The EURO 2024 qualifying draw takes place this Sunday, October 9th at 6AM (ET). It can be streamed live on UEFA.com.
Croatia finished with the second best record in UEFA Nations League this campaign – only behind the Dutch – which ensures them a Pot 1 seeding as well as a 5-team group in qualifying. Because the Vatreni will play Nations League semifinals next June during normal qualifying days, they will not be paired with anyone from Pot 6 for scheduling reasons.
Top two countries in each qualifying group automatically book a ticket to the 24-team EURO tournament, which will be hosted in Germany. There is also a way to qualify for EURO via Nations League if you don’t finish top-2 but it’s complicated and we don’t need to discuss it now. Finish top-2 and Croatia is in. End of story.
Croatia’s toughest possible group: France, Ukraine, Turkey, Slovakia
Croatia’s easiest possible group: Israel, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar
CroatianSports.com group: England, Ireland, Luxembourg, Gibraltar
Give us England all day long! Always fun playing those blokes. Ireland would be a fun one. Haven’t played our Catholic Irish cousins since EURO 2012. Luxembourg and Gibraltar would be cake walks. Could use these games for the young kids and to rest Modrić, Perišić, Brozović.
Yep, I’m assuming Modrić will stay on for one more tournament cycle. 🙂
In the last 2 Bundesliga matches, Kramaric seems to be playing in midfield..?
Also, over at Osasuna, Budimir seems to be nearer the bench than the first team now.
Hmm the case for calling up Colak/Rebic/Ljubicic might continue to grow…
Absolutely, if Budimir remains on the bench, then Čolak should take his place.
No goals this season either.
It’s a tough sell to call him up over Čolak, even if he’s playing in the much tougher La Liga.
But this is for a backup striker role. Odds are it will be for a few minutes as a late sub. Just go with the hotter scorer.
Croatia – Serbia – Montenegro – Macedonia- Slovakia-
Wouldn’t mind that at all. It’ll be fun.
There would be more brawls at the Serbia/Montenegro match than at the Croatia/Serbia match
Jebo te Tito
Here we go. The Irish are our cousins b/c of their religion; non-catholic croats and irish might have an issue with that. But anyone who mentions us and the Irish being of the same race is evil. Good God you people are so TWO FACED.
“Here we go. The Irish are our cousins b/c of their religion; non-catholic croats and irish might have an issue with that.”
And if they do, what are they?
Blue jays vs Mariners in mlb
playoffs
Jerred”jere” kelenic starting left fielder for mariners
Regarding Morrocco at the World Cup.
As a soccer fan, I have to be honest and say I really have zero clue on who’s who in Africa, North Africa and the Middle East…I just can’t get interested in their qualifying matches.
Some guys have mentioned they’re nervous because we play Morrocco and I know a couple of their players so I decided to look at their qualifying games and I was a little surprised at the results.
Morrocco recently lost 3-0 to USA, they beat Liberia 2-0 (Liberia is ranked below Botswana), they beat Comoros and Malawi…who the hell are they?
I’m openly ignorant about Morrocco but man, this seems like we are not confident in ourselves not being able to compete with these guys!
I don’t anything of them either.
They are highest rated African country and of course most African countries can run
But has any African country really given us trouble
They aren’t in general that much more athletic then us
And no way even close to us technically for the most part
You do realize North Africans are an entirely different people than sub Saharan Africans, right?
Sure I stand corrected
Full respect to Morocco but we have a pedigree that now demands respect
We need to take them serious like any opponent but it’s our game to lose in my eyes
if you put Lovren there
then Marocco will punish you!
Same with Vida and Barisic.
Croatia screw themselves attacking wise if we put Kramaric upfront and a midfielder at RW, Kramaric moves like a bobcat
So if you win nations league you get automatic birth
But there is another playoff potential?
Anyone know exactly how it works?
I got confused initially by that part of the article too. No, you do not automatically qualify for Euro 2024 if you win 2022 Nations League. If you don’t finish top two in your group after Euro 2024 qualifying, I guess there’s a way (if you finish 3rd in your group I’m assuming) that you can qualify for Euro 2024 thru some nations league scenario.
All group winners in the Nations League get a second chance to qualify …assuming they do NOT qualify via the normal Euro2024 qualifying phase.
There are four groups in Nations League A, B and C.
The group winners of each of these leagues would be put into a 4-team semifinal elimination, with one team being the winner.
So a total of 3 spots would be available (one for League A, one for League B, and one for League C).
However…since most teams from League A (especially the group winners) generally qualify via the normal qualification cycle, it’s unlikely that there will even be four teams left in League A that would need to go into a semifinal playoff elimination round.
So, in this case, they would just sub in the next best team from League B…but not the group winner of League B (because the group winners are rewarded by not having to face off against a higher league team).
This whole ‘second chance’ playoff thing happened to Serbia when they finished third behind Portugal and Ukraine for Euro2020 qualifying…but since they won their group in Nations League C, they were put into a semifinal against Norway (who they beat) but then they lost to Scotland (who ended up in our group at Euro2020).
The only thing I’m confused about is whether the Nations League winner gets an automatic berth. I don’t think they do.
We (along with Spain, Netherlands, and Italy) are the group winners for League A. Assuming none of us qualify via the normal route, we would face off with each other for the playoff path to get into Euro2024…which is strange since we would have already played each other a the 4-team semifinal for the actual Nations League trophy.
I guess this is the punishment for those who don’t take Nations League seriously.
You immediately get killed in the Euro seedings.
I would like to draw Serbia.
The only drawback is that it will erroneously get pumped as a rivalry, when Croatia has ‘actual’ football rivalries with good teams (like Spain, France) who we play against on a regular basis.
But Serbia has gotten better with some quality offensive players like Vlahovic coming into the fold…yet they’re far away from where we are still.
Kind of reminded me of when BiH had their golden generation in 2014 World Cup, and they were all cocky because FIFA had them outrank us for one month…but then reality hit when they got bounced from the World Cup and never qualified again.
It takes a lot more than just one short-term period of a couple of good players to get where Croatia is.
This is Serbia’s golden generation. I’d love to show them what a standard Croatian team does to their peak squad.
The only problem is Just losing once to Serbia is enough to think they have bragging rights for the next 50 years
Agreed
So is the plan to keep our 1 win and 1 draw record against them forever? LOL
We’re eventually going to meet up with them again (be it at a tournament or in a qualification cycle).
May as well meet up with them now when we’re much better and when the stakes aren’t that high (since it’s a two-team qualification path). Pump out a few more wins against them.
I would much rather have them than a tougher team like France, or a brutally boring team like Finland.
However, I do like the idea of facing off against France again and improving our record against them.
I always feel conflicted about meeting our neighbors to the east. But you make a very valid point that it’s better to meet them when stakes aren’t so high since it’s a two-team qualification path.
If we play the Serbs it would be like how a fly bothers you on a hot summer day’s barbecue, we’re obviously bigger and better than flies and hate being bothered by something so small, but when it happens, it’s so easy to get frustrated when something so small just doesn’t fuck off.
And Croatia is and always will be Serbia’s Grand Final.
Not for nothing, Serbia got a squad on them….bad thing about playing them, all the pressure is on us.
They’ve got two excellent strikers and a star midfielder that is closer to a Mateo Kovačić than a Luka Modrić.
SMS won’t command possession over what we have.
They’d also have to rely on springing quick counters…but their backline has fallen off a lot.
It would be a fun game, but we’d be in complete control.
There wouldn’t be much pressure. It’s not an elimination game or tournament.
The lack of pressure would probably only make it easier to dominate them.
Euro should be super elite and division 2 – Andorra, Luxembourg – whatever- put them all in division 2 and let the top 10 in Europe all play a tournament round robin 1 vs 10 , 2 vs 9 , and so on in playoff and then narrow down to super elite championship- most of these countries are bloody awful – and for extra pay per view Russia vs Ukraine- you’d see more take outs when we beat on the Serbs.
I just read that Courtois is ruled out indefinitely for real Madrid due to sciatica. That is not easy to come back from
That’s not good for real Madrid.
Can’t you just get surgery for it?
Depends what’s causing it
Usually it’s a herniated disc of some sort(lower back)
I’ve dealt with back issues for years
Often with physical therapy and treatment things will resolve. With that being said, he is a high level athlete.
Who knows the severity and what they will do.
It may be simple with rest and amazing access to proper treatment or clean up the area around the spine which is a bigger deal or even an artificial disc
It’s something that may be a month or maybe 6 months depends how bad and what they will do
Again it’s different between normal sport activities and what he needs to do
But to anyone who has ever suffered acute sciatic type issues knows what it’s like
I hope for his and Luka’s sake he makes a speedy recovery
This could be a blessing..
🇭🇷 vs 🇧🇪
Where’s Germany in that list of flags?
Nevermind…just realized they’re the hosts
Croatia will be in a group of five so we cannot play against Andorra.
As far as I’m concerned, ideal group would be: Croatia, Israel, Armenia, Faroe Islands and Gibraltar.
Worst possible: Croatia, France, Ukraine, Greece and Slovakia.
Keep in mind if and I say if? we do not qualify directly we are guaranteed a spot in play offs as a result of us winning our NL group.
Good catch. Moldovan flag got me with Andorra.
That’s right…and since (generally) all of the League A teams qualify for this 24-team tournament, it’s likely we would be paired with a League B team.
Also, the League B group winners (as a part of their reward for winning their group) are never paired with a League A team in a playoff…so that would mean that we would probably get a mid-table League B team in a playoff (assuming all League A teams qualify, which they generally do).
There is literally no excuse for not qualifying for Euro2024.
08′ Turkey brings back bad memories Soo close that year to a euro final. Remains me of WC France in 98′, when we let down our defenses. But to think we played in a world cup final, I have to pinch myself. To think we were a flop, header, and handball away from winning 2-1 is even more amazing. Jedan dan!
Indeed @Kromiza