Photo: Uefa.com
Shevchenko could choose Croatia’s fate on Dec. 2nd
It could be a difficult task for Croatia at Euro 2012 next summer with a possibility of being drawn with world champions Spain from Pot 1 and Germany/England from Pot 2. The 0-0 draw against Turkey this past Tuesday was not enough to move Croatia ahead of Russia for a Pot 2 placement, therefore, Croatia is alongside Greece, Portugal and Sweden in Pot 3.
The best Croatia can do: Poland, Russia and Czech Republic.
The worst: Spain, Germany and France.
The draw will take place December 2nd at Noon (ET).
So true about Srna! He was probably our best player against Turkey in the first leg, always getting involved and creating chances with hi searly balls into the box. But mate you have to stop with the play acting and rolling around like you’re in the Asian Champions League!!! It’s absolutely embarassing! Vukojevic does it a bit too, maybe because he lacks so much creativity on the park that he has to bring it with the acting…
ya someone’s got to slap srna, its sad that he has made some great plays for croatia and that i will mostly remember him rolling around hurt every 5 minutes
Boys,
No matter which way you look at it, this tournament is stacked. More likely than not, there will be 2 Groups of Death.
Imagine a: Spain, England, Portugal, Denmark group next to…
Netherlands, Germany, Croatia, France…
I don’t want an easy group. It doesn’t prove anything. Look at Euro 2008. We had the easiest group….beat a poor Austria side on a penalty kick, yes we showed up against Germany and then defeated Poland in a nothing game with our second stringers.
Give me the Dutch, Italy and Ireland. Let our boys play, and if they play well, let us celebrate.
What’s a better feeling as a fan? Celebrating a win over Austria and Poland…or that 2-1 win over Germany?
Our boys will show up against the best…and as long as they leave every drop of sweat they have on the field…we can all be proud. But Srna, no more flopping…pleeeeeassseee….its embarrassing.
We always play up or down to our competition. Drawing weak teams gives us a false sense of security – and then we blow it. We always play tough against the powerhouses like Germany, Italy and Canada.
I doubt many teams fear Croatia honestly from the top pots. Lets be honest, we will need to play like we did in Turkey to even get out of the groups and I will fear for Croatia if they get the nightmare scenario of Spain, Germany and France.
I agree to some extent that we play better against ‘better’ opposition, but I still want a reasonable group. I wouldn’t mind for example: Ukraine, Italy, Croatia, Denmark. Not too hard but not too easy either. Even Ireland won’t be too easy because they will park the bus.
The only weak teams in this tournament to me are Poland and Czech Republic. To me, Sweden aren’t that great either, only they are in Pot 3 so we can’t play them in the groups
We’re in and that’s all that matters at this point. Let’s just pray everyone is healthy come June. I want Poland, because, well, they’re Poland and they suck. I don’t care that they’re the hosts, they still suck at soccer. I want England because I hate the fact that they crushed us in 2010 World Cup Qualifying and I want revenge. I also want the Czech Republik because I believe that this is the weakest team in Pot 4. Very inconsistent team that barely made it out of an easy qualifying group. By June, Petr Cech’s face will be so mangled that he’ll need to wear a hockey goalie mask. Let’s hope for the best come December 2nd.
Bring on the powerhouses.
If we have learned anything about the Croatian National team its that they tend to play up…or down…to the level of their competition.
Thats why we’ve beaten teams like Germany, Italy, England…in the past…. and lost to teams like Georgia.
I find that when the national team is going in against top competition, they actually put more effort into it.
Kruno Jurčić o Križancu: “On je jedini igrač iz HNL-a kojeg bi doveo u Dinamo”
ummm…. how about someone named Vukusic?
Obviously Jurcic would never say that he would bring a Hajduk player to Dinamo. Should be a good match tomorrow.
Hey Toni,
No problem. Really sorry to say, but it looks like it’s been deleted. Any way you can repost?
This shouldn’t be a problem in the future, as it looks like we’ve able to get a hold of the situation with a couple tools. Sorry again, and thanks for posting.
mlebo thanks for the heads up, try to bring my post back I spent a few minutes typing it…
Eh what happened to my post it was up at 8:30pm now gone?
Just a heads up for everyone here. We’ve been getting a lot of spam, just like any other wordpress site. We’re working on getting that down to 0. At times, some comments may get marked in a hold, so feel free to alert any of us by email if this starts happening. I sit in front of a computer all day, so hit me up whenever. Thanks for your patience and sorry about this. We’re just trying to make things run smoothly.
P.S. Anybody under Anonymous. It’s a lot easier if you guys make a name for yourselves as you are less likely to get marked for spam, and we can see that you are a human.
Fuck. Sorry for deleting your last post Ante. Working on cleaning up some stuff for the website, and I misclicked. Just a heads up.
I can’t wait to watch a Euro with Mandzukic leading our striker force and Eduardo on the bench. By the time Bilic has figured out he made a mistake we’ll be heading home! What a disgrace!
Yeah, people are def. giving Perisic too much credit. Watching him in the 2nd leg of the Turkey game, he not only looked slower than I thought he is, but he also doesnt back track much. He’s a much more natural left sided player than Kranjcar, but Niko has experience in the middle and on the left. I’d still take a healthy Kranjcar over Perisic anyday… Although Perisic’s potential hasn’t been fully realised yet.
Poglavnice,
I remember that. We watched one of the games at the park off of Ilica, place went nuts. That 3:0 against Germany was my all-time favorite win and the beating Dinamo put on Partizan ranks #1 in club sports moments. Dinamo-Hajduk in Split live at Poljud with the BBB was nuts too.
Boys, I love the fact that we won, we made the Euros, fantastic! However, a lot of you are getting carried away. We beat a terrible Turkish side that made school boy defensive errors. Enough of the talk that we can beat anyone in the world. Lets take it one step at a time. Hopefully the boys are playing with confidence. Pray that everyone remains healthy and playing first team football for the remainder of the season.
@Anonymous Nooot
I was in Makarska for 2 weeks that summer too! I was actually in Paris during most of WC ’98 (except for the Japan match in Nantes that I went to). As soon as France knocked us out i took a train to Zagreb to see my dad. Got to watch the 3rd place playoff on t.v. in Zagreb, and then welcome our boys home a few days later. Will never forget all the gun shots coming out of peoples apparments after both Hrvatska goals vs the Dutch! What an atmosphere! Best trip of my life!!!
good draw for cro hopefully they take advantage of it
Oh yes I was in makarska in 98 it was interesting.. My love for the repka born then I would assume and allegiance decided
It would be a good competitive rematch
@Anonymous Nooot
No disrespect to France. I think it would be great to play them! There would be a lot of interest in that match even from neutral fans.
If Poland and Ukraine are by far the worst teams in this tournament, then you know it will be a good one.
All the best teams qualified with no real surprise omissions from qualifying stage (aside from Serbia and Switzerland who are both extremely overrated anyway).
Call me crazy, but my hope is that we continue the revenge tour and draw:
1.- Ukraine
2.- England
3.- France
1. I choose Ukraine because they are NOT Spain and Netherlands (two team we likely cannot beat). I also pick Ukraine over Poland because since we tend to play to the level of the competition, we’ll need something like “revenge” to motivate us and counter this issue. Also, I could see Srna playing over his head in this one (along with Eduardo and Vuki) due to the Ukraine connections.
2. I choose England because of how good I felt after that 3-0 revenge win in Turkey. England have dropped off a bit since they last played us, and will be missing Rooney. I think Cro will be completely motivated for this one, and the counterattacking style we played against Turkey would bode well against the Anglos. I am not against drawing Italy or Russia, but with Russia I could see us playing less motivated and ending up with a costly draw. With Italy, we have already beaten them 3 times in competitive matches, and we have nothing more to prove against them. Germany, I want to avoid like the plague. To me, they are the tournament favorites who will play with revenge against us for the past two tournament wins we had against them.
3. I pick France for the same reason as I pick England. I like to keep the revenge tour going. I liked the last game we played them and I think we could beat them. I wouldn’t mind drawing the Czech either (who I think could lose all three games), but beating them would hardly give you an advantage over the other two teams if they are the pushover team of the group. Denmark is extremely underrated and Ireland play a tough style. I would rather see a nervous & motivated Croatia tie France, then watch a more relaxed Croatia potentially screw up and tie Ireland/Denmark.
@poglavnik, I’m half French and must say the team is in a very similar state to Croatia… Aside of course drastically different formations and a much larger talent pool 🙂 they are def tournament favorites although blanc can only wish to leverage his youth like Low has..
Croatia needs to put rakitic where he belongs.. His drifting makes it evident.. And a little more trust in perisic. The back 4 will ultimately be cheese
Ask yourself this? Who in pot 1 or 2 whats to be in the same group as Croatia? I think all those powerhouse teams would rather not have to face Croatia at all!!!! We are a dangerous team that nobody wants to deal with
@Ziva
If we went 0-3 in our group it would not be to 3 tournament favourites… No way any team in pot 4 would be considered a “tournament favourite”
@ ChopperTudor – Do not forget Marco Reus, Andre Schurrle and Mats Hummels. Hummels will be a definite in the first team, rightfully so, he has been awesome for Dortmund. Andre Schurrle and Marco Reus will almost definitely be key subs off the bench. They are however, the next wave of German stars for Die Mannschaft.
Hey guys, this Euro, there are never easy games. It;s not like the world cup where you could be grouped with like New Zealand or Costa Rica!! That’s what makes the Euros so great! Almost every game is certainly watchable and entertaining (except when Greece park the bus…still can’t belive they won in ’04!!!!). Having said that and knowing our luck in pot draws, we WILL get either Spain/Netherlands, but wouldn’t an ideal draw be if we get Italy? I mean, I fear Germany, and even Russia (the unknown element), but to say that Germany fear us, yeah right!!…we beat them by surpise almost 4 years ago. They’ve had big changes since then, not to mention the promotion of all the youngsters to the first team – Neuer, Ozil, Khedira, Boateng, Badstuber, Gotze,…I could keep going! Don’t fool yourselves, this is a very different Germany currently. I prefer to get Italy – old, slow and uncreative. Portugal are pretty impressive too, so we want to stear clear of them! Give me anyone in Pot 4, even France, we can get passed them.
Spain is a shit country they dominate against england and lost and then against costa rica they scored cause the costa ricans relax if they didnt relax spain would.ve lost again so that why i say spain is a shit country the think that other countries will respect them and they dont i havent seen an a worldchampion that nobody respect until spain won last yar so that makrs spain a triple shit country
@HNK Dalmatinac……I rather draw Germany or Spain in our group. When you play them in the group phase you don’t have to worry about playing them again until the SF or final.
Eduardo Upset
http://www.24sata.hr/nogomet/razocaran-sam-sramota-je-da-ulazim-zbog-krae-vremena-242887
Do we know what country we will play our game in yet?
Whatever we get will be fine just no spain or germany everyone else it will be fun and give it a good try atleast quaterfinals will be exceding expectations for me
I want Poland, England and France.
Also;
http://www.turkish-football.com/news_read.php?id=1900
This is probably the most balanced and most talent filled tournament ever. Sure you have the usual favorites Spain, Holland, Germany and so on, but the game is not what it used to be. Every team nowadays has a chance to pull off an upset or at least keep it tight as we have experienced first hand in qualifying. That being said, it still would be nice to avoid the three teams mentioned.
Lets just hope we can stay healthy from now until June. If by chance we draw England, dont be surprised if Modric has one of his legs amputated before June.
What are you talking about??????? What losing mentality????
You are another one of these idiots that puts everything on Bilic. Hey, newsflash…..bunch of other teams throughout Europe have not figured out how to score on Greece.
Bilic is not better or no worse of a coach today than he was 1 week ago before the Turkey tie.
Ziva Istina, you have such a losing mentality. It’s really apparent. You must be a haggard old loser. I agree with Mihovil.
Out pot 3, only Greece concerns me. Bilic, obviously, hasn’t figured out how to score or defend against them.
I’m hoping for Poland, Italy and Ireland.
Ziva, if you recall my man Stipe didn’t struggle against Austria! Man of the Match!
Poland, Russia, Ireland please
There are no easy games in this tournament.
It would have been nice to get a win on Tuesday. Not that I am complaining, on the contrary far from it. I am quite proud of the way we took care of the Turks! We made the tournament and that is the bottom line! Our player mentality/mindset should also benefit from delivering under the pressure factor as well because of the team we just beat and our history with that team. The monkey is off our back so to speak!
Three loses, sorry cannot go for that! The teams in Pot 1 and Pot 2 do not want to play us either. They know that we will not be a push over and can play the spoiler. Everyone here knows we play to the oppositions level most if not all the time. We will show up and be ready for anyone. Does this mean we will beat Spain, Holland, Germany, England, or Italy? No it does not, not at all. We will be ready for them and give them and give them a good match.
In reflection I am quite glad that we avoid Portugal. If this team ever gets their act together look out! As much as I am not a big fan of Ronaldo, he is simply unreal! Nani is not far behind him as well. Germany owns them that being said and will crush them like they always do.
Group of Death, I say no thank you please. 🙂
germany cant beat us. they are scared of us.
I am not so sure any of those games against teams in Pot 1 will be easy. Playing the hosts will be difficult. We struggled against Austria last time around and that was when we were in good form.
jm, I would say we need to work on our pick up lines for the Polish babes next summer :).
changes/improvements? we have have 6-7 months before the European tournament and I’m guessing a decent amount of friendlies inbetween. Does anyone have any thoughts on what changes/improvements the team should be trying to make? I”m sure fire bilic will be a popular one, but it looks like he’s on to stay. Others will say to put Kelava in goal. I don’t see that happening either. My thoughts are it’ll mainly be tinkering with the backline. Anyone have any thoughts on what our backline will/should look like assuming everyone healthy by the time euro 2012 comes along?
Ziva can we work out a draw for one at least. Three losses would not be cool.
I think the Turkey draw was fixed. However, it worked for us.
Give us Poland or UKR please.
I agree, I don’t really care what group we get.
If we get hit with a group of death, there is no shame in losing all 3 games to tournament favorities.
Honestly, I will be happy with any draw. Croatia against the powerhouses will be very fun to watch.