legs. Perisic is basically done at a high level. Kovacic? who knows. Shows well then looks useless for weeks. Majer is a decent player but not top tier. Brekalo and Vlasic are no where near top tier.
A draw doesn’t put you in jeopardy. Top 2 in group go through. The last two games for Croatia should be wins. Wales and Turkey face off last match day. Huge game.
After today, I’d be content with a draw in Cardiff on Sunday.
A draw would put us in jeopardy. We would have 11 points, Turkey would have 16 and will definitely beat Latvia at home, Wales would have 9. If this happens Sunday. The following sequence would have to happen for us to get first; Turkey to lose to Wales at home in their last game, and we win the rest and finish with 17. That can happen but I don’t want to depend on other teams results. Plus Wales would be trailing us by a couple points. A loss would definitely be panic mode. We’ve scored no goals the last two games. We have no offence, Barisic and Stanisic look hopeless, Livakovic is shaky. Where was the urgency in our defence like when we had Corluka, Strinic, etc? These guys are soft. Someone needs to save the day Sunday and it sure as hell ain’t going to be Vlasic, Brekalo or Musa It’s crazy how we’ve lost so many forwards these past few months; Livaja, Kramaric, Perisic. Only Modric and Gvardiol looked like they cared today.
Scored one goal in the last two games*
Easily one is the worst displays we’ve had in recent years. We were outplayed today. Livakovic will gain his Turkish citizenship right after the game for that gaffe.
Awful play all the way around. Zero creativity. Half chances taken poorly. I will give it to Turkey. They were the better team today. Pressed well which caused us problems. Countered well and created. A much quicker team hands down.
Barisic and Vlasic do not deserve spots on this roster. While Vlasic was invisible in his 30 minutes, Barisic wasn’t due to his awful play. He offers nothing.
Stanisic had a bad game but he gets a pass as he’s played very well for us in the past. No one played well. Oddly Brekalo was subbed out early…he was the only one taking players in with his pace…although this final touches/passes were poor too.
Luka cannot take another corner for us. Every single one was short and offered zero threat. Super frustrating to watch. It goes to show how much we miss Kramaric, Perisic and Ivanusec today. We could have used Juranovic today too as we needed his pace.
We sure missed Perisic today…Ivanusec would have helped as well..Brekalo was decent but our strikers..ouch….We have NO strikers other than Petkovic, but as you all can see, way to slow….
Two hours ago, we’re talking about top seed for the Euro draw. In 72 hours, we could be in 3rd place in the qualifying group. Fortunately, the last two games are with Latvia and Armenia, and Wales and Turkey play each other, so qualification looks doable. The bigger question is long term. This team, without Modric and Perisic, is an average team. Could be some lean years coming. Back line, which we thought was now a strength, is not as good as we thought. Livakovic, who we thought overcame his struggles, makes a boneheaded mistake. And of course, zero goal scoring threats. Ugh.
Perisic was dearly missed today, he creates so many opportunities for us.
Play great, play poorly, but that Livakovic blunder is unforgivable. I can accept a ball slipping through the hands/feet/etc. But a mental mistake like that? Sramota.
Beljo looked petrified on the weak left footed shot on goal.
If Majer scored the empty netter, VAR would have over-ruled as it appeared he was actually onside on the play.
Without Perišić and Ivanuseć in the midfield (and a lackluster first half from Luka), it was mostly a disjointed effort.
I was shocked that Beljo managed to even get his foot on it, as it just suddenly ricocheted off his own player’s head in front of him. He just looked upset at the fact that he almost scored.
Most strikers wouldn’t have even reacted in time enough to get their foot on it.
If the future is Musa and Beljo, then we don’t have a future. Don’t need to see Barisic ever again. Only would use Stanisic if right side of a back 3. Need to see more out of Majer. Just disappointing all around.
Looked like a game we wouldn’t score in even with another two halves
So what does qualifying look like?
6 points from the next three matches and we are ok?
Looks like a top seed is unlikely im guessing now?
Modric was awful today
Not really, Star.
Ok, gbvh
What an absolutely putrid performance…
so glad i got up at 4 am and watched it with my old man /s
Don’t wanna be one of those douchebags who blames the refs (as we were shit today) but for once can we get a NON – English, Italian or Argentinian ref for semi important to important matches
Forgot about the jap who fucked us against Brazil 2014 WC with the fred dive
No way that was a penalty, oh well
Please no one ever suggest the name Dion Drena Beljo ever again! If he is our future, we are doomed! No true striker should have missed from that close…no killer instinct…that was the weakest, most pathetic attempt I have ever seen! Also I can’t believe im saying this but Modric has been horrible today…in fact our whole midfield has looked pathetic!
Barisic…stanisic….why are they still on ?
Why is Barisic still out there? It’s like he’s invisible.
Does Stanisic realize that he has to defend?
For the love of God please get stanisic outta there.
Lucky its only 1 – 0. With the Turkish goal our entire defence was on the halfway line and we got caught with a long ball over the top. Bad defending by Gvardiol and Livakovic should have stayed on his line.
Sosa needs to come in for Barisic who is on a yellow card. Our midfield is struggling and that needs to change if we are to get anything out of this game.
If I’m Dalic I’m subbing Barisic, and Brekalo
Too disjointed
Brekalo has been one of the few bright spots for me
Not looking like we want to play today…
Barisic and Stanisic need to be replaced ..just awful both of them. Why is Dalic not playing Juranovic and Sosa??
I think JJ is injured, not sure about Sosa
Well, that was one of the most disjointed, disappointing halves i’ve seen us play in years.
New stadium, sell out – i mean the crowd noise is fantastic, just feel sorry for them paying to watch this drivel
There is a lot to say about the first half. However, one thing that you can notice is that the lack of play time from our players is showing. Also, I wonder if this is somewhat a new team which needs chemistry to develop.
Our first shot on goal in the first half is a harmless 25 yard shot at the keeper in stoppage time.
It’s a small stadium, but the atmosphere sounds deader than the play on the field.
This is the worst home qualifying performance I can remember. Pathetic. And it’s Turkey, an average team at best. They are lucky it’s only 1-0.
These Blue Jerseys I swear we lose every game …
Argentina ??
Spain ??
Turkey ?? now
And to mention the obvious…Livakovic…wtf.
This is what you call being outplayed. Turks press is giving us fits and our passing has been downright awful. Even the half chances we’ve had we are tentative.
Brekalo had looked lovely so there’s that.
Can we sub out Barisic and just play with 10? We’d be better off.
As Argentina did, Turkey scouted us well as we’re repeatedly being burned on counter-attacks.
It should be 4-0 for Turkey.
There is a reason Stanisic doesn’t play much. Not good
He’s been playing so badly, it’s insane.
What the deal with Croatia defending the long ball against Turkey. Nightmare, reliving 2008 again!
WTF is Livakovic doing there? Just awful.
We are playing sloppy, can we at least act like we want to be there
Man, they’ve been awful the first 15 minutes. And is Stanisic really this bad? Two clear scoring chances on his side.
Stanisic getting cooked and out paced lol
15th min- Similar to the first encounter where Turkey has the best 3 chances to score.
Perišić please come back soon. ? ?
The game is free on the Vix mobile app (Spanish broadcast)
new stadium with 13k seats??? dumbest thing ever .needs to be 25k minimum
I’ll predict a 2-1 Croatia win, with Musa and Pašalić as the goalscorers.
A different touch with the national anthem with a live singer instead of the usual canned recorded one.
Interesting rendition of the anthem…
horrible
Hey why am I down to 10 comment club when I was just about at 100
jade Momci Za dom, =U=
For us Canadians I meant
We don’t get all the cool American channels
DAZN in Canada. It’s a rip off — absolutely — but I get it for a month for Cro games, so my dad can watch too. Jebi ga (the price, not my dad) • And if you have IPTV you could get on Fox Sports 2 from U.S. Of course, not all the games are on “regular” channels in the U.S…………
• • • • •
Otherwise if you have patience with some early pop-ups…this should work…it had the Hajduk-Dinamo game almost perfectly …. http://livetv.sx/enx/
Anyone have any live streams they want to share??
Thetvapp.to
Navigate to fs2,it works like a charm
?
Ajde Momci Za dom. =U=
I’ve mentioned this before, but Brekalo in many ways was a solid contributor to the national team. 4 goals and 6 assists in 17 games. about .58 contributions per game. Perisic who has contributed to more croatian goals than any croatian in history has 33 goals and 30 assists in 110 game minutes play or about .57 contributions per game
Brekalo was capable of scoring goals like this against france which almost no croatian is player is capable of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAz-udMIz3g
One often wonders what happens to a player that they are more competent at 22 than 25.
Lets hope his story hasn’t ended
Dragi prijatelji,
Since the game summaries here never include where to see the game, it’s on Fox Sports 1 in the USA with the pregame show starting at 2:45 pm EST.
Fellow Hrvati, enjoy the game!!! ???
SORRY… I MEANT FOX SPORTS 2!
You gotta get over that, jadni Franjo. There is no obligation for this website to spoon feed you about this. Yet here you are every game whining about it.
Sine moj,
If you read the comments above mine, you will see you are wrong. ???
Time for the young guns to show their colors
When Alen Halilović was titled the new Croatian Messi, it seemed to me like his aggressive Brazilian-like finesse style of soccer did not translate at a higher level of play, and that he was easily pushed off the ball due to his lack of size, and was always looking for a one on one, to blow by an opponent, vs equally looking for an open man, to set up a give and go, and was trying too hard to fill people’s expectation.
I hope this is not going to be true for Brekalo as well, where he can only go so far, with his particular style of play. Sometimes it seems like he is being man handled similar to Alen’s challenge with the stronger competition.
Modric is small, but strong, he seems to know how to position his body, he only takes what opponents give him, and he has a long accurate pass game to keep defenders honest. His primary objective is to distribute, and score when he has a chance.
If we could get a Hybrid of Rebic (size/strength) and Brekalo (footwork/attitude), that would be a wonder kid, a re-incarnated healthy Marko Pjaca.
Kovacic went off last time they played, he has their number. He “tapped into” his inner Olic.
For some reason, the Turkey game in the Euro play offs of yore, 2006′?, is indelible etched into my memory, like no other game. We had won the game until the very last play, and Turkey conquerors tied the game, and beat us in a penalty shootout. Those were the Bilic lean years. I hope we get a two-point lead quickly. This defense is better, and we have an older but more mature talented midfield, to hang or hat, so we will see.
I hope that we have not given up on Sosa. When he finally left krautland to come to his motherland, his crosses from the left side seemed deadly. That magic went away temporarily for the world cup, and he became a defensive liability. Hope the old new Sosa returns soon.
Looking at the latest media reports it seems that Sutalo will start the match.
Interestingly the 3 previous matches against Turkey on home soil were all draws.
Also, we have never lost a EURO qualifier at home so one hopes that continues.
Friendlies mean nothing.
Also, I think one of the draws is from that Euro2012 playoff (after we already had a 3-0 aggregate lead with that big win in Turkey)…so there was no reason to try and win the game.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in things like this.
For these three home draws, the first was a friendly almost 20 years ago, the second was the second leg of the 2012 Euro playoff (after Croatia won the first leg in Turkey 3-0, so it was basically a keep possession game with no incentive to score) and the third was a 2018 World Cup qualifying game, but with no fans at Maksimir due to sanctions.
Croatia can also qualify with a win today and a tie Sunday, if Latvia can beat Armenia at home today. Technically, Wales would be able to tie Croatia mathematically, but Croatia has a +9 goal difference with Wales right now, and with a win today and tie against Wales, the difference would then be at least 10, with Croatia and Wales having two games left. So that would be insurmountable.
Yes. But it’s pretty much impossible not to qualify at this point.
We would have to screw up in 3 out of our 4 remaining games for that to happen, and let’s face it, we’re not going to go on a multi-game losing streak to teams like Wales, Armenia and Latvia.
We need to focus on becoming a top seed at the Euros, which means topping our group and trying to win at least 3 out of our final 4 games.
Yes of course. They are pretty much in right now barring a bizarre collapse. They play Armenia at home and at pointless Latvia next month. That’s six points right there. And I wish Croatia can go out and get six points and clinch it this weekend. I feel they might take it easy for the last two games and drop points, and thereby miss out on being a top seed next summer. In the aforementioned playoff with Turkey back in 2011, after they won the first leg 3-0, I remember checking the rankings and determining that if they won the second leg, they would have been a second seed in Euro 2012. Instead they played it safe and it was a scoreless tie. We all remember they ended up in a group with Spain and Italy and barely lost out moving to the knockout stage. And Spain and Italy made the final. Who knocks what would have happened if they beat Turkey in Zagreb and been a second seed for the draw.
Seeding has hurt us in the past three Euros.
Having to play the top teams like Spain (three times), Portugal, Italy, England…so early in the tournament has hurt us.
Germany, Portugal and France will be seeded in this Euro2024.
Croatia will be battling with Spain, England, and Belgium for the final two spots.
If Sutalo is out, gotta be Erlic alongside Gvardiol it can’t be Vida whatsoever.
Lol I’m actually ok with a vida start(but only will go with this craziness for today)
He knows Turks
He has this ability to hit a late goal
It’s in Osijek
I’m a fan of pushing gvardi out left if we need
I doubt any of this happens tho
I would much rather see a back 4 of
Gvardi/erlic/sutalo/stanisic
With brekalo/sosa. Juranovic/pasalic on the wings
You should have the HNS logo on the left Ante cmon the home team is always left.. made me think the game was in Turkey for a tic!
Wasnt there recently some huge plastic fire in Osijek that was toxic btw??
If you look at bottom right of the image, it shows where it was lifted from. Looks like it was for/from the March Turkey-Croatia fixture. • Yes, attention to detail!