Packed House @ Alpine Village with VATRENI: LOS ANGELES
Croatian Fans cheered for the first time in a long time Friday afternoon as their beloved Vatreni blanked the Turks 3-0 in Istanbul. Spirits were high from the start with Ivica Olić’s second minute goal. Here’s a look into the action from Alpine Village in Torrance, California.
Vatreni Los Angeles taking over Alpine Village
Photo: Denis Svirčić
Ivan Perišić(Goldenchild) at work
Photo: Denis Svirčić
Plenty of nervous faces at kickoff
Photo: Denis Svirčić
Renato Jaram(right) actually predicted 4-0 Croatia before the game
Photo: Denis Svirčić
It was all smiles after the second goal
Photo: Denis Svirčić
Confused fan still hasn’t lost hope in Dinamo
Photo: Denis Svirčić
Mirel Brković and John Antolos celebrate victory
AND FROM THE BOYS IN NEW YORK…
@Anonymous,
please sign in, so I can refer to you in the future. If you can type “anonymous” you can type something else.
I disagree with you on “shocking result”. If we beat Turkey, 1-0, or 2-1 it wouldnt be that shocking. It would be an upset, but it wouldnt be shocking.
Lets say you knew the result before the game and asked 100 people if the final result would be shocking. Out of those 100, how many would say that 3-0 would be shocking? I would put my life on the line that at least 98 would say so.
Now, ask the same question before the Holland-Croatia game… “Would a 2-1 win be shocking?”
and against Germany in 2008… “Would a 2-1 win be shocking?”
You wont get the same result.
The 3-0 result is whats shocking. Not just the upset win.
c’mon Denis u cant find more examples. Beating England was shocking, loosing to Georgia was shocking, beating the netherlands was shocking. There are plenty more examples. Beating a shitty Turkey team was not shocking!
I can say it was more than a shock result for myself, it was almost inconceivable to expect a result like this would happen before the game. Going to istanbull and coming away with three goals to nil, just doesnt occur all to often, and especially with how bad our form has been. Its definitely one for the archives, in the shock results section.
@Neznam
Znas ti prijatelju!
@TheGoldenChild
couldnt have said it better myself. Excellent analysis. I was fearing the worst with:
1) How will Mandzo and Olic work together up top?
2) Schifo and Vida on the back line?
3) Dujmo to start after a long lay off, and limited time in Russia.
@IvicA
Turkey was down 2-1 to Germany, and gave up a 86th minute penalty kick to lose 3-1 to Germany in Turkey.
Again, not taking away our performance, but this result shocked the world.
@DinamoDennis
Yes, I agree. “I think we see “shock” in different ways.”
“100-1 odds happen everyday in sports”
100-1 happens once in 100 times as the odds suggest. Lets just take Croatian soccer history into consideration. What Croatian result shocks you most. Croatia has played 206 games in their history. Going by the odds, that would mean 2 shock results. How many of those 206 games are more shocking than Friday’s result?
Malta-Croatia 1-1 ?
Croatia-Germany 3-0 WC98 ?
I really cant think of a more shocking result. For me a shocking result is a result that gives you the most return for your $$$ at Vegas. A shock result is hitting the jackpot in Vegas.
“Beating turkey 3-0 is a good result”
You don’t understand the meaning of the word “good”.
Beating Turkey 2-1 in Istanbul is a “good result”
Beating Turkey 3-0 in Istanbul is a “once in a decade” result
Turkey hasn’t lost at home with a worse result since the 20th century.
This match showed how much we were missing a player like olic. The whole team played great!
I’m going to go with pleasant surprise, but I understand the shock. Sitting high on top of your perches, you obviously all knew that this was going to happen (heavy sarcasm)
If you guys follow the team regularly, and told me we’d be up 3-0 at the end of this, I would have told you to check your brain. Along with the poor play, we had guys playing that were not expected to do anything. Schilde playing 2nd division in Europe is scary for any starting team to put in their lineup(lets all be serious). The guy came in and played his heart out though, which we can be happy about. But there is a reason that he’s playing 2nd division and not first.
Another stand out was Dujmovic. The guy has been either hurt or riding the bench at his club in Russia. To those who think Russia is a good league, I beg to differ.
Finally, I know the Turks were definitely not playing well either, which also should be taken into consideration to lessen that shock value. Coming off the last two games (even though we won 1 out of 2), I think we all had a very bad taste in our mouths from some atrocious play. In the end, our team is very Jekyll and Hyde. We can be amazing when we want to be, and we can be very much shit when we don’t feel like playing.
i think this time around, we are tactically spot on…we need many technically gifted central midfielder to fight the ball with turkish midfield…dujmovic rakitic modric as CM is a right way to go…
moreover, simunic is still a good defender…currently irreplaceable..i am still sceptical at vida playing at RB
However, coming WC qualifier will be a worry with serbia wales belgium scotland all having a shot at the top spot…all good enough to beat our NT…
It was a shock result because it’s been a long time since Croatia had such a convincing win (with Turkey not even generating a single chance).
Also, Turkey hasn’t lost this badly in Istanbul…ever. Even their 3-1 loss to Germany last month had them generate at least a couple of chances and scoring a goal. It’s just not easy to walk into a place like Istanbul, in a do-or-die game, against a Hiddink-led squad and completely de-class them like that.
Yes, Turkey is not as good at team as Croatia, but you have to take all these other things into consideration.
I think we see “shock” in different ways.
If we won 6-0…that’s a shock
If we played Spain and they had 0 or 1 shot on net id be shocked.
Beating turkey 3-0 is a good result…maybe a little surprising ….maybe…but deffinatly not a shock.
100-1 odds happen everyday in sports….no big deal.
1000-1….now that’s a shock!
I truly thing we have very good individual players and a good team all around. Like I said before a shitty campaign (which only really became shity at the end of march) and a shitty few games doesn’t take away from our quality.
I’m rambling…..I love you all
@anonymous,
Fifa rankings mean nothing. Stats mean something I agree. Turkey stats and Croatia stats were not that far apart. Croatia might ahve edged out Turkey just by a small percentage. I never disagreed that “the better team” didn’t win. Also, please sign in with a name. thanks.
@ Denis
Ranking does mean something and so do stats, check em out and you’ll see the right teams made it thru. I agree putting up 3 was somewhat shocking, but like I said before the better team won.
@anonymous,
The result is a shock. Our poll had only 20% say Croatia would win. Rankings mean nothing. Also, not saying that “luck” was the only reason or the main reason that we won. The boys showed up to play and the formation was right.
@ Denis,
R u kidding me, this result shouldn’t be a shock, Turkey is not a high quality team, they are ranked lower, and there stats in there qualifiers are way lower. The better team won, no luck was necessary!
@DinamoDennis,
I agree with you that we have some good players. Our past results doesnt show our quality. However, as a team, we sucked this campaign. Individual efforts of Kranjcar, Eduardo, and Modric gifted us a chance at Euro through a playoff. Also, dont forget that we had one of the easiest qualifying groups. If there was a decent team like Czech or Ireland, we might have finished third in the group.
“This result shouldnt be a shock?”
You are out of your mind. 99% of the world is shocked. A 3-0 result would fetch you 100-1 odds in Vegas.
@IvicA
Dont get me wrong. I’m not saying that luck was the main reason that we won. Read my comment about “luck” under “CROATIA CRUSH TURKEY 3-0 IN ISTANBUL”
I agree with your analysis.
@Goldenchild
hilarious!
No Arianna B in the videos….THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!! Golden Child made up for it though, he’s the best.
Gus vs Bilic
http://imgur.com/5CtmF
@ Denis
“Luck” had very little to do with this win. (ok, maybe a little)
But, this is what happens when you wortk hard and play players in their natural positions and with complimentary players playing alongside one another.
NO Mandzukic in the midfield. NO Eduardo in the midfield. NO insistence on playing Kranjcar, Modric, and Rakitic at the same time. NO Srna in defense.
On top of this, each player was motivated and worked harder than the Turks by constantly moving (with or without the ball). With a recipe like that, it’s hard not to come away without a decent result.
I agree that our campaign was shitty, but we still have quality players that should get results like this more often then not.
A shitty campaign doesn’t mean were a shitty team.
This result shouldn’t be a shock.
Don’t get me wrong…we still need to fix some things but for the most part
Thanks to everyone for coming out today. Another great showing to match the result this time around.
@Ivica,
sorry to be a “buzkill” haha. I’m still shocked by this result. Like Bilic said after the game, “Its halftime, still have 90 minutes to play.” I’m not bashing this great win, but we had a lot of luck on our side today. Bilic has already blown up this win by saying “not even Germany could beat the Turks as bad as we did.” One great game doesnt change a terrible qualifying campaign. We are on top of the world today and we should celebrate. However, lets keep the champagne on ice until after Tuesday.
Nice video from Alpine Village.
Good call by the dude who said we’d score in the first 10 minutes. Surprised not to see a follow up interview from him after the match.
Denis’ interview at the end was a buzkill. 🙂