More to come throughout the day as Hajduk Split and NK Osijek begin their Europa League qualifying matches Thursday. Hajduk travels to Macedonia to take on Renova at 9:30AM (ET) while Osijek host Swiss club Basel at 2:45PM (ET). Both ties will be determined in 1-leg due to COVID and travel restrictions.
Predictions:
Hajduk beats Renova 2-1.
Basel beats Osijek 2-1 in extra time.
@ARMADA
No. I don’t think we SHOULD be blowing out those three teams (Wales, Hungary, Slovakia). Other top teams don’t do it (ask Belgium), so why do you expect we should?
Again the FIFA rankings are flawed, so I don’t consider a team like Wales as a team that should be ranked in the 25-40 range. All three teams made the previous Euros, and are not minnow teams that SHOULD be blown out by Croatia.
Those wins were good wins.
The ELO rankings, in my opinion, still has us a bit too low.
I can’t see a team like Switzerland on par with us. Most people would not pick them to do better than us in a tournament, despite being handed easy seeds. Although I respect teams like Mexico and Colombia, they are perpetual Round of 16 teams. They’re good, but our 2nd place finish proves more to me that our ceiling in a tournament is higher (plus the major fact that our players are better, lol).
Also, you can’t put Argentina five places higher than us. No way.
I think, at worst, we are top-10. The ELO rankings are still based off friendlies and UNL, so naturally they will be flawed too.
@ Maminjo
You make some valid points.
“The only time you could argue that we did, was when we dug ourselves a hole in qualifying and proceeded to play with a near-full squad and blew Hungary and Slovakia out of the water, drew Wales on the road, then blew out Slovakia again. ”
We SHOULD blow those teams out of the water, your talking about teams that are ranked 25-40 in the FIFA Rankings.
“You’re also discounting the new key players like Vlasic and Bruno who have filled important needs, plus improvements from players like Brozovic, Rebic, etc who have only gotten better these past two years. We also finally have some depth at LB and CB, which is exciting.”
Petkovic and Vlasic are undoubtedly important players for us, we can agree to disagree on depth at CB and LB.
“I would still drop our ranking to a top-8 team based off of the changes to our roster, but our key World Cup players are still on the squad (other than Mandzo) and playing at the same high level as two years ago…and we have more depth and improvement in other areas (that still needs to be tested in a tournament).”
Well, I look at the rankings big picture vs. where they currently stand. In terms of where our team stands PRESENT DAY and keeping recent UNL and Euro qualifying results in mind, I think we’re somewhere in the teens easily. We had a few stumbles in qualifying, against meh teams and we got the doors blown off us in UNL against 2 top teams and we fielded a pretty strong side, aside from Modric/Rakitic. FIFA currently has Germany, Italy and the Netherlands below us – I think PRESENT DAY, all those teams are right on our level or slightly better than us. Germany and Netherlands breezed through their qualifiers, with Germany also tying Spain, Argentina and the Swiss in UNL games/friendlies. Netherlands lost their last game to Italy but beat Poland recently in the UNL and Italy went undefeated during Euro qualifying and tied BiH earlier this month.
Argentina were also a handlful of points behind us but going against them present day, full strength side for each side, we’re not beating them 3-0 again… We might beat them 1-0 or something along those lines, but that drubbing in 2018 was due to them having their head in their ass and our guys playing an A+ game across the board.
Not sure if you look at the Elo rankings, but I think there formula is the best in terms of painting the picture of top NT’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings#Top_100
They have us at 14, which makes sense to me more vs. what FIFA has us at.
I agree with you though; at the Euro we should be targeting a QF or SF spot. R16 wouldnt be ideal but palatable and if we crash out in the groups, well… we’ll have a lot more to talk about then hahah
Anonymous
You are delusional like your father. Take your meds little boy. 🙂
Top 10 with good records against some of the best. Ill take it.
We just lost to two teams that are ahead of us in the FIFA rankings, I’m with Maminjo as the points he makes justify at least a top 10 ranking.
Haha your mom can attest to the fact I’m not ,she’s still walking with a limp
Anonymous you are gay. Get lost.
A top 8 team does not get there with a patchwork defense in flux and in transition you guys are delusional!!
Number 8 that is bullshit as ciro would say we are the best in the world to which I wholeheartedly agree with
Number fuckin 8 who came up with that stupid figure
Fuck you Croats are not Dejan Lovren especially us dalmatinci
We are much smarter than some typical bosanac
I am offended by that
Not sure why this mental midget attitude about our team. Sounds like that homer ziva istina. They deserve to be a Top ten team.
Come next Euros they will be really. These past few games are nothing but glorified friendlies.
@ARMADA
No. I would weigh both the Euros and World Cup the same.
They are both tournaments, where all teams field their best players, and there are no club commitments. This is when we can see which teams are the ‘real deal’ versus the ‘stat stuffing’ teams who like to pad their win columns.
What you are proposing is that we rank teams based off of the most recent data (which makes sense)…but the most recent data is flawed.
We, at no point, since Russia have played with a full squad or with any sort of focus (due to club commitments). The only time you could argue that we did, was when we dug ourselves a hole in qualifying and proceeded to play with a near-full squad and blew Hungary and Slovakia out of the water, drew Wales on the road, then blew out Slovakia again. The opponents were nothing elite, but still good teams. But it still says alot that we can score 11 goal over 4 critical games with the flip of a switch (when needed).
Teams who are more committed to friendlies and qualifiers should not (in my opinion) get a major boost to their rankings just because they take Nations League and Friendlies more seriously than others.
You don’t seriously believe that teams like Switzerland would ever get to a World Cup final do you?
The Swiss went far in the last Nations League too (beating Belgium). Would you consider them better than Belgium? The Swiss also finished their qualifying campaign with an almost perfect record.
But guess what…the Swiss will never go beyond the Round of 16 in any tournament, DESPITE being handed a high seed and an easy draw in every tournament. No way do I rank them ahead of us.
Also, I never said that we were (at any point) the second best team in the World. After the World Cup, we were ranked 4th (behind Belgium and Brazil) which in my opinion made sense…with teams like Portugal and Spain right where we were. Portugal barely beat us at Euro2016 (very close) and we had recently beaten Spain.
I would say that we were a top-5 team at that point.
Yes, you must consider that we lost Mandzo, and key players got ‘older’…but age doesn’t matter when guys like Modric and Perisic are playing at the same high level they have always been. You need to judge their form over these past couple years, and they’ve both been the same.
You’re also discounting the new key players like Vlasic and Bruno who have filled important needs, plus improvements from players like Brozovic, Rebic, etc who have only gotten better these past two years. We also finally have some depth at LB and CB, which is exciting.
I would still drop our ranking to a top-8 team based off of the changes to our roster, but our key World Cup players are still on the squad (other than Mandzo) and playing at the same high level as two years ago…and we have more depth and improvement in other areas (that still needs to be tested in a tournament).
Losing to Spain, England, France and Portugal in Nations League while experimenting is not something that I would drop our ranking into the teens for.
These teams are all top-10 ranked teams too, and were not experimenting like we were. Either way, I would put all these teams (with maybe the exception of England) ahead of us right now.
We really don’t have much more to base a ranking on, other than some early qualifier games that we were not fielding a full team for…late qualifier games that we won big against decent teams…and a few meaningless friendlies.
For the Euros, I would rank is as a Quarterfinalist, and anything less is a disappointment.
But you can’t just weigh tournament results. It’s 2+ years since Russia. A number of key players left the team (Carli, Suba and Mandzo) and a few of our key players are a few years older too. We’re a different team now – hence why we can’t really base rankings just from major tournaments. Using your logic, during the last WORLD Cup, given we finished 2nd, we’d should technically still claim we’re the 2nd best team in the world… until Qatar right? No matter what we do in the Euro and for qualifiers, right?
We Are Dejan Logren
His fashion company needs to make a t-shirt that says that! Love it!
we are dejan lovren. as good as the very best. with the occasional loss of concentration or motivation
Definately top 8. we have a smaller pool of players to choose from. So we cant be as consistent as bigger football nations. Also as Croats we have a different mentality, either we are on it or we’re not. So we lost against the european champions, who played superbly, and the world champions where we dominated, despite playing some of our weakest players, but lost concentration. Our best line up, on a day where it really matters, is a match for anybody. euro 2016 we were brilliant, and lost to the eventual champions. then we got to the world cup final two years later. Definately top 8
Going into the World Cup nobody thought we were 8th in the World, let alone 2nd.
When we play our core team, as we did vs Hungary and Slovakia, we definitely can be 8th.
It simply requires a group that meshes well, something Dalic is having a hard time retaining.
Rebic-Petko-Perisic-Vlasic-Modric-Brozo (a healthy Vrsaljko goes a long way too.)
It’s pretty simple.
If you believe that tournament results outweigh Nations League and Friendlies…then Croatia is easily top-8.
If you believe Friendlies and Nations League hold more weight than the World Cup, then yes, I can see your point of view.
Maminjo quit drinking the over hype kool aid.
Top 8 is quarters of the World Cup,we are not making final 8 of the World Cup if it started today I don’t care what we did the last few years .
For once admit you’re wrong.
We have shit the bed recently regardless of all the excuses.We supposedly have Italy and the Germans number? I would put big money on the krauts if we played them and Italy has a far more solid defense than us presently.
Croatia is going to drop even lower because of the UNL, because it stops you guys from organising those Estonia, San Marino and Gibraltar friendlies that kept in the top 20 for years when you couldn’t even make 2nd rounds in tournaments.
That Croatia is out of their element in the UNL is the truth.
Dude, it’s all about the tournament results man.
We’ll see how teams like Switzerland and England do in the Euros compared to us.
Talk to me when England beats Argentina 3-0 or Switzerland beats Spain with their B team. There is not going to be any Panamas, Costa Ricas and Tunisias this time.
Maminjo I love your half glass full attitude but me thinks the Slivo in that glass has clouded your judgement…no way in hell are we the 8th best team in the world!
@ARMADA
We’re better than 8th place actually.
Remember… All that matters are tournament results.
Croatia was one of the best teams at the World Cup, as well as Euro 2016. They took out some major opponents and had no easy teams. Easily top five in the world.
Using FIFA rankings and ELO rankings puts too much emphasis on qualifying games, friendlies, and Nations League games.
Nobody ever has a full squad in these games, players are still focused on their club commitments, and many times (like in our case) coaches use these games to rest players and experiment with others.
These games are the equivalent of ranking a team based on “regular season” record versus “playoff” record.
Ranking teams like Colombia, Switzerland, Mexico, or even England or the Netherlands ahead of Croatia is absurd given their record in these past couple of tournaments. I love Uruguay, but they don’t get to be top 5 just because they beat one good team (Portugal).
When you take out Argentina, Nigeria, Iceland, Denmark, doped-up Russia (at home), England, Turkey, and Spain (with your B team), and your only losses are two controversial ones against two elite teams… You’re easily a top-8 team.
@ Pero
I love our NT but we are not the 8th best team in the world lol we had a magical World Cup run but we had a bumpy qualification process and just got hammered by two traditional rivals of ours. Top 20, sure. Not too 10. Our Elo ranking is much more spot on.
Wolfsburg and Atalanta talks have stalled.
Brekalo reportedly wants €2.4m per season wages.
Atalanta have a salary cap set at €2m – apart from captain Papu Gomez – and do not intend on moving that.
LOL.
Brekalo is such an alpha dog. This reminds me of when Vlašić was pissed off at Everton for not starting him, so he immediately left.
These two will be good for us in the future.
Brekalo wasn’t dressed for their Europa qualification match today.
Maybe there are legs to these transfer rumors involving him?
Zrinjski Mostar got a win today!
@Pero
Maybe….but tournament and qualifying matches are what should matter most.
Also, we have Germany and Italy’s number. We always beat them, no matter how good or bad our players are.
We have played those three teams nine times in tournaments and qualifying…and we lost only ONCE.
The one loss being that bullshit Euro ’96 loss with Germany being granted a penalty, a red card against us, and they avoided a red card (that Klinsmann admits he should have received).
FIFA rankings came out today and we are 8th ahead of Germany Italy and holland.
World Cup points are rather over rated for a team that’s been playing like feces the last year,we couldn’t tie let alone beat any of those 3!
Hajduk up 1-0 at the half.
Any relation to Josip?
https://www.croatiaweek.com/video-croatian-league-player-scores-diego-maradona-esq-goal-of-the-century/?fbclid=IwAR01Fu8zHnL-qvjTcKEpgRvEMzT0enO94Mjht6rc-j-Rb0aBfRyR7g-wmk0