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Ante, Zorić, and Novaković talk about Croatia’s two losses to Turkey and Wales this week and what’s next for the team in Euro qualifying. Who’s most to blame? What changes need to be made?
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These two guests are absolutely well spoken, smart individuals that this podcast needs. Not like the other bozos in the beginning of the early podcasts. They provide a bridge between the raw emotion and intellectual engagement of the sport. In there eloquent discussions they capture the essence of Croatian soccer. Cheers to Ante Z and Pete. Absolute gems to this podcast. Keep having them on! Along with Lebo, only heavy hitters.
You guys again lose all credibility when you have NO clue who or what Czechia is.
Budimir with his 2nd. Budimir masterclass in coming for the repka.
Seek and Ye shall Find. Another option, if he can continue.
Beljo -eljo -eljo
Cijeli dan i noć!
Budimir scores for 1-0 Osasuna lead 11 minutes in.
I have read up the playoff path formation rules on Wikipedia but still don’t have a firm grasp of things.
Assuming Italy qualifies directly, and assuming we enter the playoffs along with Poland from League A… I understand Estonia will be selected to play in our path.
Who will then be the last team to play in our path — is it Iceland? Let’s assume that from League B, Israel and Ukraine enter the playoffs.
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I thought I read somewhere Brozovic is suspended for the next match. Is it true? According to soccerway, he has accumulated 2 yellow cards.
It’s supposed to be a four-team elimination semifinal for the group winners of each league (A, B, C, and D).
In the last Euros, they had four slots for this playoff route (which is how Macedonia qualified as the Group D winner), but they only have three slots this time (as Germany took a spot being the host nation) so the league D teams won’t get a guaranteed slot.
Since almost everyone in league A (except us, Italy and Poland) have already qualified, there needs to be a fourth team so this is why the best Group D team gets a chance to qualify via this route (Estonia) but they’ll have to face the top ranked unqualified League A team (which is us).
So this group D leader gets priority for a chance to qualify. If Italy were to qualify via the normal route, then the next best team on the Nations League overall rankings would get selected.
This would be a League B team that ISN’T a group winner (because the League B group winners get to play each other for their own slot). League B and C group winners cannot form a path with a team from a higher league, so it would be the next ranked team that failed to qualify.
After we hypothetically play Estonia, (and assuming Italy qualifies ahead of Ukraine) then our next opponent would be the winner between Poland and Finland.
But if Finland qualifies via the normal route, then it would be Ukraine. Poland still has an outside chance to qualify directly, and if they do, then Czech takes their playoff spot.
We can’t be paired with Israel or BiH because they were League B group winners, so they’ll play each other for qualification. It will have to be one of Italy, Poland, Czech, Finland, Ukraine.
Since it will have to be one of Italy or Ukraine…and it will have to be one of Poland or Czech (because these teams are in the same qualifying groups). It will have to be one of these teams below.
Rank:
Italy
Czech
Poland
Finland
Ukraine
Note: There is a very unlikely chance that Switzerland and Denmark miss qualification.
If they somehow get leapfrogged in their groups, then they would be in the playoff ahead of Poland/Czech in priority.
Thank you for your servis!
great explanation. That’s the way I read it too. The only additional comment I have is, I think the highest ranking teams in league B will STAY in their own league playoff if possible. Only when that league is completely filled with all 4 teams, then do the next remaining highest teams be forced to move to the higher league. So:
1. I think it actually CAN’T be Finland with us. Scotland has already qualified directly out of League B. Finland is the next highest ranked team in League B, I think they get Scotland’s spot (and Ukraine would be bumped up to League A).
2. It’s also very likely Serbia qualifies directly out of League B – If yes, then Ukraine would also stay in league B playoff (and Iceland, the next highest team, would go to our league).
3. It’s possible Ukraine still qualifies directly too though. Then Iceland would stay in League B too, and we would have Norway in league A.
Bottom line, unless something crazy happens with Italy (or someone else in League A), it would most likely be:
-Cro
-Estonia
-either Poland or Czech
-and then a league B team (either Ukraine, Iceland, or Norway)
Wow Maminjo, that is an amazing explanation.
With regard to Finland, I think chicro1 could be right.
Seems like Finland has already taken the group winner spot vacated by Scotland, so along with BiH, they will stay in Path B.
If we do enter the playoffs (sigh), I think what we want to see is the following scenarios:
1. First and foremost, Italy to qualify directly. They are the No. 1 team to avoid. The other big team Netherlands is as good as qualified already.
2. Israel to FAIL to qualify directly so that they take up a playoff spot in Path B. Given Scenario 1, this would mean that the teams making up Path B are Israel, BiH, Finland and Ukraine (Serbia is realistically going to qualify directly). This would bring Iceland up to Path A instead of Norway who is 1 place below Iceland in the ranking. We HAVE to avoid Norway because not only do they have Haaland and Odegaard, they have several guys playing in strong leagues if I’m not mistaken and I view them as a team on an upward trajectory who are due to qualify for a major tourney.
Dalic in his interview on NOVA TV said that Brozovic is suspended for the next match because of 3 yellow cards. I have checked UEFA website and he has only 2 yellow cards, meaning that he is not suspended.
He has three yellows if you count the Nations League games that we played against the Netherlands and Spain in June.
Not sure if these count (I assume they do), because he received one against the Netherlands in that semifinal match (in addition to the two he just received in these losses against Turkey and Wales).
Gvardiol is also playing on two yellows right now (he got one in each ofour Turkey and Armenia wins).
If yellows received in the Nations League finals do count…then we also have Livakovic and Petkovic playing on two yellows.
No chance Dalic got that wrong, after all he told us every decision he makes is the correct one.
I do not think that yellow cards from NL finals carry over to the EURO 2024 qualifiers ? Red cards do.
Article 50 Yellow and red cards
50.01
As a rule, a player or a team official sent off from the field of play and/or its immediate surrounds, including the technical area, is automatically suspended for the next match in the competition. In case of serious offences, the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body is entitled to augment this punishment, including by extending it to other competitions.
50.02
During the league phase, players and team officials are suspended for the next competition match after two cautions and any subsequent even-numbered caution (e.g., fourth, sixth).
50.03
Cautions that have not resulted in a suspension and pending yellow-card suspensions expire on completion of the league phase. They are not carried forward to the play-outs or to the finals.
50.04
Cautions and pending yellow-card suspensions from the play-outs and the finals expire at the end of the competition.
https://documents.uefa.com/r/Regulations-of-the-UEFA-Nations-League-2022/23/Article-49-UEFA-Disciplinary-Regulations-Online
Looks like Dalic just made a mistake here.
According to regulation 50.04, the cards expire at the end of the competition.
Doesn’t carry over.
Right, so Brozo be with us next month. MART and Maminjo, thanks for clearing this up!
Latest media reports on Kramaric are saying that scans have shown that he does not have a muscle tear, but HEMOTOMA which is bad bruising with blood pooling under the skin. Goalkeeper Ivusic had the same thing for Osijek a few years back and was out for couple of months due to misdiagnosis. You need to have a minor surgery to release the blood under the skin which will speed up the recovery.
If the reports are correct there is some hope that he might be ready for the matches in 4 weeks?
Still, you don’t want him out of form.
Look how bad an out of form Kovačić played.
We played a semi-injured Petković against Turkey, and although he wasn’t bad, he wasn’t himself either.
We have enough depth to handle Latvia and Armenia. But we need to play our injury-free in-form players.
losing very key players like Kramaric and Perisic is significant and our two primary goal-scorers. we also lost Orsic, Ivanusec, Petkovic who are our better 3 options for overall play and top score goals…thats 5 of our starters/1st subs we lost. any country would struggle…take out Argentina’s top 5, or Belgium’s top 5, Portugal, Spain’s or even France’s top 5 players and see how they do!!
my concern wasn’t the fact that we lost, we have won games we didn’t deserve to win. my concern is regarding how we lost. we weren’t bad, we were terrible!! No life, no energy…this reminded me of the game just before our players went on their break several years back, I think it was Cacic’s last game , we lost to a shitty team but we were a good team that looked like shit!! sometimes you have less quality and do more with it, other times you have more quality but you look terrible. I think our issues are mental, not necessarily that we lack in quality, to the point where Wales, Turkey or Armenia are better than us. we just lost that drive to compete and instead we are moving the ball around like old ladies, zero pressure on the opponents defense, lacking in intensity at all positions and this ends up being the result of all that! we need 100% full commitment to pressure, retrieve the ball fast when we lost it, push all our players into their half and make them work to defend…we’ve done this tons of times.
With the exception of Belgium, if all those countries you mentioned lost their top 5 starters, I still don’t think they lose to Turkey and Wales. And that’s how strong of a nation we should be too.
I agree completely. Every player on the pitch has demonstrated top-tier abilities over the majority of their professional careers (yes, even Barisic and Vida). The problem is that they did not come into these games competitive. They didn’t start competing until they were losing AND time was running out. We’ve seen it before from Croatian teams. The difference this time is that Dalic cares first and foremost about results and will do something to change the dynamic to get a result. He’s asserted his authority before, and with good results. Maybe it means benching Brozovic and Kovacic for a game to tell them they have to earn the callup just like everyone else. He did it with Rebic in his prime. He did it with Petkovic, Brekalo, Livaja, Livakovic, Sosa, Grbic, etc.
Turkey and Wales are second-rate (not contenders for winning a cup), but they are not Moldova. If any team in the world shows up uncompetitive against those teams, they will lose. Croatia just did not face them with the right attitude.
For what it’s worth, Cro is a good amount ahead of Wales in terms of odds to win the group. FanDuel: Turkey -600, Croatia +950, Wales +1400.
Maybe that is a machine calculation, that does not take in consideration momentum.
Momentum for games that are a month apart is a non-starter. Croatia had “momentum” coming into the ones last weekend, for example. Don’t buy the momentum myth.
No doubt, more importantly, hopefully we have a healthy active force of players to choose from by then.
Getting back Ivanušec, Juranović and Petković will be significant. Hopefully Krama too.
This will also give guys like Modrić, Broz, Kovačić, Šutalo, and Sosa some time to get back into better form.
Agreed.
Fun fact when serbia slovenia qualify in same tournament Croatia never went euro 200 wc 2010
If they all qualify, they’ll be in the same Pot.
We’ll get to hear more babbling about how great a Yugo football team would be.
That would be the “Yugo, No Yugo, Somebody Go” Derby.
So I won’t babble and say, with all of their new tall young strikers, mature Oblak, and add the steady Kec magic, Slovenia looks like a force to be reckoned by itself.
I hate to say that Oblak pada kisa on Livakovic’s performances right now, or muse that Musa might not be at a Sesko level yet, and Kek leadership is good as it gets. Slovenia is an upgraded version of late, of their typical level of play. They are scoring and stopping.
Kek is a great coach.
But Slovenia is just playing his offensive style as a unit. Outside of Oblak, they don’t have star players. Šeško will become one, but he’s still in his early days.
It’ll be alot tougher at the Euros themselves, but Kek has done well before at the WC2010.
Missed opportunity for us to get him when he left Rijeka and we needed a coach. Hoping we still consider him in the future, but he’ll probably be with Slovenia for a long time this time considering how much they are punching above their weight.
Upstart Žan Vipotnik seems to have potential, as well, but huge numbers in the Slovene league probably don’t mean much. He was picked up by a French Bourdeaux team recently at the age of 20 years old for international play, meaning there is some degree of outside interest. Someone says he can’t dribble but just shoots well.
The guy is valued at 2 million Euro.
The gum stuck under Gvardiol’s shoe is worth more.
Slovenia squad is bad in terms of talent. It really shows how good a coach Matjaz Kek is.
LOL, too funny shoe gum comment. Got it.
Matjaz alone suggests Slovene roots, so even though he did great in the HNL, it would be probably hard to pull him away as you stated. Would assume the Slovene culture would meld better than the German culture. Seems like German born Kovac had issues regarding trying to run a team like Belicic.
Modric having Dalic’s back during the Rebic and Kalinic struggles was key. Don’t know if any outsider would get the key player support needed during rough times.
Kek is known for his offensive style which would benefit us as we have creative players and (more recently) some very capable offensive minded defenders. He’s already done well in the Croatian league with Croatian players. He would be a pretty safe pick for us.
Kovač is more of a fitness guy and German disciplinarian. I don’t think he does much other than try to get players to work hard. He made quite a few lineup and formation mistakes when he coached us.
Him trying to instill discipline with stupid little things ( like no talking during practice) did more to irritate players than anything.
Listening to Ante, Zorić, and Novaković sounded they were putting on a group therapy session for us all, like a 10 step method to healing.
Thanks for talking us down off the ledge! I think for the most part we are back at our desks working again!
It’s fucked up arresting fans for singing songs when the Croatian government glorify an actual war criminal in Franjo (Croat killer) Tudjman. I was reading some comments on a YouTube video that Davor & Z couldn’t read because they’re in Croatian. What I read was quite disturbing, while Plenkovic is harassing (arresting in some cases) Croatian fans for singing “Ustasa songs” his allies in Serbia are erecting a monument to a cetnik and Plenkovic isn’t even concerned about it, he’s more concerned about some fans singing songs.
It doesn’t make sense what these communists are doing in Croatia
Quit beating yourself up. U b awright
actual war criminal in Franjo (Croat killer) Tudjman???
Its fine to criticize our politicians (and demand better), but common man, you need to take off your tin-foil hat. Franjo did what no other Croatian leader was able to accomplish…independence and lasting freedom.
If communist Tudjman didn’t die he would’ve been found to be a war criminal, just like communist Praljak was, every nationalist Croat knows this, it’s only commies/partizani that like to pretend that they don’t know the truth.
Well… I consider myself to be a nationalistic Hrvat, but I don’t agree with your Tudjman slander. I also despise the commies/partizani that are always trying to put down our Croatian culture.
It’s not about you agreeing with me, it’s about you not knowing communist war criminal Tudjman like I do.
Do you know who founded the HDZ? It wasn’t communist Tudjman I’ll tell you that much. It was someone else, there ended up being 19 of them, and Tudjman was not one of them. It’s a fact that it was 19 Croatian hypocrites that decided against lustration that brought that parasite Tudjman to the Croatian table. And Croatia is now f***** beyond repair because of it.
The sh*t I hear in the Croatian Sabor is quite disturbing also, but something that you would expect in a country whose politicians are serving a globalist agenda.
My take on these games where we lost to two sh*t teams is this, the players have taken their eye off the ball because of Andrej (the izdajica) Plenkovic, he goes after the fans every chance he gets for singing Ustasa songs (I didn’t hear any Ustasa songs?), and what happens then is the players lose concentration when they know that actual Croats will be harassed after the game again for no good reason.
We can’t expect these players to get any motivation at all by representing corrupt partizan/communist politicians, people that love corruption more than the actual Croats they should be serving.
This team is finished if they’re not allowed to represent actual Croats, meaning the majority, which is what I am.
What I suggest is that these players walk off the pitch in the next game to show these corrupt politicians in Croatia that they will not allow their people to be harassed by corrupt partizan/communist politicians. Option 2 would be that someone has to kill the corrupt Plenkovic, if someone once tried to kill Mamic, why can’t an attempt be made on the izdajica Plenkovic? (his dad was a communist loser also).
Let’s wait and see what happens in the next game, if the corrupt communist politicians continue to harass the actual Croatian people I can’t see how the players can focus on the job at hand, you know most of our players are Catholic so they would get no motivation by being forced to represent only corrupt partizani/communists like Andrej (the Izdajica) Plenkovic, and fans like him.
“Without the fans football is nothing.”
thank you for the dumbest post. and that is saying something for this site.
No you just beat it. Wtg
I don’t understand why everyone is so upset. This is classic Hrvatska. We can only play against top 10 teams. They will qualify.
I understand the reasoning behind having Vida back in the starting lineup for one game. Against Turkey, we were getting killed on the backline in the opening 20 minutes and could have been down 4-0.
Lovren is the most unappreciated player in the history of the National Team. Vida was supposed to be the veteran back there, but it obviously backfired being the cause of the first goal. Easy for fans to point fingers now.
This was the first time I was able to listen to a podcast. One hour is way too long. If you guys can make it 20 minutes or so, more folks will tune in.
If Lovren played in either game we would have been completely blown out 3-0 or 4-0.
He is way too slow to recover, and would’ve drawn a PK with his frustration.
If he’s too slow, would his replacement on the pitch would be a speed burner. Didn’t know Erlic and Pongracic have Olympic type speed. Cmon man.
Those runs that Turkey and Wales had on goal were only mitigated by the speed of our young defenders.
It was only a matter of time until someone screwed up, and it happened in both games.
Sub out any one of Gvardiol, Šutalo with Lovren, and there would be several clear breaks and probably a red card tackle.
Gvardiol. Is off limits. He’s a gifted footballer.
Sutalo, Erlic and Pongracic do not have more or significant mire speed than the 2 aforementioned veterans out back.
They’re not better
Yes, Gvardiol is a gifted footballer still learning his trade when it comes to positioning. His initial mistake on the half way line against Turkey lead to their first goal when Livakovic came off his line. You don’t need to be the quickest player as a defender, you can compensate that by the ability to read the game and positioning.
Yes
I thought Dominik Livakovic had figured out the box positioning challenges he was having, but it has seemed to have reared its ugly head. Don’t know if he had stayed fixed, if it would have changed the outcome. It might have given a defender a moment to break it up before there was a shot.
Fair
For Lovren’s beautiful essential cross to Perisic in the Japan @ 2022 world cup, and his excellent play @ the Argentina game in 2018, he is remembered fondly.
Albeit, I would like to forget about him in WC @ Brazil, where he caused a free penalty kick, and caused a stir when caught in his birthday suit, lounging around the pool by the prying world media.
You can’t criticize Lovren for the “penalty” against Brazil. That was not a penalty in any way. That was simply FIFA corruption with a stooge ref inserted to make it happen. Just like the 2018 final.
Sure you can.
Everybody and their grandmother KNEW that this ref was going to look for any reason to gift Brazil a game-winning penalty if given the chance. Well…everyone except Lovren.
He stupidly put his hands on Fred in the box. No, it wasn’t a penalty in an way…but that’s all Fred needed to sell it, and that’s all the Jap ref needed to call it.
Fred knew that Lovren was the idiot in the backline, and Fred purposely picked Lovren out knowing that he would bite.
Sure you can.
Everybody and their grandmother KNEW that this ref was going to look for any reason to gift Brazil a game-winning penalty if given the chance. Well…everyone except Lovren.
He foolishly put his hands on Fred in the box. No, it wasn’t a penalty in an way…but that’s all Fred needed to sell it, and that’s all the Jap ref needed to call it.
Fred knew that Lovren was the goof in the backline, and Fred purposely picked Lovren out knowing that he would bite.
No, he barely a touched him, and everyone in the world knew it was a dive, including the stooge ref. No fault to Lovren at all. Just like the other four calls that were so corrupt that game, there was an agenda, just like the 2018 final. If Lovren’s at fault, then you can say Perisic is at fault for the penalty in the 2018 final. I guess every Croatian player should have had their hands behind their backs inside the box for the whole game, just in case.
I would rather see them increase the size of the goal area if the trying to increase scoring. Let them play a bit. I would increase the goal size until you had average total games scores of 10 points. One would see really who the better team is.
Far too many games are decided on penalty kicks of a dubious nature.
I think they had VAR in those days. Can’t believe it was not overturned. If they don’t call it flop, these should have called it a penalty for being a weakling on Brazil.
Just to clarify, since it was brought up on the pod; Roko Simic and Ante Budimir are the same height.
That’s crazy he seems so much quicker and more explosive. Thought he was shorter maybe because his dad Dario was a little guy
I thought the same, when thinking of his dad.
Great Podcast. Some very interesting and informative discussions. I personally think we get 6 pts in November. 🇭🇷🔥⚽️
It is possible to support your national team but also to be realistic. Let’s face it, 6 points from next 2 games is unlikely. We have seen the future in the last 2 games. A future without Modric and Perisic, and a future with a supporting cast that is on the back end of their prime years (Brozovic, Kramaric, and apparently Kovacic). It will take more than a month for new leaders to emerge, to develop players that can actually score goals. There will be lots of ups and downs while a new generation takes overs. Just got to accept the bad times with the good.