There were a fair amount of groans about Croatia drawing Portugal in the round of 16. A somewhat favorable matchup against Iceland seemed to be on the cards. That notion ended when they scored on a last-second counter attack against Austria, which resulted in one of the greatest commentary moments ever. It also meant that Croatia was going to face an underachieving Portugal side. After witnessing arguably the biggest upset in Croatian history, this team should be favored over every team except France or Germany.
With Luka Modric returning and Portugal only having two days to prepare, it seemed like Croatia was on the verge of something special. A once disjointed squad with inexperienced managers looked unified under an experienced manager, albeit one lacking credentials. They found suitable replacements at problematic positions such as left back and holding midfielder. Combine that with a favorable bracket and everything aligned for this current generation to surpass the beloved 1998 World Cup team.
The excitement for Croatia’s first knockout stage game since 2008 culminated into one of the dullest games in the sport’s history. Portugal was content on defending, while Croatia simply couldn’t create many chances. Modric was forced to receive the ball much deeper in his own half. Ivan Rakitic was being consistently harassed, while Pepe seemingly took Mario Mandzukic out of the game. They also made it a priority to mark Ivan Perisic tight at all times. The star winger rarely had any space to shoot or dribble past an opposing defender.
Before picking apart Croatia’s deficiencies, Portugal deserves credit for staying composed. Fernando Santos realized that his team couldn’t compete with Croatia in an open game. They don’t have the midfield to control possession and create fluid attacks. By attempting to play on the counter with Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani, they were hoping to exploit Vedran Corluka’s lack of pace and Domagoj Vida’s questionable positioning. That never materialized for them, as Portugal’s midfield couldn’t provide any service.
Portugal made multiple adjustments to solidify their back four. Jose Fonte replaced Ricardo Carvalho to cope with Mandzukic’s physicality. They also started Cedric Soares over Vieirinha, as they needed a more defensive minded full back to defend Perisic. From replacing a center back on his last legs and a right back, who is essentially an attacking winger, Fonte and Soares were immediate upgrades. Pepe delivered a man of the match performance. Left back Raphael Guerreiro has been one of the breakout players of the tournament. After looking disorganized against Hungary, Santos didn’t hesitate to make necessary changes.
Santos is known for getting the most out of limited teams. He managed Greece from 2010 to 2014, where they reached the knockout stage in both European and World Cup. Santos led Greece to a 2-0 win over Croatia in 2011, which is remembered as one of the worst performances in Croatian football history. While it hasn’t been a great tournament for Portugal, Santos has elevated an average squad. Bringing on Renato Sanches was another excellent decision, as he caused Croatia problems with his size and speed.
Despite Portugal’s clever tactics and defensive solidarity, Croatia wasted a glorious opportunity. They were dominating possession at times, along with taking Ronaldo out of the game. There is a lot of discussion about Cacic’s decision to bring back the same starting eleven from the first two games. After seeing how well they played in both games, he shouldn’t be ridiculed for starting Mandzukic and Marcelo Brozovic. Mandzukic is known as a big-game striker, who can score important goals and battle with a physical centerback like Pepe. Brozovic isn’t an ideal winger, but capable enough as a playmaker and will effectively track back to help Darijo Srna.
As the game wore on and scoring opportunities weren’t being produced, reinforcements were needed. It was evident that Mandzukic wasn’t completely fit. He wasn’t chasing down long balls or playing with his usual aggression. Nikola Kalinic should have replaced him much earlier. Brozovic was largely ineffective as well. After Marko Pjaca’s impressive display against Spain, he needed to be inserted when extra time started. His pace and fearless attitude immediately caused problems with a dashing run into the box. Portugal was fortunate not to concede a penalty, as he was shoved in the back, but decided to stay on his feet.
Cacic’s lack of urgency played a pivotal role in Croatia’s defeat. Although he brought much-needed stability (at least on the field) back to the team, many will wonder about his inability to make well-timed substitutions. Replacing Ivan Rakitic instead of Brozovic was another questionable decision. With a penalty shootout looming, wouldn’t you want one of your main set piece specialists involved? It was an overall frustrating collection of mistakes from Cacic. Failing to make in-game adjustments will eventually cost a team. Unfortunately, it happened earlier than most expected.
The blame can’t be completely directed towards Cacic. Besides Srna, nobody played incredibly well. It was arguably one of Modric’s worst performances for the national team. The groin injury appeared to play a factor, as he seemed hesitant and misplaced several passes. With Rakitic getting repeatedly fouled and Perisic being well defended, they couldn’t create many chances. Vida had three of the four best scoring opportunities. That should indicate how poorly Croatia played.
As the tradition continues for Croatia in major tournaments, there are justifiable complaints about the refereeing. Portugal committed 28 fouls, yet only received one yellow card. That is a bizarre ratio, especially for the reoccurring fouls on Rakitic. Fonte was very fortunate to not be sent off for stomping Rakitic in an unnecessary manner. It was a physical match, but also a match that needed actual discipline.
Aside from the 1998 team, this was arguably the best Croatia team ever. Every position was filled with talent and experience. There will always be a feeling of “what if” with them. Coaching obviously played a role from their abrupt exit. It can also be argued that Mandzukic is on a steep decline. The once-deadly striker failed to score at a major tournament for the first time in his career. He depends on service to score, but always managed to make a positive impact in most games. It was rare to see him not look like a scoring threat. That wasn’t the case in this tournament. Mandzukic lost the ball on numerous occasions, along with taking shots at difficult angles during the entire tournament. He looked utterly hopeless against Pepe and Fonte on Saturday. While injuries likely played a part, his performances prior to Saturday weren’t exactly promising either.
While Mandzukic will likely remain as the starter, there are lingering questions about Croatia’s striker situation going forward. Kalinic isn’t good enough to start on a consistent basis. His finishing has always been spotty at best. Andrej Kramaric has potential, but needs to establish himself more at a club level. Although Pjaca appears to be a classic attacking winger, it would be interesting to see him used as a lone striker. Cacic needs to figure out a way to include him in the starting eleven. You can’t leave someone as dangerous as him rotting on the bench. If that means placing Mandzukic or Brozovic on the bench, then it’s a risk worth taking.
“What If” is a phrase that will always connect with Croatia. With a more capable manager and better striker (or the Mandzukic from two years ago), they would be preparing for a quarterfinal clash with Poland. Instead, a very exciting tournament full of memorable performances ends in a grueling manner. In 2008, it was what if Martin Taylor didn’t break Eduardo’s leg and Croatia didn’t have to rely on Ivica Olic as a lone striker. In 2012, it was what if Rakitic didn’t head Modric’s beautiful cross right at Iker Casillas. Now it will be what if Croatia had better management and a true goal scorer. For a team filled with world-class players (Modric, Rakitic), dependable veterans (Srna, Corluka), and budding star talent (Pjaca, Vrsaljko), another depressing “what if” memory shouldn’t have occurred. Nevertheless, they need to move on, as a new captain needs to emerge for what should be an interesting World Cup qualifying campaign.
Twitter: @Allen_Strk
Jeremy is not a Hrvat!!!
@BZ
Who again is the greatest mind in sports?
Mamić je KRIV!!!
Oh wait… We qualified?
Never mind.
Good to see the hoops team didn’t replicate the mental midget disease of the soccer team. Bravo momci!!
^^…calling our athletes mental midgets…
More mental strength by Croatian athletes, as we beat Italy to qualify for the Olympics. The Serbs calling our athletes are pretty quiet now.
In soccer, unfortunate we dominated one of the Euro 2016 finalists, but still lost. Like the greatest mind in sports always says, “pretty hard to overcome horrendous officiating no matter how superior you are physically and mentally.” Oh what could have been had those protesters not put our backs against the wall with Uefa & the refs. Good thing the real prize is the World Cup!
I think you are way too generous with Greece. Greece and Italy are not medal contenders; it would be a big surprise if they reached the semis of the Olympics. I would rate them as outsiders. Best Euro teams are Spain, Lithuania, France. I would put Serbia just behind them. And then you can lump in Turkey, Greece, Cro, Italy together.
I’m interested to see what happens with Cro not only today but in the next few years once all these teens and guys in their early 20 develop and mature. PG will still be a big issue for Cro.
There will only be 5 European teams in this year’s Olympics…but it can actually drop down to 3 teams if France and Serbia don’t win their games this weekend.
Why did they change the qualifying format?
These Olympic qualifiers are probably going to be more difficult than the tournament itself, lol. Greece was a potential Olympic medalist and we knocked them out, yet despite this, we still aren’t guaranteed a spot in the Olympics unless we knock out another tournament regular in Italy.
In the other qualifying groups, Turkey is eliminated and France might be too. Even Serbia has no guarantee either. Teams like Slovenia and Russia have been eliminated long ago.
Pretty much if you’re European and you manage to qualify, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you’re a quarterfinalist in the Olympics.
I think the hoops team finds a way to win today.
We’ve played some ugly basketball in the first three games. We played poorly against Italy in the group phase game and still had a chance to win. I think we get it done today. Bogdanovic is the better player on the court and I always like my chances in a one game match up in hoops when I get the best player on the court.
Has anyone seen jeremy toljan play? That would be my only concern. If he’s good we need him. And like ziva said……
@MelbCro
Race/ethnicity deaths by law enforcement in 2015
White/non Hispanic: 578
Black: 301
Hispanic: 193
Asian/Pacific Islander: 24
Unknown: 22
Native American: 13
Arab American: 4
Other: 1
Critics argue that Black people make up 13% of the population so it should be lower. But they are underrepresented if you factor in violent crime offenders.
Been meaning to get familiar with that part of the Bay. Thought I might make it down for the Arsenal/MLS game but it’s not looking likely. Next trip down might be a road trip from Vancouver then I could explore around there a bit more.
Walnut Creek is really nice. A little too Far East for me but still very nice. I prefer the South Bay. Best weather
Gentrification is a goal every impovershed area of the world should aspire to. Now with the Gentrification of this website, can some of the Serb loving conspiracy theorists just leave ( not you Pog)
Usually stay in Oakland cuz it’s nice and central. Last couple of years though room rates are through the roof over there.
Fuckin gentrification!
HA!
Love Berkeley!
Prefer my own smoke over anything I’ve ever had in the States though.
My in-laws are from Walnut Creek and Martinez so I know the East Bay fairly well.
Head over to Berkeley if you want to venture out of Oaktown for some vegan food. I’m sure you can get some weed and patchouli oil for your showers. 😉
That’s right!
Love The Town.
Especially Souley Vegan!
Poglavnik,
You need to turn on the Ocho next time you’re down here. Your Raiders are looking gooooood this year. Moreso than the shitty Niners.
He had a day to rest and the match was over early afternoon. Cilic choked and his a doper. Just a bad combo.
@Maminjo
Hockey is for richer kids but how is it for dumb people?
Im not a fan as I used to be but it’s still so much more entertaining to me than most of the sports that get way more coverage in the States.
Yeah, Golf, Baseball, most NBA games, NCAA basketball, WNBA, those are most definitely sports for “smart” people..
I was going to respond to Ante and say how much I hate sports coverage in the States.
Trying to find a sport to watch on the 3 or 4 or 5 ESPN channels in a hotel room in the States can be so painful sometimes!
More mental strength shown by Croatian athletes today. Great b-ball win, but still a difficult road ahead. If they lose so be it, but that was a clutch win on their part. Can you imagine how many Serbs would have called them mental midgets, had they lost today?
Old but still world #2 almost comes up clutch in his 2nd 5 set match in a row. They say Cilic’s great play in the 5 set match 2 days ago,took too much out of Federer. Federer’s legs were to tired for him to find his serve today. Raonic should thank Cilic.
@Ante
It’s also much cheaper than hockey.
Just need a ball and some grass. Hockey is a rich dumb man’s sport.
How Ziva would you say your Istina is? On a scale of 1-10 and why.
I’m listening to ESPN radio right now, Russillo and Kanell and the subject is the popularity of soccer in America. They are concluding that soccer is now America’s third or fourth most popular sport surpassing hockey. The factors that led to this: more coverage in the US, kids playing it, not too many concussion fear…yet, and…drum roll…VIDEO GAMES. Americans and their kids now know that big players involved.
Thoughts?
Has Toljan gone on the record for which country he wants to represent?
Sertic not getting his paperwork cost him a couple million, I’m sure.
He would’ve started for us at WC2014, got some exposure, and probably would’ve at least had some offers. He’s still stuck at his midtable French league team.
Toljan…….Damn autocorrect…..
And also, let this be a lesson to those of you who claim you are hrvati but can’t speak the language and don’t have citizenship. Learn the fucken language and get your paperwork.
This Tolman is more qualified and more deserving of wearing the national team jersey than the two Brazilians we had and the people we have chased in the oast, Sertich.
NO ISSUES IF HE GETS CALLED UP.
He had cro citizenship from birth
@Maminjo
I don’t know…..has he earned the right to wear our colors. Does he consider himself one of us?
Lol
Sorry guys I know he’s a fraud, I am just looking for specific disproval of that article and I don’t see anything.
On the FBI site it doesn’t go into demographics
https://m.fbi.gov/#https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2015-preliminary-statistics-for-law-enforcement-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty
So I was wondering if someone could point me in that direction
@Elvis
Toljan is not another Sammir.
He is a very capable Left Back who was a former German youth international. He’s been playing first team football in the Bundesliga for some time now, and still pretty young (and will likely get better).
He’s been going to Cro more often and speaking the language probably better than most of us here.
We could definitely use him. I have more of a problem with Eduardo playing for us than him.
Ante, where did you read that the HNS are going to call him up?
If he already represented Germany’s U21, he will only be eligible to play for us if he had Croatian Citizenship prior to representing Germany (which he may have had, unlike Gregory Sertic who never spoke or visited Cro).
Deaths from gun violence are overrated.
In most cases you don’t even feel the pain.
And are people really posting Shaun King articles? Come on folks, wake up.
“Uncuck the right, are there any stats / articles that disprove this from Sean king”
lol Shaun king, the white guy that pretends to be black
Jeremy Toljan
yes another sammir.
Huge win over Greece.
Another example of non mental midgetry.
^ ^
Agree with both points but you’re only adding to the rhetoric.
Best to just ignore it.
1. Why do discussions on this site have to turn to politics and political agendas so often? Or is that considered a “Croatiansport?”
2. Stop with the shots at Canada please. Yes, we may have more ‘lefties’, more ‘socialists,’ and more ‘feminists,’ but we are way less likely to die by gun violence compared to down south. We also have way less gun violence against women, minorities, etc.
^ ^
I like the sound of this!
Jeremy Toljan to play for Croatia!
Confirmed today that the HNS reached out to Hoffenheim leftback Tojlan and his agent and Toljan will be called up for qualifiers in September. Toljan has a deceased American father and a Croatian mother. Grew up in germany and played for German u-21 team. Speaks croatian and visits frequently. Already rejected American invitation to play for their team.
Another win for Milos!!!
Cilic’s choke job was confirmed today. Federer is not anywhere near what he was. Example: Federer losing to Raonic today.
He had the aging guy, but choked.
@Dejan……no, have to beat Italy tomorrow, assuming Italy wins tonight
Good win for Cro……Greece couldn’t make shit. Credit the Cro D.
One more win and they go to the Olympics.
If Croatia beat Greece they qualify?
Hell, it was a 24 point lead.
Entertaining game, but ugly game.
Or offense is give to Bogdanovic and get out of the way. Saric is smart player, but cant shoot well.
Bball blowing at 18 point 1st quarter lead.
The numbers in the king article seem really off when you look at numbers from previous years
http://www.newsweek.com/who-kills-police-officers-315701
Which is why I’m asking? Like he pulled the numbers out of his ass. I can’t find anything that proves / disproves it though.
Uncuck the right, are there any stats / articles that disprove this from Sean king
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-cops-killed-white-men-conservatives-silent-article-1.2632965
Uncuck the right,
Re: the race of cop murderers Shaun king posted this in May
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-cops-killed-white-men-conservatives-silent-article-1.2632965
Do you have anything that can disprove this? I am looking online as the number seems off, especially given the numbers found here
http://www.newsweek.com/who-kills-police-officers-315701
Ie. Any official FBI stats?
God help us. Just remember, Jesus loves you
2nd amendment is very comforting.
God bless the founding fathers.
@Ziva
Puce Puska !!!!!!
At times like these I am comforted by the fact that we have legit news organizations like Fox News that go beyond the over-the-top hysteria and rhetoric, and provide us with reasoned, logical analysis and news coverage. Bravo to Fox News.
I am also comforted by the fact that I can purchase and have purchased firearms to guard and protect the fortified basement. No safer feeling in the world than knowing “Kralj Zvonimir” (my nickname for the AR15) is only a few feet away from me.
The truth is a cop is 5 times more likely to be killed by a Black man than vice versa. That stat has no doubt increased in the last couple of days.
25 to 35 thousand White women raped by Black men on an annual basis.
The amount of White men raping Black women annually is less than 10. Almost a non stat.
The regressives and White cis straight man hating feminists love ignoring that little factual statistic.
@Crnkovic
Having to kill someone is awful. The cop that shot the guy in the car was Asian not white. Do you have any idea how many whites are assaulted. murdered, and raped every year by blacks? No one likes to talk about this right?
@Horvat
Yeah Toronto is PC Central. Feminista haven. Canada is pretty cucked voting in “current year” Trudeau. What a cuck.
There’s still some patriotic Canadians out there. I like Lauren Southern, Gavin Mcinnes, and I like watching Rebel Media.
Nice to see so many “conservative” minded individuals on this site.
I’m from Toronto. The leftist politically correct wimps have taken over this country.
Yes that’s all true. Doesn’t mean a police man is not going to shoot a black kid quicker than a white one. If anything probably means he’ll shoot quicker!! Because he hates them even more now. There you go. Racism is real. The politically correct agenda doesn’t fix it, it makes it worse. Voila
BLACK PRIVILEGE:
1. Black people can create organisations catering to Black people.
Eg: Black student union, Congressional Black caucus, B.E.T, etc. You can never do that if you’re White.
2. Black people can never be accused of cultural appropriation.
3: Black people can use their race to promote themselves. Eg: “I’m the only black candidate running for office”, or “I’m the only Black ( add profession) in the area.
See how far a White person gets for saying something similar.
4: Black people can commit a hate crime and receive far less attention. If you’re a Black victim? It will be mentioned in the media. If you’re a Black perpetrator? It won’t get attention.
5: Black pride is considered a form of empowerment. Whereas White pride is considered RACIST.
6: Black people can call other people racial slurs like” nigga”, “cracker” without the fear of losing their jobs. White people cannot.
7: If a Black person gets into trouble with the authorities, they can accuse authorities of being racist. Most of the time charges will be dropped due to political correctness.
8: Black people can make excuses for their own failures on racism. Essentially play the race card when a situation doesn’t go their way.
9: Black people can be racist as they want without being called racists.
Eg: Jamie Foxx on Saturday night live said about promoting his movie “It’s a great movie because I get to kill White people in it”
Samuel L Jackson said he voted for Obama because he was Black.
Imagine a White actor saying he voted for McCain because he’s White?
10: There are hundreds of scholarships for African Americans. Not one scholarship for Whites of such kind.
11: Black nations will never be told that they need more diversity.
That’s Black privilege.
You know what the say “It’s hard to recognise privilege when you got it”.
It’s to do with power. For example in South Africa today their is an increasing anti-white racism, where individuals are being harassed and blamed for being white. It’s black politicians using race as an excuse to gain support from ignorant people. Scapegoating. This is leading to institutional racism within the police force and education and media. It can swing both ways. It doesn’t mean that whites are bad and blacks are good. It means that power uses race to hide it’s agenda, and people then become affected by it. They become racist. The whole politically correct bullshit reaction to it at the moment is of course bullshit and part of the problem, but you can’t dismiss history, and reality, to justify your position. Try to be fair. No?
Black people commit 60% of shootings, 50% of homicides, 33% of rapes, 40% of violent crimes, and 56% of robberies while being 13% of the population. What’s worse most of the crime is committed be 16-35 year olds which make up 3% of the population. These are overall statistics, not per capita.
In 2015 446 White people were shot by police. There was 225 Black people shot by police. Wow twice as many Whites shot than Black. Yet this leftist media and BLM paint their narrative a different way.
Critics argue that black people are overrepresented in these figures because they only make up 13% of the population. But they are underrepresented if you factor in violent crime offenders. This means police are less inclined to pull the trigger when confronted with a Black perpetrator.
You wanna talk about institutional racism. The FBI categorize offenders into 3 groups. White, Black and other.
Yet the victims category has 4 groups. White, Black, Hispanic, and other.
This means Hispanic men are grouped in with Whites if they commit crime. You could have a hate crime involving two Hispanics because the victim will be categorized as Hispanic, yet the perpetrator will be White. They obviously know the difference between Hispanic and White. That’s some institutional racism going on.
Can you give me one example of institutional racism against blacks?
Institutional racism exist in a culture of attitudes amongst members of an organisation. It is not defined by law. I have seen the difference when I walk with my black friends, and when I walk with my white friends. 9 times out of 10 if I’m with my black friends, driving or walking we will get stopped and harassed by police. Teachers, doctors, restuarant owners, the police just see the black faces and go into a certain mode. How long ago was it that black people were getting lynched by mobs in America? You think that disappears over night? Be realistic. What racism doesn’t exist? Of course it does
…the liberal/leftie/PC thing is half of the matrix mind control machine. The other half is the reactionary/neo facist/greed is good/social Darwinist perspective. They are the day and night of the matrix mirage. To take either side is foolishness, because they depend on each other to keep us in the dream world while the machine uses our blood to feed itself. Can we agree?
What institutional racism? Where’s your proof?
Give me one law that discriminates against black people? Just one?
You’re in the regressive matrix.
Yes uncuck, the media are totally spinning agendas the whole time. It’s the matrix in action. That is for sure. (But of course it is also true that institutional racism is still a massive part of the police force and other institutions, not the media though, it is now more advantageous to corporate interests to promote a multicultural image. I agree)
June 25 an unarmed 19 year old White man was shot and killed by police. Did anyone hear about it in the news? NO! It doesn’t fit the Black victimization narrative.
This blood is on the media’s and Obama’s/Clinton’s hands.
@Maminjo-Your posts lately are making the Serbs on this site look foolish.
I am too bothered about Dallas to post anything, so glad somebody standing up for our great Ctoatian soccer players.
@Maminjo
Very true about clutching up in qualifying.
Almost makes it even more bothersome that we don’t win some winnable games in the actual tournaments.
@ Dennis
Nogomet … No Coach.
Košarka … No Lead Guard.
Rukomet is draining our lead guard pool by recruiting all the ~6’5″ kids before they get exposed to Baksetball.
Leadership , leadership , and more leadership is what Hrvatska needs on all levels.
@ Svima
Portugal has the best player in Europe, a seasoned coach and a full team of quality professionals.
They have enough to beat France inspite of any home cooking.
Ronaldo captains Portugal to title this Sunday, they put to bed Greece fiasco of 2004, he will plus 1 on Messi.
Greizman is breaking through to a new level. Without him France are pedestrian.
Perišić was having this type of run until Druga Liga decided that tactical second half subs are not part of high level football matches.
@ Jogi Lowe
Can Mueleer lead the line?
False 9 again ?
Seems like Mueller is a unique player with his industry and intelligent runs but lacks strength to lead line and was in a slight slump.
Gomez seemed to open up space for others and when given chance put extreme pressure on goal.
You too scared of the early second half sub?
That Newcastle game was my club level Euro 2008 Turkey game.
Also, re: your comment…
“One of the best (and rare) examples of our mental fortitude”
Come on.
We show up in almost ALL of our qualifying campaigns when it matters.
Remember France ’98 qualifying? We were in a distant third place and we walked into Greece and got that critical win. Yes we needed Denmark to draw them in the final game, but that win was friggin huge for us.
WC2002 we had to beat Belgium in the last game and we did.
Euro2004 we had to do the same against Bulgaria in our last game and we did it.
WC2006 we beat the strongest Sweden side ever in Stockholm, and had to ensure a win in Bulgaria to hold on (as Sweden was wrecking everybody else in the group to try and close the gap on us since we drew with Malta in that bad game). We walked into Bulgaria and wrecked them 3-1, and followed it up with a 1-0 win against the Swedes again to confirm our spot at the top.
For Euro2008 qualifying everyone was saying we wouldn’t qualify, yet we not only qualified, we made sure England didn’t.
Euro2012 we showed up huge in Turkey and paid them back in excellent fashion.
For WC2014, we beat an underrated Iceland team despite going down to 10-men in the first half. We outplayed them the entire second half (and even scored on them again) with multiple chances to score more.
We’ve always managed to put ourselves in bad situations from being too lax early in qualifying, them pull it off in the clutch.
The two tourneys we failed to qualify for were by a single point in each campaign. That’s pretty remarkable, especially since one of them was a terrible injury plagued one (with England throwing that game in Ukraine to dick us as well).
@Poglavnik
Funny you bring that game up.
I remember that piece of shit ref (Urs Meier) doing everything he could to ensure we lost. I was convinced that he hated Croats even prior to this game, and I had a feeling he would red card us for something (and he did). He was the same the ref that tried to destroy Dinamo when they played Newcastle back in ’97. Fouls, Penalty, Red Card all in the first half to ensure that they don’t knock out Newcastle. It was awesome seeing 10-man Dinamo come back in the second half and score two goals to take it to extra time. Biggest team vs the ref game I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, that Slovenia game was a bad one, especially when Urs Meier couldn’t wait to throw a straight red at us (which he gave to Tudor). But we still pulled it off. 10-man Croatia still outplayed Slovenia and got the goal that was needed.
I say ‘funny that you bring that game up’ because it’s a great example of Cro not being mental midgets at all. They had everything going against them, and they got the win.
Facetious shit stirrer, you are
@Ante B
Yea, I forgot that you made peace with Cacic, Suker and Mamic.
😉
Man I can’t find the foul count for that Euro 04 Cro-Slo qualifier anywhere. Just reports and other stats.
Almost forgot how crazy that game was.
We go down a man in the 2nd Half and we’re trailing from the first leg on road goals (1-1 in Zagreb). They’d been booting us all game trying to hang on to that slim lead and then Prso buries the winner.
One of the best (and rare) examples of our mental fortitude!
This was also a team that had Sokota Rossi and Zivkovic (as our captain!) In the starting lineup.
Maminjo,
Haven’t heard a response from you after you asked the question. You ok?
Yup. We were still only 3 minutes from overcoming that bullshit.
And I don’t mind that we were pressing because I don’t like our chances in pk’s. We just shouldve been pressing right at the start of extra time and not in the last 10 minutes.
Whenever I think of tons of fouls in a game I think of that leg in Ljubljana when us and Slovenia probably did commit over 50. Players were getting booted up and down the field that day!
Sorry meant to say 40 fouls not 50. Still, my point is valid.
@Poglavnik
That game had the most fouls in the tournament (50), and the least amount of cards (1).
What’s worse is that I personally saw three stomp fouls (which are definitely an automatic yellow, and many times end up being straight reds).
It’s tough to swallow because it was the only tactic that would have worked against us, but it still needed a ton of luck to work (the luck being that the referee looking the other way). The planets aligned against us that game.
I still can’t get over 28 fouls and 1 yellow.
Looked at a bunch of the other games stats and haven’t found any team that had 28 fouls in a game this tourney. Most games the fouls are in the 10-12 a game range.
Bullshit!
Portugal making the finals doesn’t make me feel any better nor worse. I knew before the game and I knew after that this Croatia team had the talent to do something special. Wasted opportunity.
For me it was a definite penalty on the first goal. The header would have been on target and Schweinsteiger blocked it with his hand. Not intentional, but it doesn’t matter.
^^^^^^ yep
Hands in unnatural position
Doesn’t matter if it’s ball to hand when your hand is flailing from your body like that.
If his arms were tight to his body and the ball hit them it wouldn’t get called.
I’ll be honest with you guys it’s been how many days now since we got eliminated? I’m still upset. Can’t watch any other sport and seeing Portugal in the finals enrages me. Just knowing it should have, could have been us.
It wasn’t a penalty kick. It was ball to hand from Evra’s head to Schweinstupid’s hand. Yeah, the hand was in an awkward spot but you can’t call that in a semifinal of a Euro. A penalty should be a 100% clear call. That wasn’t. And the two obvious trips outside the French box in the first half that were ignored? What about that? And Greizmann’s chance in the first 5 minutes where he was given a clear path because Giroud’s held the German defender, who got up screaming at the ref? It wasn’t just one or two calls. It was pretty obvious. The Germans couldn’t finish either so that didn’t help.
No Germany lost because of a foolish pk and a bad give away…….sometimes I honestly wonder if people watch the games they comment about……
Ziva,
I agree. Germany losing today is not because they’re mental midgets. But the same goes for Croatia.
Croatia has better football players than Portugal but Germany has way better player than France. But sometimes you just need some luck to win. That’s football.
I think we have some great players (we’re only a country with 4,5 people) but just not great enough. They’re not mental midgets, they’re just not great enough (to win a tournament).
The proof:
I know it will never happen but just imagine that Croatia and Germany would be one country. Which Croatian player would make be good enough to play for that national team?
I think Modric would be better than Khedira or Can. If he was German he would play for the Mannshaft. But would Mandzukic play in stead of Muller? Would Rakitic play in stead of Kroos? Would Corluka play in stead of Howedes?
Germany had many more chance than we did against Portugal. We had nothing until the end.
Germany lost the same way Croatia lost – missed opportunities, horrible officiating and bad luck. And the defensive turnover on the second goal was horrible, but Strinic’s was not as bad.
Pretty awesome for France that all they’ve had to do this tournament was beat B or C level teams to get to the semis and the officials to help them to the finals. And the final will be more of the same. Portugal will play exactly how they played against Croatia. The difference is that yellow and red cards will be shown.
Negative…….Germany losing today is not due to mental midget disease.
As much as it pains some of you, not all athletes and nation’s suffer from mental midget disease like our guys do.
I know, right?
^^
^^that might be from an anon but don’t delete it. A fun post to read.
Crnkovic
^^
Good game. Germany choked lol. It’s up to a fresh new team, with an exciting brand of football, skillful players, passionate fans and a never say die attitude to set a new benchmark for entertainment a verve at Russia 2018. Preferably a nation with a beautiful coastline, beautiful girls, an interesting history…a country that isn’t part of the tired narrative, a small country. A country that can say we are different and we don’t care, a country with a large diaspora to celebrate in every corner of the earth. A country with really bad pop music and refreshingly un PC political views…let’s go croatia. Has anyone signed pjaca yet? I thought it was a done deal to INTER?
Lame game, lame tournament as far as I am concerned.
Euro mental midget count up to 22! One more to go!
If one wants to exclude Iceland’s systematic doping team from the mental midget list; I’ll concede that point.
No profit, no work. Yes cilic definately choked. It takes one to know one, and ziva knows a mental midget when he sees one. Mixed grill, is the chilcot report out? I wonder what kind of sanitized version of reality it shows? They have had long enough to cut their deals and PR the truth. I’d guess it represents roughly 25% of the reality. Which will still be enough to show what a bunch of lying, murdering thieves the mainstream western establishment is. But seriously, I’m tired of politics after a week talking to fidel. Willing to discuss anything else…don’t have the energy to take on 15 baying reactionaries at once 😉
No work no eat !!
Fuck UEFArance!
Go Portugal.
The jury decided…..Up 2 sets to none and having multiple break points in the third set is a choke. No other unbiased way of looking at it.
And Federer today is not the Federer of yesteryear. How long has it been since he won a Grand Slam?
It was a choke by Doper Cilic. Couldn’t finish = choke job.
Ref’s not too subtle in this game. The mandate is clear – France has to win. No calls on obvious falls outside the French box. And then an iffy penalty. Ball to hand. I know Shweinstupid had his hand up but he didn’t directly hit the ball, Evra headed it on his hand. The French had all the calls in ’98 too. And an Italian ref after Germany beats Italy. That would be like Croatia beating Spain and then getting a Spanish ref to do their next game. Oh wait.
Welcome back Crnkovic, I suppose you will leave us a again for a while as you memorize the Chilcot report?
Hey guys. Don’t worry, I’m still here. Just been out to visit my good friend fidel Castro in Cuba. Plotting how to overthrow capitalism. Didn’t have much time for croatiansports for a few days. Now back home in front of my widescreen plasma TV, so fire away. For the record BZ I have no problem with ziva, other than that he is a mental midget…
Maminjo,
Your memory is also beginning to be measured in nanoseconds.
Look at my comment at 10:24am.
http://croatiansports.com/?p=26999
I’m with ya BZ don’t think it was a choke either as I was under the impression that if it went to the 5th class and expirence would take over
I’d say cilic can’t couldn’t finish is the problem, 3 match points
@Ante B
But he’s a Mamić puppet, is he not?
How can you support this?
@Zdravko
Ma daj you’re not half Hrvat.
Saw the article today about Cacic remaining coach. I’m fine with it and honestly think he learned his biggest lesson and got some tournament experience in. He just has to make his subs earlier.
@ziva- Sorry, not a choke. Again Federer is clutch, more so than any of his opponents choking. Sometimes the great ones do great things. Cilic is really good but not great. The World #2 is the all-time greatest, and he served up some clutch 2nd serves. Not easy to do in those moments.
Think of it this way: you are likely not great at much, but we all agree you are a great troll. I expect you to make a clutch troll-like response to this reasonable post.
Ziva,
There were two threads below for Cilic winning the US Open, one during the match and one after. You made a total of zero posts. Why? Because he won. If he lost, it would have been Doper Cilic this and Doper Cilic that. The only post related to Cilic winning in another thread was responding to others that you had to reveal your identity if Cilic ever won a grand slam, since you said you would do so if he did that. You played dumb to those inquiries. That would be selective memory.
http://croatiansports.com/?p=20193
http://croatiansports.com/?p=20183
@Marijan…….if you are going to troll, at least don’t make things up. Better technical player?????
Ok Djokovic may have more a few more Gran Slams but the style of play is cheep he uses drop shots to get his points. Cilic is a better technical player and he went further in this tournament then Novak. Novak lost to some 28th seed guy.
@marijan dude I’m Croatian and even I know that cilic is not better than djokovic how does that even make any sense…cilic has 1 major title to novaks 15 or 16 you’re on crack dude
@mile……….actually, I did post positives when Doper Cilic won the US Open. You just have selective memory. Don’t forget I’m an advocate for all things Croatian. Or, do you just prefer to be a cheerleader.
Did Cilic choke yes he did, did our soccer team choke yes they did. We had bad luck it should have been Croatia in finals on Sunday but unfortunately its Portugal.
Im not sure why we get Serbs involved in these discussions
Their soccer team is crap and Marin Cilic is a better tennis player then Djokovic will ever be. Rankings don’t mean shit.
Need a new story. Someone write up a U19 preview, lol.
And of course ziva will say Cilic choked. He only posts when Cilic loses. Did he post anything positive when Cilic won the US Open? Of course not, because that was a good thing a Croatian accomplished. It didn’t fit his narrative to shit on Croats when they fail. And he enjoys shitting on Cilic even more when Djokovic is involved. Pretty sad actually.
So, what do you call up 2 sets to love, 3-3 in the third and 0-40?
So, what is choke job?
@Denis- Agreed on Cilic. Losing to the best tennis player of all time, (who happens to still be ranked 2nd in the world) does not equal a choke. Missed opportunity, yes–but you don’t become the all time greatest tennis player w/o fending off a few match points. Being “clutch” is in the job description. Federer came up with some great serves when he needed them. Many Serbs are saying Cilic choked, but those Serbs are mental midgets..
There is nothing wrong with this site. It’s rather tame compared to what I read in the world. Our players choke under pressure and this is a fact. It has happened to many times now. I suspect that our millennial populations dont like the negativity because
They can’t handle it
@xo times………..I’ve tried to educate a few. I give them suggestions, encourage them to learn the language, etc. But, at the end of the day I am only one man living in a fortified basement. There is only so much one man can do. My only agenda and narrative is the “za dom……spremni” lifestyle.
@Denis…….that was a choke by Doper Cilic. Up 2 sets to none, 3-3 in the third and you have three break points on Federer. If that is not a choke, I don’t know what it. All in all, a good performance by Cilic. This is his level right now. He is a guy in the 7-12 range in the world, which is very respectable. But, he had a golden chance yesterday and that was a choke. Not a big issue. Lot of players choke when the occasion gets to big for them.
@slavonac,
“Still can’t wait for September though!”
Wait for what? Nothing will change.
@Brkic,
I will try to keep the site clean. Thanks for the comment.
@Ziva,
cilic had 5 good chances but couldn’t close out Federer. I wouldn’t say major choke job. It doesnt help Cilic to look at his corner and watch Ivanisevic shit himself with his face in his hands. Cilic played his game and missed his opportunities in the end. Shit happens. Now, if he played like a puss and sliced balls left and right, then I would be pissed.
@Iggy,
Boycott!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
What about that bball team? I cant wait to interview them next year.
I can’t figure out our basketball team. 4 NBA players and they can’t figure it out. No rythm, no spirit, no trust in each other, just give the ball to Bogdanovic and watch him work.
I dont see them beating the greeks and Then Italy to make the Olympics. The sad part is that on paper, we have more talent then both sides.
@Maminjo and a few others….
I talked to a few “velike sportske face” here in Sibenik and they all came to the conclusion that Cacic is not as bad as people make him out to be. Cacic had only partial control of the team as Mamic made him look like an idiot for failing to make the right subs, failing to make any subs, etc etc.
I watched a video the other day of someone taping Mamic from the stands shouting orders at Cacic during the games.
Im enjoying the boycott 🙂
Half Slovenian and half Croatian.
^^^^
“the reason they come here is to get informed” ridiculous statement, who informs them, Ziva??
people who have an agenda, a narrative, sorry no one gets informed with the idiotic postings
only person anyone can learn from is Slavonac
I think it’s a basic idea that today’s post don’t reflect/relate to when croatian soccer report was just a blog, the situations are just different, you might be just a little nostalgic, and if you have a problem with today’s postings and want to go back to the happy few then tell your pal to make the site private and password required?
Watch the Croatian league? …..why…..didn’t do it then won’t now
Know the news before they come here? this is some peoples only outlet for Croatian sports news as they don’t speak/read much croatian, the reason they come here is to get informed
The only thing I can agree with you is going to games I think maybe 3 of us went to the euros, but oh well can’t knock people for that, people got jobs and families
No, not really. I remember a lot of the early guys who used to post here who no longer come around. Different level, different dynamic, different time. Guess that’s the evolution of things.
@ante b- you want to be alone with ziva? You got it.
Ante Wanna-BBB. I love it! Write that down.
Opportunities have been knocking for fucking years and we haven’t answered. Spain Italy Turkey. Should woulda coulda didn’t!
I’ve had enough of this shit..
Opportunities have been knocking for fucking years and we haven’t answered. Spain Italy Turkey. Should woulda coulda didn’t!
I’ve had enough of this shit..
Ante B says: “change is inevitable though”
-yeah, except you are still a BB wanna B who still wants to bring up the most boring and oldest topic in the history of this website “Who’s the greater Croat?.”
I know, don’t worry, you and Ziva are still the best.
Including a good team, in 98 he had a few more things going for us. We got some luck. A group with Argentina and 2 other countries in the World Cup for the first time, Jamaica and Japan. We also forget Jarni Suker Boban Stimac Prosinecki won the world youth championship together. Romania upset England which is why we played Romania and Argentina played England. We got a penalty and a red card against Germany. We still played well that tournament. We were lucky and had Prosinecki played vs France who knows how different things could have been. Then again some people would argue that you make your luck.
Guys regarding Euro performances the past 3 tournaments, we lost in 2008 to Turkey after a last second goal/penalties, 2012 we tied the Italians who were runner ups and took it to Spain who were eventual Champions, 2016 beat reigning Euro champs Spain and losing to semi finalist Portugal
Is that a result of the supposed “mental midget” disease term that keeps floating around this site? Coaching? Savez? Mamic? Anything else?
Don’t get me wrong, we would all like a trophy and in all fairness for a country of Croatia’s population to make that much noise in 3 tournaments over 12 years is impressive.
The Turks won every group game in the dying moments before us – we were unlucky, 2012 we had a hard group and it was expected that we would finish behind Spain and Italy and we did but we also played well and this year we all know what happened. Croatia is a good squad but we are not a top 3 world power that sometimes some of us think they are and then label them as mental midgets if they fail.
If you want to crunch numbers excluding Uruguay the past few years, Iceland and Wales in only this tournament – Croatia arguably does extremely well relative to its population size. We do expect a lot. Messi finished 2nd in 3 Copas and 1 World Cup and people give him a hard time. Mind you he does have a good team around him.
me above
haven’t read anything for a few days but the vancouver canucks signed Borna Rendulic. sweet!! lol like thats gonna help us but still cool to see
i have avoided the forum… all i could hear is the pork and cheese honking their horns on commercial for any vancouver boys… this is the worst;)
Zdravko isn’t Serbian, he’s German or French depending on who wins tomorrow. But then again maybe he’s Portuguese if they can stage an upset in the final… Kinda like the guy named Turkey who is actually Italian;)
One of the best perks of working in high tech is getting a week paid shutdown during Fourth of July. Just got back from the cabin near Yosemite and have a strong signal again.
Ziva, if everything changed, I would argue this site would go back to being normal like it did in the normal early days from waaaaay back in 2008/9. A restart would be perfect. One where people knew what they were talking about, didn’t need a history lesson, went to games, knew the news from the clubs from on and off the field, watched the Croatian league, when the posters weren’t sensitive…when we were few, the happy few. Change is inevitable though.
…..really do anything to remove the label is what i meant
@mimanjo
The mental midget label for me was stamped when seeing this team for the first time in its history go to penalty kicks and COMPLETELY lose composure. Nothing since then really has erased that label to be honest. Playing your heart out is one thing. Buckling completely is another. I don’t attest our exit this tournament to their mental fortitude but they didn’t really do nothing to remove the label
And the shit show continues. Zdravko meet Ziva, you two will get along swimmingly!
@maminjo-good stuff, even though we disagree on some points.
Im not Serbian.
Oh great. Another Canadian-Serbian troll obsessing about Croatia and visiting their websites to talk smack.
Is it a slow news day for your Serbian news websites that constantly obsess about Croatia? B92, InSerbia, BalkanInsight, lol, so many to choose from.
Yes the more you read this forum the more you realize how retarded Croats are.
LOL.
Oh man. Too many retards on this site.
There is a disconnect between our players minds and thei feet. Sign of mental midget syndrome. Tudor missing that opportunity against Australia was the early symptom. Our players are to Fucken nervous when given the opportunity
Don’t get me wrong, Mamic is a crook, but the players on our 23-man roster would be the same players if he’s there or not.
You could argue Lovren and Halilovic all day, but those two probably would not have made an impact to our tournament chances. Most people (myself included) have no faith in Lovren, and although Halilovic is a talented player on the right side, I think that most people would agree that Pjaca played very well in that spot anyway.
Actually, most people were livid when Pjaca was called up, and now these same people are livid that Pjaca did not play enough. Mamic, in some contradictory way, is somehow at fault for both, lol.
Whether we have Mamic influencing the HNS or not, these same players (Modric, Rakitic, Perisic, etc) still make the team and are our starters…and they will still miss chances. They will also score some as well.
The only “potential” positive change in removing Mamic would be getting a better coach, but for some reason I’m not too sure about that.
We were hiring washed up old coaches prior to Mamic being here and we were paying them $60K per year. Not sure why that would suddenly change with Mamic gone.
@Stef T.O
Are you seriously listing out all the chances that were missed in previous tournaments and labeling it as mental weakness?
This is football.
There are multiple missed chances in every game, by both teams.
You count our missed chances, but ignore everyone else’s?
What about Ramos missing that penalty against us a couple weeks ago? And De Gea guessing wrong and being scored on by Perisic in the dying seconds to lose the game?
Are Spain mental midgets now because of those two messed up chances?
In Euro 2012, we got SCREWED against Italy with Ballotelli randomly falling down outside the penalty box and getting a foul call (with noone around him). Pirlo scores of that free kick, and the game ends up a 1:1 draw. That goal cost us a win, and likely a run in the knockout phase. Where is the mental midgetry in that game? Yet you only talk about the Rakitic header in the next game? A game where Spain was gifted every chance by the ref to not lose to us and get eliminated?
Your suggestion is removing Mamic and all those missed chances for us (or gifted chances for the opposing team) will disappear? LOL.
Delusional.
@mkez00
Yes, Portugal did get a lot of luck bounce their way this tournament. But I’m sure if we analyzed the many times they’ve made it to the quarters/semis/finals in previous tournaments, they probably were very unlucky many times as well.
Off the top of my head, they did lose to Spain in a shootout four years ago at Euro2012 in the semis. Shootouts are a coin toss. That was a shame. Maybe they coulda won that tournament.
..Or that unfortunate loss to Greece at Euro2004 where they completely outplayed Greece, but still lost 1-0 on their home soil on the ONLY shot that Greece had on goal. That must have been devastating. I can’t imagine that scenario happening to us. This website would crash if it did, lol.
Today Portugal won and is in the finals. It could have been Croatia today but thankfully its not. You have a great team but your heads get to you thinking that your number one way too soon. I’m not sure that this team is better then the Yugo Generation Croats of 98 or maybe it is but little mistakes and not being able to score on many chances you had against Portugal maybe cost Croatia a chance at possible finals. Too bad at this point Nobody cares what could have should have.
I can’t shake the bitterness I have towards Portugal.
– a retarded format gets them in a spot in the knockout rounds with 3 ties
– a last second Iceland goal gets them to the knockout rounds
– a ref that lost his yellow card allows foul after foul against us
– penalty shoot out goes their way
– a schizophrenic Belgium loses to a shit Wales team
– a stupid yellow card rule rules Wales second best player out against them
… My God luckiest fuckers of all time!!!
Stef…..be careful what you wish for. If we cleaned house and had a savez all hrvati were proud of, we would have nothing to bitch about. And this site would die. It is better for this site when hrvatska loses and we have idiots in charge. It generates more traffic to the site and discussion.
All i hear are excused. How do you explain a Tudor back pass against France, Mornar missing an open net two feet in front of goal, Olic blowing a open net, Tudor missing a complete open goal in the dying seconds against Australia, Rakitic header against Spain? List goes on and on.
It sounds to me we have a confidence and mental toughness issue. We need a culture change and it starts with removing Mamic and having the people vote in our leaders like a presidency.
@Maminjo
Good points all around!
I ran into a bunch of random Portugal fans today on the way home from work.
Their mentality is just like ours. They hate their coach. They were complaining at how poorly Portugal played against us, and only give him credit for the Wales game.
They would prefer to play beautiful football. If it were up to them, they would have preferred that Portugal play us straight up. I told them that their coach is smart and it is very likely that Portugal would have lost had they done that.
@Rafael
Portugal are FAR from being historical losers at the Euros. They have never finished worse than the top-8 in all of the years that they have qualified (and that goes back to the 80s).
They’ve never won it, but they’ve only ever made it to the quarters, semis, and finals. Never have they ever been knocked out in the first round. Even Germany were knocked out early in both Euro2004 and Euro2000 (with Portugal actually being the ones to eliminate them).
This is a remarkable streak. It is about time Portugal won one.
However, I do agree with your assessment on Cacic not being able to adjust to the tactics and non-responsive referee.
I think Cacic does well to pick the lineup, but his in-game adjustment is where he suffers. To his credit, most coaches would struggle to find the answer to this game. Also, this is what you get when your limit your head coach salary to only $250K.
I think he’s good value for dollar as he picked the right 23 man roster (despite many people calling for his head for selecting Mamic players like Marko Pjaca, now ironically those same people are criticizing him for not playing Pjaca more). But I don’t care for a good value-for-dollar coach. I want an experienced coach that can take us further (meaning we have to budget $1 million or more for this to happen).
^ ^
Definitely!
620 comments on the subject isn’t nearly enough!
I guess you can say Druga Liga Cacic showed his true colors when ithe mattered the most. Perhaps he has mental midget disease and not the players or a combo of the two. Let’s discuss this further, shall we.
How have Portugal parked the bus? They were wide open against Hungary. Attacked in all 3 of their group games but missed many of their chances. And quite frankly looked very shitty.
They simply chose to play us defensively because they had enough brains to know they would let in goals if they played wide open. They are an average team who have capitalised on a weak bracket.
Croatia and no sub Cacic are to blame for not having the balls to take risks vs a boring/conservative Portugal. They fouled and fouled. And yes the referee screwed us but we were so predictable it was maddening.
Portugal are historical losers just like us. But they managed to to out smart us. Their coach choose the Greek way against us.
Cacic had no plan B. He had no means of changing his attacking prowess. He had no plans for implementing a 2nd striker. He had no intention on using Kalanic or Kramaric alongside Mandzo. He had no balls to take out one of Modric, Badelj or Rakitic and replace them with a striker because he feared the counter. He had no intention of taking out a marathon runner like Brozo and replacing him with an explosive winger who runs at players like Pjaca.
You fear you lose! You can’t adapt on the fly you lose! Portugal and their inferior team adapted and they won. Cacic did a nice job in the group stage but showed his lack of quality in the group knockout game.
We can analyze it til the cows come home.
For me its as simple as post ’98 there have been 9 tourneys, 7 of which we’ve qualified for and not a single ko round win despite being favoured over Australia, Turkey, Ecuador, Mexico, and Portugal.
In a nut shell that’s it for me.
Bed-shitters!
Having said that, I’m not one to harp on our own or bring up the past TOO much, so lets just forget about it and think of September.
That like England is becoming our biggest problem.
Dwelling on the past and being scared of more failure.
@Poglavnik
The whole “history of our performance” does not apply to a completely different crop of coach and players. That’s just sensationalism. Look at Belgium’s history. Look at Poland’s history. Iceland, Wales, etc, etc. None of this applies to their teams today.
We weren’t bed shitting mental midgets in 2002 and 2004. Those were our post-war doldrum years and we barely had any decent players on our roster. Most teams never win games in a tournament, yet we always seem to win one and never finish at the bottom of the group even with horrible rosters.
Davor Vugrinec was our most creative talent on the 2002 squad, and Nenad Bjelica was our creative midfielder on the 2004 squad. Think about that for a second…and we somehow pulled out a victory against a decent Italy squad and drew a decent French side with those two crap teams.
Losing to an equally crap Ecuador in a boring talentless game is not some mental midget syndrome. That 2002 team was our worst ever. Also, losing to a pretty strong England team in 2004 is not shitting the bed, lol. Surprised we managed to make a game out of it by scoring first, and finishing the game 4-2.
We finally started producing decent talent again in 2006, and we were very unlucky against Japan and a very underrated Australia in that World Cup. Euro 2008 was good, but how do you defend against a weird Hail Mary deflection shot in the last minute of the game (with the ref ignoring Bilic’s calls for a substitution)?
Got screwed a bit by the ref there, along with Turkey getting a TON of luck in the end there. That’s not them being mental midgets, lol. Spain in Euro 2012 also got very lucky against us (along with a bit of shafting by the ref).
You can chirp all you want about a completely different group of individuals for suffering from some made-up syndrome, or you can analyze the games and base your conclusion on the information in front of you.
This Euro 2016 exit was a result of a strong Portugal coach (who has experience in getting the most out of teams using unpopular tactics) playing the right tactics against us, with a lot of luck coming his way from the referee who decided to let some fouls go (despite many of them easily being yellows, and even arguably some reds).
This game and loss left a bitter taste in our mouths, as their coach didn’t allow for a straight up match between Portugal and Croatia to occur. They sat back, fouled, and played for a 0-0 draw (with the hope of an odd counter attack if it came up).
It’s especially bitter because Poland and Wales would not have played this kind of anti-football and it probably would have resulted in us being in the Finals. But it’s Portugal who are there instead. Good for them.
Cacic couldn’t adjust to the tactic that Santos employed.
But you have to admit, it IS pretty hard to adjust to a tactic that involves having your most creative midfielders constantly stomped on whenever they got the ball.
You have to simply rely on the referee to correct this, but for some odd reason, the ref didn’t feel like giving out yellows.
A better coach may have gotten us a result in this game, but no matter what coach we had, this was going to be a close and painful game.
@Maminjo
If our type of loss were a one-off I’d agree with you.
Unfortunately our footballing history post ’98 proves we’re a bunch of bed-shitting mental midgets.
Still can’t wait for September though!
Yeah we should keep telling ourselves that.
I’m not cheering for anyone. Until Cro finally gets a real coach that they deserve we will amount to nothing! The reason we are stuck in “mental midget mode” is because of tactical error behind the scenes. So until then were fucked royally.
@maminjo- agreed
@to all- I hear Serbs are rooting for Portugal to lose in finals, b/c if Portugal win it all the Serbs would then have to admit that:
A-Croatia dominated the euro champs
B-That losing to a team good enough to make it to the finals does not make Croatia players mental midgets. Rather just a victim of poor officiating, and retarded policies in which players get punished for acts performed by protesting mental midgets.
Portugal’s coach is smart. He did well as Greece’s coach as well,playing very smart tactics on a game by game basis.
They played the best possible tactic against us and had some luck on their side too.
Had nothing to do with our players being “mental midgets”. Only unstable emotional idiots would believe that.
Im pulling for the Poor-chugs.
Screw Germany and France and any other big team.
I don’t blame the Porky’s for our deficiencies.
We’re bed-shitters.
All we do is shit the bed!
So…if Portugal wins this tournament, does this end the Bojkot?
Better team won tonight. Ramsey sure would have helped Wales in the MF, but better team won tonight.
Portugal sure wont win over any neutrals. Hoping they lose on Sunday.
Portugal and the bus parking continue to the Euro 2016 finals.
I’m sick to my stomach!
Don’t be ripping the side man bag. I prefer Prada, but Louis Vuitton makes a nice one.
Poor Crnkovic. The end of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the return of Ziva Istina. Too many shocks for one man to bear. As we speak he is getting comfortable in front of his ultra HD giant flat-screen TV. He would roll up his sleeves but he exclusively wears plaid short sleeve dress shirts (and shorts of course, who needs pants). He removes his super sized Prada sunglasses and rests his ultra thick mesh sandals onto the ottoman. He checks his apple watch, throws his latest iphone on the table, removes his Louis Vuitton side man bag, and opens his deluxe take away sushi. Nothing signifies the glories of capitalism like a constant stream of sushi…He puts the game on and thinks “You know what man? I’ve made it!”
Zzzzzzz
What shit show?
not only Crnkovic that isn’t posting, many other insightful contributors left the site to avoid the ziva shit show.
No argument with those points Ziva, except to add that his ego was a bigger priority than playing for the NT. Not sure he didn’t want to play though.
Lovren was a baby
And Cacic’s lack of experience handling stars and players with big egos was evident. A more experienced coach would not have allowed it to reach that point.
But, Lovren also deserves blame and probably more of it. If he really wanted to play for the repka, he would have. The national team is not a priority for him and that is fine. Give him credit for being honest about it.
Sorry to bring this up again, but if Lovren and Cacic had been adults in the run up to the Euros, it should have been Corluka and Lovren in the center and Vida at LB. Vida was our best LB based on form and experience at the time, but we needed him in the center bc of no Lovren.
If Strinic gets more playing time for his club he may be the best option at LB through the WC qualification. He has made some statements that he wants playing time so he may be leaving Napoli.
Cilic had him dam . Regardless Cilic is still a better player then Djokovic.
Well, to be fair. I don’t think anyone is expecting the basketball team to qualify for the Olympics.
What might have been for Doper Cilic. With no half-hrvat Djokovic he didn’t have to worry about losing to him for the 15th straight time. Although, lets be honest, nobody beats Cilic 15 straight times, so I would have liked Cilic’s odds.
Cilic blew it. He had match points in three different games and missed multiple second serve returns. Federer is a shadow of what he was. This was Cilic’s chance to sneak in another slam and he blew it. Overall a pretty brutal last two weeks for Croatian sports – the soccer debacle, basketball team losing yesterday and now Cilic.
Doper Cilic with an epic choke. Man, that was bad.
cilic maaaaan
If someone entered a time machine in 1944 and arrived at today’s date; and they caught a glimpse of Hiroshima, then went to Detroit; That someone would be under the impression that Detroit was bombed, and the United States lost the war.
It’s so cold in the D.
Agreed……..Strinic was the better option at LB. I usually in favor of playing the guy in his natural spot instead of someone out of position.
Vrsaljko has a good future ahead with the repka.
Vrsaljko was bad at left back vs Spain. I have no idea why people use him as an example…just because he’s great at right back.
he looked lost defending and gave far too much space to his opponent.
I have a better idea. Ban all Communists and Bernie Sanders supporters.
Great opportunity for Doper Cilic today. With the half-Hrvat Djokovic out, he has the opening to get to the finals.
cilic
Click my name and scroll down and u get Hrvatska tributes 😀
@MelbCro
Just call me Fifa rankings you idiot!
according to the rankings we got to where we were supposed to get too!
according to :
in agreement or accord with.
“And the fact you continue to defend the FIFA ranking says it all. Also what an intellectually dishonest argument to make “oh its the same for everyone”, well duh”
How am I intellectually dishonest, is it because you say I defend the rankings, or because I said the rankings are the same for everyone, which is obvious?
Love how quickly Lazio does a runner when he gets shown up for the casual numpty that he is.
@Denis
While you’re at it deleting the anonymous posts, maybe you can remove the racial slurs? That’s the only mental midget disease I see evidence of.
he is no croatian, just causing trouble
@croatianperson85
that crnkovic is an idiot
Hey Ziva
What’s your prediction on who wins the Euro?
Ps. No Crnkovic for a while? That “embarrassed to be Croatian” line really backfired.
BTW i laughed my arse off cos someone on Facebook suggested boycotting QLD due to the Pauline Hanson result. Hahaha. Denis would fit right in there, calling for a boycott the moment something goes wrong
We’re worse than Engerand so if they’re a 10 we’re an 11. As i said earlier in this thread, the gap between our best play and worst is far greater than england. England never impressed whereas we actually did. So you’d have to think we’re bigger chokers than Engerand for sure.
I can’t participate in the mental midget survey.
I predicted a 2nd rnd exit.
same as the English. I don’t know what you could prescribe for mental midgetcy disease?
Assuming Bender is willing to put on his shoes.
Both teams shot like crap, and you gotta hit your free throws. Saric with a very poor shooting game, but does other things.
They can beat Italy if they get a chance to play them again. It’s Greece they won’t beat. Saric and Hezonja are way too young to be the consistent scorers we need them to be. Maybe in a few years with Bender and a few others developing.
Me, self hating????? Not at all. No proof at that.
Cro basket loses today. Bogdanovic was outstanding. Saric with a nice double-double. Hezonja……he was there.
Next three games are all must win or no Olympics.
Players … Moj Kurac!!!!!!!
You need a real manager to make some tactical subs.
It is modern football , every team in a major tournament can be set up to be competitive.
You put in Vrsaljko for Strinic for some fresh legs and dynamic attacking speed.
Definitely keep in Rakitic!!!!
Take off Brozovic for Pjaca.
From the beginning you take Lovren and Halilovic.
Throw a rock at a player’s family?
Classic Balkan displacement.
Pulisic made a good move avoiding the Balkan BS that still grips Ljepa Nasa. Rakitic on Switzerland beats Poland and then Portugal with EASE! More than half of his career with HNS has been with inexperienced SUB par hacks for managers.
Curious to see who out of the veteran core wants to keep on with the repka?
@ Ziva
You are one Cynical Self-Hating Hrvat … BUT … Unfortunately there is thread of ISTINA in your posts when it comes to the depressed state of Croatian sports/politics.
The reality is WE ARE NOT a sports nation.
Iceland in many ways is a superior soccer nation as compared to the weak infrastructure of the HNS. They have produced a kick ass crew with a population of 330 k !!!!!
What we are is a nation of talented people that produce a few world class athletes despite the dysfunctionality.
What we do well is sit in the kafic and diminish our own people.
Ironic how the site is truly CROATIAN as we are able to do this round the world via our threads/posts. We should name the site, Kaficsports.com
Fully guilty myself as I enjoy posting on a regular basis.
Can Croatia being doing better … YES! Should we expect them to do better … NO!
Croatia should double down on sports as it is there best export.
Have sports academies for kids and found out which sports they are naturally gifted in and train them to be world class.
Have youth coaches regain there stature and pay them well as educators of young men.
Clean up all self serving Balkan soul suckers and cultivate the natural talent of the next generation.
Bog i Hrvatska.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW. East on the “have to make a semifinal run” at the World Cup.
You have to walk before you can run.
We have to teach our guys how to run at the international level and find a prescription for the mental midget illness.
@Ziva
Croatia is definitely a 10. Same level as England, if worse. We actually have players who can play for the world’s top teams, the English not so much. Currently I don’t think any Englishman could play for the likes of Bayern, Barca, Real, or Juve.
We have been patiently waiting 8 years for a Croatia tournament success. We have been staying positive and showing support for the players. They beg for support and understanding in the media and we have been supplying it. Euro 2008 heartbreak, WC 2010 didn’t even make it, Euro 2012 and WC 2014 didn’t even make it out of group stage, Euro 2016 we crash out in round of 16. Always someone else’s fault. The coach or Maminjo. Never the players. I think if they don’t make at least a semi final run in Russia they all deserve their windows broken like Rakitic’s. Sick of supporting these over-paid mental midgets while they moan how everyone is on their case.
What are those points?
Oh Ziva, keep ignoring the points that don’t suit your argument. Yawn.
Argentina made the final of the World Cup and lost in extra time, and that’s bad? Yikes. I think you need to add another level – 11 and call it the Ziva level.
Friends, I was asked recently just where we rank on the mental midgetcy scale. That word has been thrown out a lot over the last few weeks and I think some of you need to know more about it. So, as the self-appointed ombudsmen, here you go:
The Mental Midget evaluation system works on a 1 through 10 scale.
1 – German soccer. They don’t lose because of mental midget disease. They might lose a match here and there, but it wont’ be due to be handicapped in the brain.
3 – Italy soccer. Not much on the entertainment factor, but hardly fall due to mental midget disease.
7 – Argentina with Messi. They just can’t get win a title. They get so close, but they blow their load right before the big moment.
10 – England soccer. As soon as something goes wrong, they crumble.
Anything 3 or below, is a positive on the mental midget scale. 4 and above leads to concern. So, I ask you this……Where does Cro soccer fall on this scale.
Durant wants to win a title……..Right? He has a better chance winning a title with GS than OKC, does he not?
If he wins a title, his Nike contract kicks in with the bonuses and that more than makes up for higher taxes in Cali.
He sacrificed some money for the increased odds of winning a title. He should be applauded. He is a team first guy.
Maybe he prefers the lifestyle in the Bay area as opposed to living next to hillbillies.
@Mile- Ziva might be right. He knows the mindset of a serb better than anyone else on this site (Not a compliment).
@ziva -Regarding Durant, so a Ziva promotion consists of the following:
1-a paycut
2-less prominent role
3-higher taxes (california)
4-less off court earnings potential compared to other markets Ny/chicago/la.
Sounds like life has sold you a box of rocks, but we already knew that.
Why?
I really doubt a ref is going to ruin his career over this.
Croatian refs have done Serbia games without issue.
One of the referees in today’s Croatia-Italy Olympic basketball qualifier is Serbian. That makes sense.
Guys, one last thing about the FIFA rankings – it doesn’t mean anything. The rankings aren’t used to determine groups for draws for the Euros, where the UEFA coefficient is rightly used, which actually measures results for qualifying and tournaments. The only issue is WC draws, where FIFA rankings have been used to put teams in certain pots, so there can be some difficult groups and easier groups, as we have seen. Since FIFA uses friendlies in their rankings, you can’t take them seriously.
Croatia was #10 after qualifying ended for WC 2010. They had been higher because of the performances at Euro 2008 qualifying and final tournament. They beat England twice in qualifying and Germany in the tournament. They got a lot of points for beating these high ranked teams. Then they started to slip after that.
@MelbCro
“And look at our side of draw, what a blown opportunity to go deep in the tournament, honestly when will ever have a better or more open draw?”
I don’t know.
That analysis is magnificent, I love the way you’ve flavored your comment to meet the tastes of the common man!
I already stated multiple times that the negative football employed by our side was our downfall, playing with unnecessary fear rather than the confidence we saw in the group stage. There was a clear non reaction from Cacic to change and adjust to what was happening in front of him on the field, he was like a deer in headlights.
The gameplan resulted in things like Mandzukic being completely isolated, pumping up balls to him and then him having no one in range for support or anyone play the ball off to. We would just see the players hold the ball yet be so conservative and wasteful with it (our passing for example was atrocious), they were sitting deep and creating a dynamic where the strengths of players like Modric are suffocated and as consequence they have no impact on the game.
All of this creates a game of such small margins, self-limiting our opportunities when we already are a side that is not deadly enough up front, and then as we saw allowed our opponent who didn’t trouble us all game go ahead via a mistake at a point in the match in which it was too late to do anything.
And look at our side of draw, what a blown opportunity to go deep in the tournament, honestly when will ever have a better or more open draw? And this is the story of our national team, constant failures of mentality. A recurring theme that needs to be acknowledged first of all by head in the sand brigade such as yourself Lazio, and then maybe we can actually for once learn from our mistakes.
Btw all things I’ve said on here in the aftermath of the Portugal game. So tell me again how I haven’t discussed the game? Maybe you should go back to analysing the insightful and profound FIFA rankings, who knows you might even find the meaning of life in there.
@MelbCro
I’ve read no comment where you have explained what you think went wrong, I’ve only read where you say something is wrong, and that the team need to be capable of self reflection, learn from their mistakes and implement tangible things to actually improve.
But I haven’t read every comment. I’d like to hear what you think, by your own admission soccer is your life and I’d expect that you know more about the game than me.
So what went wrong? If you don’t want to answer it, it’s ok.
I watched every game on beIN Sports!
A few decades ago the White people whose ancestors built Detroit into a great city were saying…..”Who the hell wants to live with rednecks when you can live in Detroit.”
Apparently, they preferred rednecks to niggers b/c they don’t live in Detroit anymore.
Any KK Zadar fans? Was taking a Taxi to the Airport in Zadar today and the driver was former player Darko Pahlić. Pretty cool stuff.
Plus, who is Durant alienating? His teammates at OKC realize this is the right move. They won’t hold this against him.
This is why I tell people not hero worship athletes. Enjoy the competition, but don’t get attached to the athletes
He was out of contract. Free to go where he wants. If he blew out both knees, would OKC give him a max deal. Loyalty works both ways.
There is no loyalty is sports. Durant is making a sacrifice by taking less money and willing to be a team player and have a reduced role. He should be applauded. Who on earth refuses a promotion. This is that, a promotion.
Plus, this is good karma for the hillbillies on OKC. They had no issues taking in the Sonics. Well, now they will be a lottery teamy once Westbrook leaves next summer.
lol Lazio I’ve spent the past week and a half letting my thoughts be known ffs. This place went into meltdown with arguments over this stuff. Having a look through all the threads and you were posting in all of them LOL, so quit playing your games.
Calling you a casual in this context is definitely an insult, attempting to analyse a sport who by your own admission you don’t particularly care much for. It takes a special kind arrogance to think you can talk with authority about something that you are uninformed about.
And the fact you continue to defend the FIFA ranking says it all. Also what an intellectually dishonest argument to make “oh its the same for everyone”, well duh. Its wrong for everyone, its an incredibly flawed system and an inconsistent one that does accurately show anything. Using that as a basis of your argument is absurd and pretty much undercuts anything you have to say on the topic at hand.
Yeah but at what cost? Alienating people you worked with for 8 years and seriously handicapping them for the future. He could’ve allowed himself to be traded.
I think its inconsiderate and selfish.
Doesn’t loyalty carry any weight with you, Ziva?
Pretty sure I know the answer so don’t feel obliged to reply..
@BZ……a ring is a ring. Teams don’t build through the draft any more. So, losing on purpose and getting a high draft pick is more credible in your eyes than free agency. Come on. I guess none of Luka Modric’s champions league titles are legitimate either, right, since he didn’t come up in the Real youth system. Durant did nothing wrong. So, your would pass up a promotion at work that brings more visibility and rewards?
Holy crap, just read the news about Golden State’s big off season transfer today! Can’t believe they got Zaza Pachulia!
Regarding rankings, the espnfc spi rankings have proven more accurate, and even that has some major flaws. Only ranking metric that matters, is the one sportsbook’s use, if you see a discrepancy in their betting odds, you can capitalize. Everything else is just garbage.
It seems awfully quiet on the transfer front… Corluka to Bayern and Pjaca to Inter have not been confirmed by team or player. Halilovic to Valencia seems dead and there were transfer rumors for the majority of players on the team at the end of the club season.
I think the Vrsaljko move is the only confirmed one so far this summer.
Does this get put on the back burner until the Euros conclude?
@Mile
Or how Croatia was ranked 4th in 2009 and couldn’t qualify for the 2010 world cup. So Croatia was 4th and couldn’t crack the top 32 in the world.
The FIFA rankings are a joke, always have been, as FIFA itself is a joke. Using these rankings to confirm where any team finishing is crazy. Is Romania better than Croatia? How about Northern Ireland? Or Ukraine? Because they’re all ranked higher than Croatia.
In May 2002, Colombia was #4 in FIFA ranking. Pretty good right? Problem is that they didn’t qualify for the World Cup that began weeks later. So they’re #4 in the world, but couldn’t crack the top five in their continent. Makes complete sense.
Lebron started the whole, let’s collude to get a ring strategy. Well now it will backfire. None of Lebron’s rings are legitimate nor will any of Durant’s, to be fair. At least Curry, Thompson, & Green can say they won a championship primarily through the draft, like the Bulls/Lakers/Celtics/Rockets/Pistons of the 80’s & 90’s.
I hope Lebron never gets another ring, as he reaps what he sows.
Nba is a joke, refs more biased toward Lebron than they are toward a bigger market team vs Croatia. That fact is almost unfathomable!
@MelbCro
Soccer isn’t my life and if that makes me a casual fan then I’m fine with that, is that supposed be an insult though?
The Fifa rankings system is the same for everybody, am I wrong?
I said according to the rankings we got to where we were supposed to get to, but, it was disappointing that after how well we played in the group stage that we went out the way we did.
But I’m a casual fan, and I’m asking a hardcore fan like you, what went wrong?
If you don’t want to answer that’s ok.
Who cares about legacy. I’m all about freedom. He was a free agent. That means free to go anywhere.
I think the fans are the only ones who care about legacy.
Modern players man…
It’s all about their legacy and chasing rings when in reality theyre tainting their legacy by doing it this way.
No one considers Ewing or Malone losers. They’re HOF players that gave their all to teams that drafted them. Much more respectable than some mercenary trying to collect rings.
Leaving for GSW after choking to them in game 6 going 10 for 31 is a beta move. Go to Boston or even LA and bring them up, don’t jump on a front runner.
But there was no free agency back then liKent here is now. Maline, Jordan, etc never had the option to even consider leaving.
Actually Jazz and Bulls switch isn’t a good comparison cuz theyre in different conferences..
More like Jordan to the Pistons when he couldn’t get over that hump. Like JB said.
It would’ve been like Malone leaving the Jazz in the mid 90’s for the Bulls. Yeah Malone eventually went to LA when he was like 38 or something but he didn’t bail in the middle of his prime when he was close to winning it with the team that drafted him.
No class!
@Ziva
Those are possibilities but fact is the 80’s and early 90’s HOFers built their legacies without bailing.
Yes San Fran is awesome and I’ll probably never know what Oklahoma looks like but he was working on a dream over there and they were (still wouldve been) damn close to winning. It’s not like they played to their “team potential” over there. Him and Russ were too busy being selfish and chucking bricks to put them over the top this year.
My brother named his second son Alexander. I was very annoyed about that. Imagine that, a Croat naming their kid Alexander. Disgusting
let’s stop with this nonsense that jordan, bird and magic never would have left. You have no clue because there was no free agency back then as there is now. If there would have been, who knows. Back then Nike would have forced MJ to go to NYC.
Nobody should be mad at Durant for leaving. You should applaud him. Nobody cries when a star leaves a mid table team in soccer for a bigger club. Have any of you ever been to Oklahoma City? Have you been to the Bay area? If you have, then you will know why he would select the Bay area over OKC. Who the hell wants to live with rednecks when you can live in San Francisco.
@Iggy, no you fucking MORON, it does not answer my question and I wasn’t asking YOU.
I asked IDEMO what “holiga fan boy means” and who he was calling that.
The only thing I take away from this is the league just got even less competitive. Duncan leaning towards retirement and OKC is now gonna suck. Hopefully whoever comes out of the East can give them a run.
The circumstances of free agency doesnt make LeBron a hero to me, only those looking for what’s left of a storyline in this lame league.
Durant could’ve been a hero if he stuck it out and got over the hump which was definitely a posibility.
Instead he’s gonna be a zero in most people’s minds with a very hollow championship ring.
His name is Aleksander, enough said
@Americanic
Holiga is a jugo cunt who writes anti-Hrvatska articles time after time. Does that answer your question?
I guess.
But it does make things very interesting.
You’ve got a team to cheer against now, and the heroes are now the Cleveland Cavs.
@ IDEMO, I specifically asked YOU a question: What does “holiga fan boy” mean and who are you calling that? You didn’t answer thereby confirming what I said that you just spew meaningless verbal diarrhea.
@ BRKIC, YOU said….”The Holiga comment was because you linked an article written by him.”
Are you talking to me? B/c if you are I have no idea what you’re talking about. Other than this comment, I made comments on June 28 @11:43am, 11:47am, 2:32pm, and on July 1 @12:49pm and 1:07pm. Nowhere did I link any comment nor mention anything remotely associated w/ Holiga. So are you just another moron spewing verbal diarrhea out your mouth?
Rodman was a roll player not one of the 5 best players in the league. Big difference.
@Maminjo
He won 3 without Rodman unless you think Horace Grant was that good.
Nothing would be lamer than if he went back to OKC.
Westbrook and him were 2 potential HOFers that were 3-1 up on the “greatest team of all time!” and choked it. Now he’s jumping ship to go to a team that also choked a 3-1 series lead. Very fitting..
I don’t care if they go 82-0 and 16-0 next year. That Bulls team will always be better!
@JB
No. Instead, the greatest rebounder of all time came to him, and it put them over the top. What’s the difference?
@Poglavnik
I don’t condone or condemn anything.
It’s just a shame that he left OKC, as they are a small market team with great fans and an organization that did really well to build an excellent team without the benefit of being a desired destination for free agents.
Those would be my reasons for not liking his move.
I actually don’t care at all that he’s going to a team with multiple All-Stars. Actually, I’m kind of intrigued to see if this can actually be the greatest team of all time. I think it makes things very exciting, moreso than if he decided to stick around in OKC.
This now makes the Warriors the supervillains of the league, and the league’s most hated player (LeBron) has suddenly become the anti-hero with pretty much every NBA fan hoping that he can take this Warrior machine down.
At the same time, Durant did sign a 1+1 deal, which makes me believe that he is leaving the door wide open for an OKC return. I would even say that it’s 50:50 that he goes back in two years.
Durant sucks!
He has his scoring titles, but he’s always been a ghost in the playoffs.
Id take Westbrook in a heartbeat.
Way more fight and just as much game in that kid.
@Maminjo
Westbrook will probably be in the Hall one day.
So you condone Durant’s decision?
I dont know shit about basketball lol.. but i thought Bogut was okay? I guess not? Anyways, cheers ziva for the info about the qualy tourney.. how many get through ? Is it only the winner or ?
And they wouldnt be mental midgets if they lost cos they arent so highly rated i dont think..
Anyway, terrific news from Wimbledon with Marin having a cruise over Nishikori. Looking good fellas, Marin gonna win his second grand slam 😀
Jordan didn’t run to the Pistons when he couldn’t beat them. Coward move.
Bird, Magic, Malone, Jordan all played on teams with other Hall of famers
Any other neutrals gonna find it real hard rooting for The Warriors next year?
I hope KD doesn’t win shit.
A true great like Bird or Magic or Malone he’ll never be.
I get your point, but GS will have no trouble trading Bogut. With the new cap, his contract is cap friendly.
Adam’s is close to 10 years younger than Bogut and more athletic.
Not true. One executive who was interested in Bogut tweeted “screw it, I’m not helping them”.
But it only takes one executive to say yes, and I think a team with cap space who is desperate for wins (a team like Dallas) will trade for him anyway.
Teams are moving to small ball, but that doesn’t mean his skillset is not needed anymore. He would be useful on the Cavs, Raptors, even OKC had a center in Adams who is more similar to Bogut than today’s small ball centers.
Those teams were all in the conference finals last year.
Regarding Greece, I am referring to hoops.
@maminjo……nba executives won’t look at it that way. Another team will take on Bogut. Although, in today’s game a player of his skill set is not needed anymore.
The only issue is by taking Bogut, you are essentially allowing the Warriors to sign Durant.
You will probably be shunned by every other GM for allowing that to happen.
Every team in the league would take Bogut.
Amazing contract value, and still one of the top defenders at his position.
Teams will gladly absorb his contract using their capspace without requiring Golden State to have to take contracts back.
The mental midget syndrome first surfaced in that WC match against Australia does anyone remember is every one here a millennial in their safe zone?
Ziva they tied us in Zagreb and we lost in Greece. Croatia cannot beat anti football teams.
Bogut has his championship ring and wherever he goes he will still get a good pay. That is sports. Players move around.
By the way, I wonder what Bogus is feeling right now. About to be shown the door at GS.
I wouldneed call them mental midgets if we lose to Greece. GReece is probably better than us right now. They beat us in Zagreb last year
You are bizarre Lazio. You are the one that was arguing that nothing went wrong , and now you are saying the opposite? Casuals ffs, stick to wanking over FIFA rankings lol
For Olympic Qualifying, hopefully they beat Italy so that they don’t have to face Greece in the semis (but in the finals instead).
But if they don’t beat Greece in that final, they are MENTAL MIDGETS!!!!!
As to Cacic, substitutions have made differences in the matches I have watched, including goal scorers who came off the bench or hustlers who re energized teams. Hard to argue Cacic contributed on that front.
I guess Saric is playing? He impressed me most from when I last saw team play.
The Olympic basketball qualifying tourney begins tomorrow. Cro should make the semifinals, but it will be uphill. Beating Italy in the group phase match opens up an easier path if we assume Greece wins their group. What you are hoping for is that Greece and Italy meet in the semi and that we play someone like Mexico or Iran in the other semi.
How does history highlight or explain mental midget disease?
@sime
That’s true. It’s all speculation. Was it possible for this team to make a good run? Yes.
Did they? No.
No point in dwelling over what could’ve been, when it didn’t even come close to happening.
Portugal was the first step out of the group, and that’s where the journey ended. Enough said about that. Portugal were the better team. History will highlight that.
Get over it people, Portugal won. Should of, could of, who was better, etc means shit. At the start of a tourney everyone thinks they can go deep.
@MelbCro
According to the players they had everything going for them at this tournament, I ask you so what went wrong, and you tell me I don’t even know what’s going on!
So what went wrong, you see I don’t have to know what’s going on, because you’re gonna tell me? If you’ve got an excuse for the team I’d like to hear it.
Rakitic said, “it’s impossible for the better team to go home.”
Anyway, i get some consolation from the fact Djokocunt lost overnight; that does make me kinda happy, heh. Go Cilic ! 😀
We could’ve made the final, no doubt. What makes this loss suck more is the fact it was set up for us to make a run.
When i watched the WC in ’98 i remember when the German guy got a red card and i distinctly remember the commentator at the time saying, and i quote “Croatia will surely never have a better chance to make the semi finals of a major tournament”.
And we took that chance as the history books show. But this tourney, this was a massive chance also and we fucked it up. We lost the mental battle. No reason for us to lose to Portugal; we purely lost the mental war. And it sucks cos, as i said, we had a fantastic chance to go to the final, possibly even win the tourney (although France will prolly win) so – it was open for us. We won’t have a chance like that again anytime soon 🙁
@MelBcro
You give to much credit to a generation that hasn’t done anything to be credited for. Besides qualifying for the last 3 major tournaments.
Best generation ever that got knocked out in the round of 16 to a shitty Portugal. lol. Mate, you are a casual football fan, you have no idea what’s going on. And that’s the problem with most people who post on here.
@MelbCro
“Ultimately it comes down to whether you actually you want to see us live up to our potential. Clearly your answer is no, at least that’s the way your expressing it.”
So in your opinion MelbCro something has to change for this team to realise their potential, right?
Srna said this was the best generation in Croatian football!
Perisic and Kalinic said we had the best midfield at the Euros!
The players said the atmosphere in the locker room was amazing!
And most of the guys on this site thought Cacic was doing a great Job!
Sounds like they had everything going for them! So what was the problem?
I voted that the 98 team was better than this team.
@MelbCro
My argument is that the Croatian NT isn’t as good as many of you guys think.
When the game is over we know who the better team was.
I don’t understand how someone can say we’re better than Portugal!
Based on our side of the draw no reason why we couldn’t have gone that deep.
You really don’t get what points? You whole argument is the better teams haven’t always won. That says something about said teams, correct? The argument being made is that clear mistakes are being made on many levels that contribute to a repeating pattern of failure. Ultimately it comes down to whether you actually you want to see us live up to our potential. Clearly your answer is no, at least that’s the way your expressing it.
@MelbCro
“And Lazio your points actually support the viewpoint of people you arguing against.”
Which points? Maybe I missed something.
If we’re better than Portugal then I’ll assume you think we’re better than Poland and Wales?
Do you believe we should’ve made the Final?
@Brkić
No, but Greece applied a winner’s attitude and tactics that won Euro 2004.
When kids nowadays, or future generations flip through their pannini sticker books or record books and see Greece as Euro champions in 2004, do you think they are aware that 15 of the other teams involved had better talent? No, it’s irrelevant. Greeks still have the trophy and bragging rights that year.
Just as Iceland and Wales reached quarter finals and semi finals respectively. Results are what matter. Hypotheticals take the back seat.
“i think we’ll win our group cos despite what the guy above me says we are definitely better then iceland.. we’ll win the group and qualify in style, and then we’ll get into the tourney and we’ll crumble in the final group match just like always.. seen this movie before”
And in the aftermath you will have the same rabble saying nothing is wrong and how proud they are. I think it might be an American thing as its sounds like these numpties want to see everyone get a certificate of participation.
Portugal is not better than us. And Lazio your points actually support the viewpoint of people you arguing against. Things went wrong on our end and we need to remedy that. Can we stop having a third world mentality ffs and act like a first world football nation just once?
@BZ
We’ve got better players than Iceland, that’s it, I hope that’s enough to beat them in qualifying, we know it’s not enough to get a better result than them at the Euros.
Icelad drew with Portugal.
@Brkic
Euro 2004
Team of Champions (Portugal) vs A Champion team (Greece), who do you reckon wins?
You know Corluka said that the Czechs and the Turks were better than Portugal!
So winning the trophy doesn’t mean you’re the best?
Which team is the only team to lose to a best 3rd placed team at the Euros?
Portugal is better than us in my opinion!
Was Greece the best team in Europe in 2004? No, of course not. This line of reasoning that the best team always wins makes no sense.
Iceland have lost to France, Norway, Denmark, USA, UAE (yes, UAE) and Turkey within the last year. So, they beat Austria and England who played terribly. Hats off to them for how far they got, but they’re not a top 8 team in Europe. By contrast Croatia have lost to Portugal and Norway over the last year… That’s it.
@Lazio- You are so right about Iceland being better. When a man is right about something he should be paid!!!
I can help you get paid. Based upon your logic, Iceland will likely destroy us twice in the WC 2018 qualifiers. To that end, I will take Croatia to win for $500 a game in the Home/away vs Iceland. If the great Iceland win, you win $500 a game. If lowly, mental midget Croatia win, I win $500 a game. Ties push.
This whole boycott talk is very far fetched.
Firstly I get the whole mamic thing.
However, let me tell you, when Croatia was winning, nobody here cared that mamic was influencing the team (hns) etc, Croatia before anything.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is we waste a lot of energy talking about something that people over here (majority) don’t care about.
zds!
Clearly Iceland did better
We spite our talent with our mental problems. If we performed according to talent, no one would ever complain, but we never do that. We spite our talent cos we’re mentally weak.
@Iggy
We’ve got better players than Iceland, that’s why you think we’re better than Iceland right?
Which team you reckon will go further at Euro 2016, the team Croatia with the better players but “mental midgets” according to you, or the team Iceland who aren’t mental midgets but have worse players than us?
I can’t believe people think 911 was an in side job. Was the moon landing fake to and did Ted Cruz’s father kill Kennedy?
Lazio don’t blame modric man, come on. He can’t do everything…(plus jet fuel can’t melt steel beams)
Currently Čilić is a better player then Djoković
Djoković is out results show Čilić in while Djoković can watch Wimbledon on TV.
Yeah x
Friends,
Tomorrow is July 4. It is Independence Day in the USofA. For those of you who are not an “amerikanac”, I suggest you call, text, Facebook, tweet or message any and all of your American friends and thank them for giving the world the United States of America. Without the USA, this world would be in serious trouble.
And to the hrvati in cro who make fun of diaspora hrvati from the USA, I suggest you say a prayer tonight for the American diaspora hrvati. They may not be able to order a drink in cro, but damnnit, they live for hrvatska.
Technically since we beat Spain in a Euro since their last Euro championship, we automatically became interim Euro 2016 Champions until we lost the belt to Portugal!
It’s easier to sleep at night if you think of it that way.
@Ziva
Ziva Istina says:
We will top the WC qualifying group. Hopes will be high once again and then mental midget disease will hit in Russia.
yeah i agree
i think we’ll win our group cos despite what the guy above me says we are definitely better then iceland.. we’ll win the group and qualify in style, and then we’ll get into the tourney and we’ll crumble in the final group match just like always.. seen this movie before
If you guys have to blame someone for the loss against Portugal, then any of these will do!
Cacic, Mandzukic, Modric or Strinic.
@Ziva
So because Strinic shit himself the whole team are mental midgets?
Strinic had 8 games this season, and you guys were all happy he was on the team! I wanted Vida or Vrsaljko at LB.
Here’s what happened, Renato Sanches got subbed in at the 50th min, he went on to hand us our ass. Renato Sanches had a better game than Modric. Santos saw how good Sanches was against us and gave him the start against Poland where Sanches went on to play the full game and it was another great game by him.
Cacic for some reason decided to go with Mandzukic against Portugal after what I thought was a good game from Kalinic against Spain!
@Mile
Croatia and Iceland have both never won a tournament. Why are we better than Iceland right now?
How many grand slams for Djokovic, how many for Querry, the better player is the guy who has won more grand slams.
Of course upsets happen in sport, and I was hoping that Croatia upset Portugal, but that didn’t happen, the reason it didn’t happen is up for debate.
Lazio,
Doesn’t matter about Iceland going farther than Croatia. And Croatia beat Spain, and Spain is better than England. Iceland was fortunate to not be last in their group. Austria dominated them in the last group game and blew an easy chance to win the game. You need a little luck to make it far in a tournament. Like I said, Croatia had a bit of that luck in ’98. You need a mix of skill and luck to go far. Croatia played lousy against Portugal but still should have won. They were unlucky to be screwed by the officials – again. C’est la vie.
And by your logic, I guess there are at least 16 tennis players better than Djokovic right now because “sports is a results based industry”. And if Iceland beats Croatia in WC qualifying, and finishes ahead of them in the standings, I will say they are better. But right now – no chance.
If Croatia went to PK and lost I would have said they went down as men honorable. Croatia is awful in late game situations. When Portugal scored all I heard was “Ding fries are done”.
@nyc……no true. I advocate for anything that is croatian.
The idea that 23 teams will go home as mental midgets due to mental midgetcy disease is not accurate. Teams like England and Cro are examples of where the mental midget label fits. It does not fit teams like Iceland, Italy, Wales, N. Ireland, Hungary because they either exceeded expectations or went down honorably.
There is no talk of mental midget disease on icelandsports.com, only words of praise.
boy we have some characters on this site.
@Slavonac,
Crazy story about the vukelic brothers.
None you mentioned are better. This team has a problem when the other team refuses to play. We have seen this how many times? But Croatia cannot adapt this is a mental midget.
@Elvis-maybe Iceland, England, poland, Turkey, Czechs and Spain are better than Croatia, but then Mental Midgetcy sneaks in on them.
The whole label is idiotic, just like the guy who spews it.
Croatia is better but mental midget syndrome sneaks in.
Croatia Euro2016 Champions !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Croatia is Better then Iceland,Wales, Portugal and France . We are somewhere equel with Germany however we beat Germany twice therefor we are better. In fact we should have been the finalist and probably the winners.
@Mile
Here’s a fun fact for ya.
Before this tournament Iceland was ranked 34, Croatia 27.
Iceland beat England, we couldn’t beat Portugal.
Iceland made the QF, Croatia made the 2nd round.
Obviously results in tournaments don’t mean anything to you, but if you can, please explain how Croatia is better than Iceland right now?
Sport is a results based industry.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/23/euro-2016-power-rankings-croatia-go-top-but-problems-for-france?client=safari#
Two hours ago, some on this site thought Iceland is better than Croatia. Then again, they still might think that. 😉
God France should play in the Africa cup but they do have a couple of white guys so maybe that’s why they don’t
If he is a Muslim does he wage Jihad maybe that’s why we fuck up so much.
@maminjo-the official count at the end if the Euros will be 23, but more like 23.1 cause about 10% of the winning team’s fans will still say their team could have been better. Example, let’s say France/Africa wins it all, 10% of their fans will still complain that Giroud should not be playing.
What a bunch of mental midgets Iceland players are: down 5-1 but playing like the game is tied.
@Maminjo
Icelanders have to boycott the team and federation.
@maminjo
Come on maminjo, you know ziva always wants to cause trouble and tear down anything Croatian.
What’s the mental midget count at right now?
I lost track.
Islanđani su mentalni patuljci!!!!
LAGERBECK ODLAZI!!!
Srna’s Catholic. His dad is a Bosnjak who’s mom and aunt were burned alive by Cetnici when he was an infant. He was orphaned and raised by a Slovenian cop, then married a Croatian chick and settled in Metkovic.
he might a muslim but boy does he love Croatia, gotta respect that
Ummm, our captain is muslim.
I can’t believe a Muslim country like France is winning big.
@Mile
So….what you’re saying is “COLEMAN ODLAZI!!!”
VELS BOJKOT!!!!!
Every team needs a little luck to go far. Wales loses to a crappy England team, but sqweek by an even crappier Northern Ireland before playing a highly overrated Belgium, a team without a defense. Portugal stinks, and they play them without winning a game in 90 minutes. And Germany needed some bad penalty misses and Buffon to screw up to win. Not saying these teams don’t deserve it (except Portugal), but you always need a few things to go your way. In ’98, Croatia got a few breaks – Romania penalty, Germany red card. For the last three tournaments, all the calls are going against them. That’s not sour grapes, that’s just a fact.
@Poglavnik
Coleman is impressive, but if Northern Ireland don’t score in their own net, then Wales are suddenly in the same position as we’re in (with their fans’ calling for their FA’s heads) and Northern Ireland’s coach is suddenly the coach of the tournament.
🙂
We will top the WC qualifying group. Hopes will be high once again and then mental midget disease will hit in Russia.
@TorontoCroatian
Great post, you nailed it well.
Funny how some don’t like that you finished your post with “plavi, plavi”
Keep up the good posts.
I love what Conte did but Coleman and Lagerbak have been easily as impressive.
Lets not forget Conte had Buffon and the BBC. Those 4 alone are world class and can take you far.
@brkic – and as Conte makes his way to Chelsea he made a point to single out a bunch of mental midget fans and the mental midget italian media who did not support him the last two years. In fact, he mentioned his only supporter was the president of Italian fa. Oh boy, to some idiots on this site, that would make him a puppet! Let’s go throw rocks at Conte!
@iggy – fun posts about England. Every team, including the winners will have it’s mental midget detracters.
Italy/Conte took a team with far less individual talent and easily beat Belgium. Then, they beat Spain and pushed Germany all the way to penalties. Both Spain and Germany each have more than double the transfer value of Italy.
Conte is manager of the tournament for me unless Wales/Iceland make the final and maybe still.
Croatia will top the group for WC2018 qualifying.
The only way they don’t is if they continue to lose points (or are outright kicked out of qualifying) due to fan violence, flares, or “racist” chants.
In a tournament that spans over a few weeks, anything can happen..especially if your team is hot and injury-free and one or two wins (depending on when they occur) can take you so far.
However, the qualification campaign includes a lot more games spread across a 15-month span. Staying consistent over a long term stretch, along with having enough depth to cover for injuries is what matters most.
We have that over the rest of the teams in the group. Our group is definitely the toughest, but you also have to factor in that these teams (Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Kosovo) will lose points to each other. Our record against all these teams is positive. Their records against one another is mixed, which will hurt their campaign.
Transfer value is another good way to determine potential. We were 7th out of the last 16, just behind Belgium & Portugal, but keep in mind Rolando’s value skews it a bit.
This is where I start to blame our performance on inconsistent and inexperienced managers.
Croatia will be favorites in the group unless you want to go with the FIFA rankings in which case Turkey are favorites 😉
@Iceland will be favourites in the group I suspect?
Croatia and Turks to battle for second play-off spot?
Ziva, how often do you forget your Ritalin?
Mental midgetcy is worse than Zika.
Iceland in our World Cup group what are our chances?
People actually defending the FIFA rankings? LOL, please just stop
@Czar Siniša
But they underachieved when you account for the talent factor.
Mental midgetry is what brings them to those Fifa/uefa “rankings”.
@Brkić
@Lazio
Belgium got pretty close to their ranking.
Holland and England underachieved. That’s my point of it. Teams can can go above and beyond, or they can underachieve.
Croatia underachieved in the prior few tournaments.
This euro Croatia achieved what was expected from a 19th ranked Europe side. That’s why there’s no reason to be upset.
Wales is better ranked, and they’ve proven it; as has Belgium, and Portugal.
Iceland punched above their weight. I’d expect them to move ahead in the rankings.
Ante Caric.. lol.. just lol @ that site
it lost credibility when it didnt know who coached Croatia
’m contempt with where we finished.
I also have a lot of contempt for where we finished, heh.
Ziva, i dont understand your comments that you can’t hate the reffing and also not hate Mamic? You have made some bizarre links over the years but this is one of the stupidest yet. So, a person who isn’t fully attentive to the HNL isn’t allowed to make a comment about refereeing in Euro?
One of your more idiotic comments yet, and there’s lots to choose from btw
On calling the team mental midgets, I think that all depends on how you see this team, Ziva for example expected big things from this team, so in his opinion they choked and are mental midgets.
I on the other hand predicted a second round exit!
Fifa rankings, Iceland was ranked below us before the tournament, they’re better than us right now, the Czechs are ranked below us, we couldn’t beat them either!
Here is the list of Euro 2016 coaches and their annual salary:
http://sillyseason.com/football/list-euro-2016-coach-salary-revealed-73632/
There were 7 coaches paid less than Cacic, but none of their teams did anything.
Surprised to see that Lars Lagerbeck only made about $500,000 USD per year. That’s a great value contract for a coach like that.
Best fit for us would probably have been Vladimir Petkovic.
Also a great value contract at about $800,000 USD per year.
Lots of good teams got knocked out prematurely in this tournament. That’s just football for you.
If that last minute Perisic shot goes in, we probably end up in the semis right now with nobody here talking about any Bojkot and Mental Midget Disease.
Cacic wasn’t horrible in this tournament, but he’s far short of what we need. He’s actually one of our better options if we are going to continue with the $250K per year salary for our NT coach. But that right there is our biggest issue.
Our biggest issue is not springing the cash for a top notch coach with international tournament experience, which will probably cost the HNS roughly $1 million per year. Portugal’s coach (Santos) is paid $1.3 million USD. Even Hungary dropped $1 million on their coach.
Getting rid of Mamic may fix that, but it probably won’t. We need to fix our whole system to prevent a much quieter Mamic (or collection of Mamics) from just replacing him and flying under the radar with our media and fans (which is something Mamic’s outspoken personality wouldn’t let him do).
@Brkic
The Fifa rankings system is the same for everyone though.
I remember people complaining that Wales was ranked above us, well, they’re better than us.
Poland were ranked below us, there tournament was better than ours as well.
Do you know how the Fifa rankings work?
I expect some teams to move up after this tournament.
The refs were against us in Spain and Portugal games.
Subasic’s save and Perisic’s wonderful goal were enough to overcome the referee bias in the game versus Spain
Referee’s subtle manipulation of matches does not guarantee a win or loss. If Croatia scored instead of hitting the post(Portugal match), then all the non issued cards (two reds accoriding too most sane neutrals) would be a non issue.
Regardless of what you think about the team, putting any credibility into the FIFA rankings is insane. Belgium was #1, Austria #5, England #6, Netherlands #8…. Need I go on? One of those teams reached the knockout round and one didn’t even qualify for the tournament.
If you want to use a pre-tournament ranking, it’s much better to look at the betting odds. Pre-tournament, we were considered a quarterfinal team (top 8) and after the group stage we moved up to a semi-final team (top 4) although the favorable bracket gave us as good or better chance as Portugal and Belgium to reach the final.
Most of the pundits agree that we outplayed Portugal. My feeling was that as a result of our tactics… we didn’t play well enough to deserve the win, but certainly didn’t deserve the loss.
Friends, as I have said before, you can’t complain about the refs against us in the Euros (and they were against us in the Portugal game) when you don’t think there is anything wrong with the way the croatian league functions.
Keep praising Mamic and think this is only a hajduk issue. In case you haven’t noticed, support for Dinamo continues to wane thanks to Mamic.
Either way, who doesn’t love a good shit show. Just wait in a couple of months when the courtsun decide that the guys who created the sranje in France will not do any jail time. More of the same to continue with the savez.
@Car Sinisa
Spain is ranked 3!
I did predict second round exit, but that was based on our qualifying campaign, but after the group stage my confidence in the team was at an all time high!
Everyone handles the losses differently, I tend to hang shit on my own team, even though you are right, we got to where we were supposed to get to according to the rankings.
My take on the tournament for Croatia, the group stage form was an anomaly and the Portugal game was us playing true to form, in particular Modric, who was back to his old self.
@Lazio
“We’re 19th in Europe, we got to where we were supposed to get too.”
Exactly what I said earlier. Anything more and we would’ve overachieved. So I cannot understand the frustration on this forum? They did their job to the best of their capabilities.
Portugal is ranked 4th in Europe. Them playing in the semi final, or possibly final is appropriate for their ranking.
They beat us because they’re better than us; and It showed.
I’m contempt with where we finished. I couldn’t say that about our last few tournaments where we underachieved according to the ranking system.
So all in all everybody should feel indifferent. We punched according to our weight this time.
Hahaha….I just realized you said…”and I’m boycotting the national team”!
It’s ok dude, do as you wish, everyone has their right to make their stance. Please don’t sabotage the team though, that wouldn’t be very nice!
Denis, did you read about the Vukelic family in Lika where a retired cop killed his brother…he shot him something like 8 or 9 times?
I know the family, they’re from here. One brother went back home to Croatia, he had a dispute with his brother (former cop) over land their parents left them. The former cop was drunk and hit enraged when they started to argue. The guy I know was unarmed, just walking….he was shot while walking away!
The former cop spent a week I jail and will not do another day behind bars.
Allen
Just read your article.
Good post!
For those who keep complaining about other people’s posts. When was the last time you got off your but to wright one.
What does my boycott have to do with Hajduk? I dont understand.
Time to follow another corrupt croatian sport: basketball. Lets see how our boys do this week. It would be great to qualify for the olympics.
@Iggy,
Im not crying. Just lost interest.
@Vlad,
Hajduk trophies, Hajduk players mean nothing to me when it comes to choices for the repka. Pjaca deserved to start against Portugal. I dont care if hes from Dinamo and/or a purger. In the end, we are all croatian brothers.
@torontoCroatian,
Why end the comment with “plavi plavi” ?
@Slavonac from Canada,
“I say fuck off to anyone that is so selective and expects justice in HNS when they can’t simply arrest an obvious criminal that is shown on tv or well known as a hooligan!”
Good point. I read in the croatian news today that some old dude killed his wife with a hammer. He called to turn himself in and got 5 years. With good time, hes out in 2 years and I’m boycotting the national team…
Germany won’t be stopped . Tomorrow I’d love to see france lose but we all know that can’t happen. France vs Germany the Germans will crush france 3-0 … Wales beats portugal
Cagliari signed Marko Pajač thinking he was Marko Pjaca
I’m not happy that Italy lost.
We’re 19th in Europe, we got to where we were supposed to get too.
I know a lot of people believe the Fifa rankings are stupid, but it’s the same system for everyone, and we are 27th in the world.
Marko Pajac to Cagliari as well!
You can catch all the Serie A action this season on beIN sports!
Are other people enjoying these games? Maybe its me but I find this a dull tournament. Watching that pig farmer Schweinsteiger run around, pretty lame.
I accept that we lost, but I think tournament would be more interesting with Croatia still in it.
Anyone else happy to see Italy go out after all the trolls coming on to this site?
Conte did a great job overachieving with an average team.
“Mamić did it!”
https://youtu.be/c3l_fTl4C0o?t=391
More popular Engerand YouTubers saying dont you dare appoint a FA yes man
LOL
Man Denis is gonna cry in a corner soon
you cunts who go on and on and on about Mamic still carrying on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDuMp2kDxos
Replace Simpsons with Mamic and you have this site LOL
The Engerand posts mirror ours, they basically say they were cowards and when Rashford came on he was the only one with guts (Pjaca). If you replace the names it’s the exact same story.
@Poglavnik
Great news that Serb wankfest lost. Im so happy he lost. I always smile when he loses cos i hate him, lol. Let’s hope Cilic can make a run.
Yeah Iggy!
I much prefer your posts about Djokovic because they’re usually preceded or followed by “that fucking cunt-rash!” whereas Ziva’s posts like to speak of his potential at greatness and always include “half-Hrvat.”
Fuckin weirdo..
@TorontoCroatian
hahaha good post man, i agree
and yeah im kinda disgusted our guys would abuse Rakitic in his home life.. i mean, if he wanted a reason to not play anymore this is it.. You couldn’t blame the guy if this is the abuse he gets
anyways, i have been watching engerand reactions on YouTube (it’s funny and worth it) and i just wanted to mention another thing in addition to what i posted above
https://youtu.be/4crBhJuDubg?t=345
this vid has ~800,000 views and listen to this part i posted at 5:45
“Gareth Southgate will just be another yes man doing what the FA wants him to do”
wow.. guys, engerand to have a yes man manager, better boycott them too and throw rocks at their houses guys..
What a surprise.. you idiots on this site like Denis who think Hrvatska is the only country with corruption or idiots, have you even seen Europe? Fuck my huge tits im sick of that garbage from you wankers. Mamic this, mamic that. Every loss, Mamic did it. Reminds me of that South Park ep where they kept saying “simpsons did it, simpsons did it”. Just replace that with Mamic and you have this site.
And you know what’s going to happen, as soon as we lose in qualy for the world cup Ante B and Denis will post an article imploring a boycott, lol. Like Swiss clockwork it’s predictable. Makes me sick.
Those chicken shits should chuck rocks at Mamic’s house!
Instead the most peaceful guy on the team with 2 little girls and a wife gets gets attacked.
Those little cheesedicks wouldn’t even attack a house with Domagoj Vida in it I bet!
TorontoCroatia…awesome post!
I agree Toronto Croatian if hajduk one a few trophies all these boycotts would go away makes me sick,
Boycotters forgot the tale of the boy who cried wolf…
After all these “boycotts”, we don’t believe you.
I’d wish it were true though and good say good riddance, but we know they’ll be back b.itching and complaining the second we lose.
Out of curiousity, why don’t they go protest outside Mamic’s house?
And why don’t they protest outside Tudor’s house who quit on them?
Why don’t they protest outside Stimac’s house for playing Radosevic vs belgium solely as he even admits to try and increase his value?
And why don’t they protest the joke of a club called hajduk? And right now, they dodn’t even have Croatian managers and trainers. Why don’t they protest that?
Sick and tired of these wanks b.itching about everything.
And whomever terrorized Rakitic’s family, I hope they find the scum and make them watch a hajduk game, that will be punishment enough. Lol
Plavi, plavi!
@Poglavnik
Terrific news, carrying on from what i posted, Djokocunt is out and Cilic cruised through.
Good day at Wimbledon. Let’s hope Marin can add to hsi US Open win and bag another grand slam
As u say, it will upset Ziva but let’s hope anyway hey 😀
@Slavonac
But didn’t you read Denis’ article?
We lost to a 116th minute goal cos of Mamic and now we boycott cos we lost a match. Not before, now. Im so sick of you not blaming all the world’s ills on Mamic.. cmon man, get with the program, everythng that goes wrong is Mamic’s fault.
We didnt get a clear election result here in Aus overnight. I am personally blaming Mamic for that and his meddling in Aus politics. Bastard
Djokovic out!
Condolences Ziva..
…talking about the hooligans and the fact there hasn’t been any justice served and then we ask why Mamic gets away with what he does!
Then you expect a die hard soccer lover like me to boycott??
I say fuck off to anyone that is so selective and expects justice in HNS when they can’t simply arrest an obvious criminal that is shown on tv or well known as a hooligan!
^ ^
Moi!
I did put $20 on us to win it all but that’s just the “fan boy” in me..
this euro becomes harder to watch by the day thinking of what might’ve been…. a match up with wales to make it to the finals….couldn’t ask for a better situation than that
is it possible portugal will make it to the finals without winning a game?
A disgrace what those hooligans did to Rakitic and his family.
Why aren’t they in prison yet with those other retards who threw flares in our game against Czech Republic?
Croatia has to deal with those scumbags as soon as possible. I’d say: arrest them, fire a bullet through their head, bury them and then tell their families that they escaped and that you’re looking for them.
Getting pretty tired of that BBB and Torcida bullshit. You’re just a bunch of intellectually handicapped idiots.
I can’t believe that some people still think they’re doing all this to make Croatian football more honest. If we would get rid of Mamic and Suker, they probably would be looking for something else which they could abuse as reason to do their bullshit.
Big fan of Rakitic. He stood up to these retards during the Czech game knowing full well he might get some retard retribution. Unfortunately, he got it-if story
When women ask for a photo with me at a club, I am gracious and always flattered. Obviously, nobody would ever want a picture of a squirrely eyed Asperger syndromed Ziva, so he wouldn’t understand. I never ask for photos myself, but I have had a great time revelling with people some might view as celebrities.
Nobody can take my smile away, even fan boys of Hooligans like Ziva.
Wouldn’t mind throwing rocks at that blockhead Vida.
@round of 16
you can’t have it both ways, he can’t call out others when he does the same
@Ante
That means he follows the sport enthusiastically. It doesn’t make him a jock sniffer.
One can still be a fan of the game, and not a fanboy.
and he won’t stop talking about Corluka non stop
Guys, Živa just spends hours a day posting about the players and reading articles about them. Travels 1000’s of miles to watch them play.
He’s not a jocksniffer at all.
@Slavonac
It is a disgrace what those guys did to Rakitic and his family. Rakitic has a toddler and you have these hooligans do something like this. Imagine what his family must have felt. Cowards, just cowards like the ones who threw flares at Euro and in Milan and ran away.
These are not fan boys etc, they knew what they wanted to do. Of course some media outlets in Croatia are playing this incident down.
Shame that the government doesn’t crack down on these guys, lock them up. Teach them a lesson.
https://www.total-croatia-news.com/item/12803-hooligans-chase-ivan-rakitic-off-ugljan-island
Ranked 27 in the world. Finished in the last 16 at the Euros.
Very fitting I believe.
Anything more and we would’ve overachieved.
Only half true……I’d be jerking off.
Ziva Istina says:
True, but to be accurate he was not attacked. The guys who did this threw stones and objects at the house he was in. Then they ran away.
You know who I partially blame for this??? The jock sniffing crowd and the fan boys. The people who did this had no idea where he was until one of the Cro newspapers/websites posted photos of where he was at. And why did they post those photos? Because the jock sniffers and fan boys can’t get enough of knowing where athletes and celebrities hang out.
Holy shit you are delusional. You are obsessed with these guys and the sport, you break this lame story on the site, you spend your vacations travelling to watch them play, then you call others fan boys. Ridiculous. I can picture you piddling in your pants if Rakitic or any of these guys walked into the room, then ignoring them despite yourself in order to not be a “fan boy.”
@MelbCro
I’m talking before the tournament started.
Round of 16
Based on we haven’t won a knock-out game since ’98.
“The real question, who among you thought that Croatia was even a threat to do anything at the Euros?”
Based on the side of the draw we found ourselves after the group stage.
BTW did u guys see CuntKyrgios’ going off at reporters after his win at Wimbledon? LOL, that guy.. seriously i dont think there’s ever been a more annoying shithead in tennis than him
i was kinda thinking quarters
england still crumbled under pressure, ziva
i didnt expect heaps from them but they were definitely expected to beat iceland and as their commentators said they were petrified due to pressure and couldnt play properly – sound familiar?
our crumbling is worse precisely because we have a better team and had a better chance to go a long way than they did.. if we had won vs portucunts, poland and then wales to make the final.. makes me sad to think about it now
The real question, who among you thought that Croatia was even a threat to do anything at the Euros?
I know Denis picked a quater final appearance for Croatia, he based his prediction on style of play in qualifying and Cacic being our coach!
I picked second round exit.
Nobody expected much from the English.
But I did indeed expect them to beat Island.
Who among us thought England was even a threat to do anything at the Euros? Crickets!
That England video i posted really fits us. Only i want to stress we are the bigger mental midgets cos our Vatreni Crumble came after excellent, breathtaking group play. England were never that impressive and the gap between their best and worst was closer. The gap between our best and worst this tourney was the Grand Canyon of gaps, our fall was greater and so our mental midgetcy was worse than engerand’s
Nope, there is a difference in watching a team play, enjoying the atmosphere of a EURO and going out of your way to talk to someone you don’t even know.
Come on, the only people who can disagree with something like this are those who actually will stop to ask for a photo with someone and then – even worse – will post that photo on social media…..as if to say, “hey guys, look at me with xxxxxxxxxx”. Social media name dropping.
When you are in a situation like that you should always ask yourself this……..would I agree to take a photo with some wacko i have never met or know wearing my last name?
Didn’t you travel across an ocean to cheer on and watch a bunch of 20 year old play football?
Isn’t that being a bit of a fan boy too?
True, but to be accurate he was not attacked. The guys who did this threw stones and objects at the house he was in. Then they ran away.
You know who I partially blame for this??? The jock sniffing crowd and the fan boys. The people who did this had no idea where he was until one of the Cro newspapers/websites posted photos of where he was at. And why did they post those photos? Because the jock sniffers and fan boys can’t get enough of knowing where athletes and celebrities hang out. These are the same people who will stop and ask for a photo of Rakitic or a autograph and don’t even know the guy. If there wasn’t an appetite for photos like this from the jock sniffing crowd and the fan boys, media outlets wouldn’t post photos and describe where and what these athletes and celebrities are doing. This is why I implore those of you on this site not to be a jock sniffer or fan boy, because it leads to violenece. I ask this from all of you……have you ever asked for a photo of a person who don’t know personally? If you have, you are part of the problem. Don’t be a jock sniffer or fan boy.
Part of the boycott bullshit?
Slavonac, some guy posted a link to it above so seems to be
@iggy-midgetcy
@denis plz do delete the anonomous posts, and those from fake accounts.
@Slavonac – yes they are true.
Ian Wright saying England were petrified, literally petrified
You could take the England commentary and apply it to us 100%
Are the rumours about Rakitic being attacked in Croatia, true?
interesting the iceland – england post game analysis from the poms
https://youtu.be/cdnRSCW3LTc?t=220
3:40 they actually talk about england crumbling due to pressure, so i guess you could say they too suffer mental midgetry .. midgetness? midget-something 😉
Holy Moly this chat is nuts right now! Good work on Denis getting back to people while in Cro from a cell phone, enjoy your trip brother and have some gemišt down there. I can talk religion, politics etc all day but then again it is a Cro sports site.
Just saying.
Ps. Wcc – White Croatian Catholic
Sometimes I’m a hypocrite
:Brkić
Don’t condescend me. The things I mentioned are visually confirmed or stated from his own mouth.
Obama wears a ring with the inscription “there is no God but Allah”
Look it up.
https://youtu.be/tCAffMSWSzY
https://youtu.be/jUABL-Ialck
https://youtu.be/l-HqHSkYG-Y
I mean his speech at the Muslim brotherhood mosque is there.
Keep your head in the sand, keep living your blue pill existence.
Crnković you are the biggest idiot I come across on this site.
The crusades was a reactionary to the multiple attempts of Islamic conquest of Europe.
Your regressive indoctrination to the narrative is being challenged.
You sound just like Jimmy dore from the young Turks.
“There’s nothing worse than the crusades”
Maybe watch this enlightening video of the crusades.
https://youtu.be/W4ENPy0mqOE
AFL is a bit diff to soccer though. A few threads ago we had a discussion on the toughest sports and i actually said i thought AFL was the toughest and a nbr of ppl agreed. In any case, i never blamed the ref for our loss to portugal. I blamed us from the moment it happened. But as ive said, that doesnt change the fact portugal are cunts. That’s not why they won but they are massive dirty cunts, just like the Turks.
Anyways, now that Euro is over for us, we can focus on Wimbledon and the olympics etc. Whatever happened to the basketball team? Werent they meant to playoff to get in? I dont follow bball so i dont know shit about it, is that still to happen and do we have a chance?
And Iggy, what were you saying when Michael Voss and the Scott brothers bashed into Nick Reiwoldt after he broke his collarbone that time at the Gabba and sent him crying to the bench?
The problem with these Vatreni against Portugal was that they had no fire, our fire was extinguished by Portugal.
Our players got to toughen up.
@Denis
Did you like our style of play in qualifying, because I notice you thought we’d make the QF’s?
I believe we played better at this tournament than we did at any stage in qualifying.
I predicted second round exit.
@Denis
Yeah on that Miguel wankfest, as i said in the other thread, his comments that (a) stomps were not intentional and (b) portugal have never played dirty are the dumbest comments ive ever heard on this site
Sport is a results based industry!
That means it’s all about results!
The Croatian NT is not Real Madrid for crying out loud!
Rakitic house attacked my Croatians. He and his family forced to flee vacation. If I am him I don’t join the team for any WC qualifiers.
Wtf!
replies to people on the previous post….
@filip/King Bronk,
Good point on the refs. The fix is in. I hate to put a loss on the refs, but they played a role as well.
@Istrian Ludak,
“Mamic is a man who completely controls the fate of the national team; no foreign coach is allowed to coach the team ever; the number one priority is not and never be winning, but having a coach who showcases his players.
If this guy was the prime minister, even in Croatia, making his Baka second in command, giving his Brat Minister of Tourism, giving his retarded cousin some other major role…he would be thrown out of office tomorrow!”
Well said. Thats what Im talking about.
@JM,
“Cacic did perfectly fine”
Come on man.
“we play portugal 10 times, we probably win 4, lose 3 and tie 3.”
Its not about the result for me. Its about how we played. Sometimes, you hit three posts in one match. We are not superior to portugal, but we are better, much better.
@Be,
“This is more of a Hajduk bias. Played out at the national level. Very telling to see who supports this boycott.”
I’m for what is best for Croatia. in my opinion, Mamic/Suker are not part of that equation.
Hajduk has their own problems, I don’t even want to start with them. I tried bringing them to the states 5 years ago on a north american tour. Colombus Crew, toronto, and a few other teams were somewhat interested if they would come cheap. The three or four teams would split travel and accomodations. Hajduk wanted money for the players, staff,and wanted to bring their grandmothers along for the ride. Lets just say that this dream of watching hajduk play in the states was dead. The funny thing was Hajduk asking me: “What is your cut? Why are you doing this for? Who do you work for?” and the look on their face when I said: ” This is for all the Hajduk fans around the world. This is for my people. Just watching Hajduk play in the states is priceless.
@idemo,
“The HNS decides to move on from the coach Or not ( whoever runs the savez) and we prepare for Russia”
Just rinse and repeat ha. Year after year. Im tired of rinsing and repeating.
@Ziva Istina,
“Maybe we need some of our players to follow Messi’s lead and come out and say they won’t play for the national team anymore. Messi is doing this in an effort to force the corrupt officials out of the Argentine federation.”
Good point. Also, he’s not the only one. A few others retiring young as well. At the same time, Messi had some tax problems. Messi probably asked the federation for Euros and they gave him pesos.
@Sude Mi,
” I don’t disagree with most of what you say; it is tough to watch us lose to a sub-par team in Portugal as I too would rather lose 3-2 with guns a-blazing than what we saw on Saturday.
It seems like daily now there are revelations about corruption in the game at evry level, the HNS is far from the only culprit. Ultimately, I think it will result in my paying much less attention to the Repka and the sport in general. At every angle it seems you can not trust the infrastructure, so why invest the time, energy and money?”
well said. I fell the same.
@Zlatko,
“Posting this anti-Croatian and anti-patriotic article at this time is siding in political neo-communist and jugo-fascist war against Croatia. I can’t believe that Croatian diaspora sport news can do it to honest Croatia soccer fans. Must be some misunderstanding.
In any way I am asking for editor apology.”
hahahahahahahahha. You are hilarious my friend. Always great to get a laugh on vacation in croatia.
@Miguel,
congrats to your team. I feel Croatia is much better on paper, but your team went in with a plan, the referee let you play your way and you won. I have no hate towards portugal. I hope they lose to Wales, because I love what they have showed so far.
As far as the stomps… “But all of those stomps are not intentional.” I beg to differ…
@elcroato,
“Cacic did a decent job setting up the tactics. “
decent? I beg your pardon?
@Tbone,
There are hajduk fans in Serbia? No, that can’t be. That makes me a serb ha. I found it interesting that Miso Kovac is played all over Serbia and cajke are played all over Zagreb.
@Poglavnik,
“That “established in 1911″ banner under the sites logo kind of makes it look like Hajduksports.com”
that was Ante’s idea. I still don’t understand what the deal was with that. He’s on the CroatianSports marketing team. As you can see, our account still reads zeroooooooooo..
@slavonac,
Sorry, dont have time to get back to you right now. I spent a few hours reading all the comments and replying to everyone else. You are next.
Whats up with all these “anonymous” people all of a sudden. Please sign in with a name or you will get deleted.
Also, enough of this alexander the great bs. This is a croatian sports site.
@Anonymous
I’m not an arrogant person at all. If you believe in the philosophy of the purple unicorn with three tails enough to believe in it, you have to understand the Catholic philosophy to disagree with it.
If you want me to enlighten you, answer my question.
Do you believe Alexander the Great was a real person?
Hey anonymous, there’s a reason they are called beliefs, it’s because you believe it to be, not because you know it to be. If you know something I don’t why don’t you please enlighten me and the rest of the readers. You are the fool because you’re so damn arrogant. Nobody knows what happens when you die. I’m positive about that. Hey I believe we are controlled by a purple unicorn with three tails, now how do you know I’m not right?
@BZ LOL on that Rakitic/Crnkovic comment
Patiently waiting for a link to said forum
good political answer
As I am a Arsenal fan i was going to inform you that tottenhams best finish was still behind us 😉
just like me, whenever I can catch west ham I do because of bilic and payet
Idemo
I don’t like to say that I support any particular club. This is the most powerful sport, when it comes to supporters and their fanbases. They are so passionate. I respect all the diehard supporters and don’t ever want to disrespect them. Of course, I liked Tottenham, when they were being dubbed as Crottenham. Liverpool was always cool, then they signed Lovren (also like players such as Lallana, Sturridge, etc). Now I really like watching West Ham because of my love for Slaven. Will always like all three clubs, but can’t say I’m a true supporter of any of them.
So some people went knick knocking and now that’s big news!
If true, maybe a group of guys from this site mistaking Rakitic for Crnkovic. He did say he is a spitting image earlier this thread!
@Anonymous
So because you don’t know, no one else knows! This is the way a fool thinks!
Do you believe Alexander the Great was a real person?
https://m.dreamteamfc.com/c/hooligans-attack-ivan-rakitic-family-holiday-villa-euro-2016-exit/
^ lol
That’s right Szczesny and Wheelchair.
I heard Prosinecki in his prime was a 40 a day smoker and could run a sub 4 minute mile.
If you were born in India you’d be Hindu, in Italy, Catholic, in Indonesia , Muslim, and in China , Buddhist. You guys need to grow the fuck up, because when you close your eyes at night, no one really knows a fucking thing about why we’re here and where we are going, what a bunch of fucking nonsense, so we were put on this world to live to make it to the real paradise?? But only if you pass the test. Think about this , God is a deuschebag.
Mario Balotelli loves hookah
Just out of curiosity Allen who do you support?
Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczesny were infamously caught smoking. When you play for Arsenal, you need a smoke when your team routinely underachieves.
@Poglavnik not sure but Prosinecki could be the coach
@Ziva any more detail on this? Were the culprits Hrvati ? Where was he staying, etc?
Nainggolan and Vardy are big smokers apparently. Wonder what kind of “smokers 11” you could make from the Euro teams? Anyone else know of current footballers that smoke?
Well, this just gets crazier by the minute………a group of punks forced Rakitic to leave his vacation rental today. They threw rocks at the house he was renting and he gathered the family and took off to another location.
We know out guys can’t play at home anymore with fans, but shit, now they can’t even vacation.
yeah man wilmonts total trash
In terrific news @ Wimbledon
Rain has stopped play but the matches as stands are, Cilic is up two sets to love against Lacko and Djokocunt is down two sets to love against Querrey. Great news !
“I have no opinion regarding Halihodzic, but to not want him because he is a mujo is fine. But, then you can’t sit back and say it is OK to have a serb on the team as well.”
The Serb is Catholic, but Halihodzic is a Muslim. Subasic is OK! I don’t want Halihodzic because he’s a Muslim.
If Subasic wasn’t Catholic then I wouldn’t want him on the team, because that would mean he is a jocksniffer of the Greek.
@idemo, only caught the second half, I assumed Fellani was in from the start. The fact he got subbed in, shows how clueless Wilmots is.
exactly.
sounds like a solid group of “Croatian-Americans” over there
@zovi – Agreed. Since some mental midgets keep bringing it up on this site…only 1 of 24 teams in this euro will not have detractors claiming their team isn’t a bunch of mental midgets. And only Chile of 16 copa America teams were not mental midgets. Look at the forums for each team, idiots are everywhere.
I laugh on some on this site were saying belgium is one of the best in the world. Wales taught them well today.
On this site? Everyone in the footballing community all over the world has been saying that, you can’t single this site out for that. They are ranked #2 in the world atm afaik and were up there as favourites to win the thing before it started
^^^
why so you can corrupt it
plz link to this forum; very interested
Overall media has been supportive of the Croatian team. Just google the media for belgium or England and see how the se teams are being hammered.
Ziva –The word to describe England is pedestrian. I love how some will say England is overrated. They are not overrated
What the hell are you talking about, This tournament so many in the media picked them to go far. Hodgson highest paid coach. Team one of the highest paid. They are very much overrated. England is always talk but shit on the field. I laugh on some on this site were saying belgium is one of the best in the world. Wales taught them well today.
No mental midgets with Croatia as Maminjo points out whoever looses will get that label.
The other Croatian site sounds like everyone is living in a fantasy land.
Mr. Black
Thanks for the insight. I did notice Nainggolan arguing with Hazard going into halftime. They showed him throwing his hands up, while Bale was clapping to the supporters. Belgium looked so dis-organized following that goal. They were abysmal at defending set-pieces and De Bruyne couldn’t get going either.
I’m not here to argue the mental midget label for any team. What I will argue is that Croatians should be proud of their national team. Yes, it’s very disappointing that they aren’t in the semifinal. It still doesn’t take away from their performance in group stage and how they battled to the end against Portugal. Croatia weren’t outplayed like both Belgium and England in their respective knockout stage games.
There is nothing positive that Belgium or England can take away from this tournament. Both teams need to make serious adjustments all across the board. Croatia needs to make adjustments as well, but their squad is mostly settled going forward.
Crnkovic is an idiot. PLain and simple.
@iggy – the Croatian speaking one where people are generally positive about Croatians. Don’t want to give the link, b/c then Asperger Ziva and his mental midget following might try to ruin that site too. It should be easy to find,as there aren’t many out there. They mentioned the Turkey Crnkovic link about a month ago, if you use the search bar on that site, you can see the discussion. It is in a thread where we were discussing the negativity on this site. Again, I don’t think that Crnkovic was Turkey, but some others did.
Am I the only one who would like this tournament stopped right now?
This year beIN sports is going to have every Bundesliga and Serie A game, there will be no English league on Foxtel this year, but we will have Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea TV.
I’m not a big fan of the EPL anyway, I just hope most Croatians stay away from the EPL.
I’m not interested much in politics, but for some reason I enjoy the political banter. I am a devout Catholic and will add that only Catholics are Christian, Protestants are antichrists, just like Muslims and Pharisees!
Yeah tbh the Iceland v England game was not some massive upset imho.. i don’t rate this Engerand team highly at all.
Some Guys, on another popular Croatian forum, thought Crnkovic was the guy behind the Turkey troll,
what site?
Anyway good on Wales, population i think of 3 million so kinda comparable to us, good to see the little guys punching above their weight
Belgium was eliminated in the 1/8 final in Brazil.
Shit our boys had fear in their hearts against Mexico and Portugal.
Didn’t Belgium make final four last World Cup. That is not
A mental midget
Our mental midget label holds.
The word to describe England is pedestrian. I love how some will say England is overrated. They are not overrated. Who has them rated as anything more than a marginal side. When England gets to a semifinal, then we can call that an upset.
Allen,
I live in Belgium and that’s exactly what people are talking about. They dominated the game, deserved to take the lead (fantastic goal Naingolan) and then defensed well… until Wales made 1-1. Then the players started to argue, the organization was gone and Wales became the better team. Courtois, the goalkeeper, already said that the coach should leave. I think it was even worse than Croatia.
To be honest, I’m glad that Belgium is eliminated. Their victories reminded me too much of what Croatia could have done…and I won’t have to hear their comments about Croatia’s elimination again.
…and the label for Wales if they lose to Portugal, and Portugal if they lose in the final
If people like to label Croatia as mental midgets, I’d look to hear descriptions for England and Belgium.
BELGIUM ARE MENTAL MIDGETS!!!
Peter did you watch? Carasco started fellaini took him out
^^^ all 3 same boat, at that point it comes down to the will of the players
Call me crazy, but I would take Cacic over Wilmots and Hodgson in the battle of questionable managers.
Is there a Croatian word for mental midget?
Kept wondering why Fellani was in today as well. Surely Carasco would have done better. Wilmots is a poor coach and has proven it in certain portions of this tournament.
Meant Wales obviously.
Funny to look back at Brazil 2014 WC Qualifying when Wakes was in Pot 6 for the draw and about 4 years on they are moments away from a birth in the semis of EURO.
Absolutely love stories like this. Hope Iceland can extend their magic run as well. Good on both sides.
3-1 Wales in the 86th minute. Oh my, what could have been for our guys…. Damn.
@Meta
Agreed! Go Wales. Really dislike Belgium – probably bc they get the better of us in WC qualifying. Amazing that they’re up 2-1 and no goals from Bale.
On Pjaca… Inter is really turning into the Croatian stepping stone. Good for his career out NT and his wallet.
News on Halilovic transfer has been real quiet after the Valencia deal was reported to fall through. Maybe he’ll travel withh Barca for their summer tour.
The Holiga comment was because you linked an article written by him. He’s hated by many on this site because of his prior articles and called a Serb despite him identifying himself as Croatian.
IMO he’s like everyone else. I agree with some of what he says and disagree with other things.
@Uncuck the Right, I was the first person to use the term ‘anti-white’ on this site. And you’re the first person I’ve seen using it that was not in response to a comment I made. Granted, I haven’t read any comments on this site for at least year and probably won’t again.
A good cuckservative will say “apartheid was as bad as communism”. Never mind the indisputable FACT that communist countries build walls to keep their people from ESCAPING while the apartheid government’s biggest problem was keeping 3rd world immigrants from other parts of Africa from flooding in. That’s a MONUMENTAL difference. A prison is a prison is a prison.
I am in Venice on route to Ljepa Nasa.
Watching Wales … WOW!
They look fantastic in the first half.
Count me in the camp that wants Croatia to play our style, win lose or draw.
Marko Pjaca to Inter.
Don’t blame the kid for his agent.
Wish him the best.
Couple things on Crnkovic’s comments
“That’s why you see Muslim on Muslim”
you see Sunni v shia violence. Sunni for example do not view shia as muslims but as heretics. Context please.
“Just like the original crusades which were all about wealth and never had anything to do with religious righteousness”
Not true at all. Crusades were a long time coming, it was a direct reaction to centuries of Islamic imperialism and incursions into Christian territory. At the time of the first crusade it was absolutely a political response and one based on genuine belief in the spiritual reward in undertaking the trek to the holy land. You do realise how expensive the crusades were right?
“He sponsors Isis because they are destabilising the Middle East, Isis are helping American interests because they a creating the conditions for imperial exploitation. This process has being going on for more than 500 years.”
Partly correct, in saying Isis was absolutely empowered by the Americans due to their unnecessary undermining of the Assad regime. But such radicalism is inherent in Islam and would exist regardless of the West, just a quick glance over Islamic history reveals that rather quickly. Not sure what you mean by 500 years comment. lol, yeah America has not been involved in the middle east for 500 years. Perhaps you meant the west? Again wrong. The Ottomans ruled the middle east for a majority of those 500 years. Your historical analysis is very poor to be honest.
@IDEMO, You said: “You know what it means and you should know who”…..regarding me asking you ‘what does “holiga fan boy” mean and who are you talking to?’
I honestly don’t know what that means and who you were calling that and why you were calling that person that. Just explain what you mean. If you can’t, then you’re just spewing meaningless verbal diarrhea out your mouth.
@mixed grill
LOL,
If the guy is embarrassed to be Croatian I guess we know what his views on tito will be.
@brkic
“white catholic croatian-american” good to see you are proud to be Croatian unlike some others on here
Crnkovic, now let’s hear your views on Tito.
I don’t know why you’re directing your comments at me Anonymous… I’m just saying that Obama is not Muslim, he’s Christian. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with Muslims, and I would not have an issue if he were.
I also wish we could leave politics/religion/race off this “Sports” site, but when they’re brought up I feel the need to voice my dissent as a white, Catholic, Croatian-American.
Crnkovic, not that there us anything wrong with being a black, muslim Croatian, but if you are not black, why did you post you were a black, muslim Croatian in a previous thread? The only other guy who changes identity this often was Turkey (that turkish, orthodox bosnian, italian).
^^^
Lol. Be Careful there brkic. The walls have ears…you might get some funny looks at the next klu klux klan meeting. Btw I am a Muslim. I converted to marry the girl I love. You should see our kids. Stunning. Secondly I’m actually blond hair blue eyed, last summer in croatia this guy and his wife refused to leave me alone because he was convinced I was ivan rakitic. The fact I was travelling by barkareol rather than yacht didn’t seem to register. Lol. I was born and grew up in Zambia. I grew up in a country that has never had a war, is bordered by eight other countries most of which have been damaged by war. Everyone loves zambia. It’s like the peaceful hub of Southern Africa. America poured it’s finance into the most brutal regimes. Moderate sensible leaders were targeted and assassinated by the CIA trained thugs. I grew up with black people, the vast majority of whome were, gentle, intelligent and dignified citizens of a proud free and principled nation. I asked my dad, who is from Scottish descent, when I was a kid. “Dad are you african?” He shouted at me with a smile “of course I’m a bloody african!!” Meanwhile we travelled to croatia every summer, zambian winter, we spent time with dida and Baka and the rest on otok rab and sometimes zagreb. It was magical to me. My croatian family were warm and loving. Great times. I’ve seen things from lots of different perspectives. As Tolstoy writes in the opening lines of Anna Karenina “all happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in it’s own way”. Look my dad up he was the president of zambia last year. I shouldn’t really be having political arguments on this site or any other, brkic you’re right. I want people to work together brkic. Make things better. So my kids don’t end up killing yours, or vice versa. Wouldn’t that be good? In other news, croatia lost to Portugal in the euros. Gutted
I liked the first matrix but the later movies did not make sense to me. Is Neo the one or not ? I don’t know.? Stay thirsty my friends
I prefer when the site stays away from politics, but the world is at a breaking point, so I understand why some are so heated. A healthy debate between two political/religious agendas is good, but this is clearly not the proper forum for this debate, neither side has much to gain in a sports site.
@uncuck- Just to level set, you mentioned Crnkovic is white, but he has posted in the past that he is a black, muslim Croatian, so some of the arguments you make do not apply to him. Crnkovic and I do not see eye to eye on most political issues, but he does chime in with some good soccer related posts from time to time. Some Guys, on another popular Croatian forum, thought Crnkovic was the guy behind the Turkey troll, but I don’t think so. Crnkovic said he wasn’t and I take him at his word.
I am voting Trump. That said, I think croatiansports is at it’s best when we discuss sports. Maybe uncuck and Crnkovic can exchange emails and take the discussion offline. Maybe meet up at a coffee shop or bar and Periscope the debate live to anyone on this site who wants more politics. I would watch, I admit it.
A YouTube video of various speeches taken out of context and pieced together is not a reputable source…
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/foxvideo.asp
Sorry guys, wrong video.
Here Obama admits he’s Muslim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJshR-3Ja5c
@uncuck
Everything you read on the Internet is not true. Obama is not a Muslim and Rakitic did not quit the NT. If you disagree, link a credible source to back up what you’re saying…
Stay is school kids.
@uncuck the right, there is good book called “escaping the matrix”, I agree with 99% of what the guy says in that book. Why don’t you read it. He starts of by saying that he started out as a kind of left wing guy, then he met people with different views and slowly learnt that his way of seeing things was just as messed up as people he liked to criticise, so he started to talk, listen and educate himself. Then he wrote an awesome book. I bet if you read that book you you’ll realise that we have a lot in common, many you just need to make some slight adjustments to your world view. If you read it. I’ll read the book of your choice…fair is fair
Salon. Liberal magazine. Just looked it up. Well I have a lot of issues with liberal tribalism, it’s part of the problem. You guys are like apes. Someone hands you some categories, you buy them and start screaming. Us good guys, them bad guys. It’s just pathetic, why don’t you open your mind a little. Try to research different perspectives other than the ones you know already you want to hear. That’s what I do. That’s why you can’t put me in a box. Because I don’t live in one. That’s why I’m pro brexit. Because I don’t buy agendas. Whether they are liberal, neo-liberal, politically correct, right wing, left wing. It’s all bullshit. That’s just to keep people fighting each other. I know lefties, they think all right libertarians are assholes. They’re the assholes. I know right wing lunatics, they think lefties, or Jews aor Muslims are assholes. Both sides are wrong. Do you get that? There are good people with different points of view. At the end of the day the enemy is a common enemy. So we should be able to agree. But you put hate and ignorance at the front of your argument, and that’s why our common enemy loves you, because you’re stoping people from uniting. Because you preach and perpetuating ideologies of tribalism/racism. But come let us, deal with one point at a time. What is your point? Is it that Obama is a Muslim? Is it ithat radical islam is the enemy of “the west”. Is it that black people are inherently savages? Is it that people should be allowed to own their own guns? What are you actually saying?
@Anonymous
Salon is the regressive SJW, anti-white, hive mind publication.
It’s where feminists and SJW libtards come to publish any criticism of towards White or American.
That’s where dinduvić gets his regressive rhetoric from it seems.
Vladimir Lenin. “Democracy is indispensable to socialism”
Vladimir Lenin: “The goal of socialism is communism”
And you vote for a democratic socialist? Wow, just wow.
Brain-dead idiot
@dinduvić
Bernie Sanders!! Wow
That explains it.
Voting for a communist scumbag
Should’ve known.
Anti-American!
@elvis, what is salon?
Ok make a statement, we’ll see
@dinduvić
Debunk anything I stated. Try?
Research it for yourself.
The proof is there. Evidence, facts and records Trump your narrative and your feelings little snowflake.
Prove me wrong?
I don’t make claims, I can’t back up.
Go on!!
Bernie the communist jewish guy who never had a job until he was 40 years old?
@Crnkovic , stop reading Salon.
If I was an American, I would vote for bernie sanders. The rest are complete scum. Even bernie I have doubts about…
I didn’t vote for Obama LOL nice try
I don’t support Obama. I hate him. I’m just not stupid enough to think that there is a Muslim conspiracy to overthrow the American people. Or that Obama is a Muslim. The number of retards on this site is alarming. But then hey, what did I expect right? Cowards. Afraid to stand up for the truth, rather hide behind racist ideologies, and simpleton world views. If anything Obama is part of the illuminati which is a cult with branches in every major world religion and every major political sphere. Look at the list of American atrocities, look how Europe made it’s wealth, look at the Saudis and their evil empire, look at the Chinese, look at the Russians, look at the ancient Egyptians and Mayans with their human sacrifices. The world doesn’t fit into little bite sized categories, only the mentally retarded buy that shit. But I might as well be lecturing a bunch of chimpanzee’s. You’ll believe what you want to believe. Yes Obama is with Saudis, is that because he is a Muslim? The answer, obviously, is NO. Because guess what? So is Assad, so was saddam, and gaddafi. It’s about politics and money. It has nothing to do with religion or race. Race and religion are excuses which the profitteers use to gain support amongst the ignorant (that’s you). It’s the age old maxim of divide and rule, used by elite for centuries, sending kids to die so that they can make a profit. Just like the original crusades which were all about wealth and never had anything to do with religious righteousness (except to the poor uneducated bastards who believed the lie and went to die, to make their king rich) I only wish you had the capacity to understand that. It’s so simple. Trump for example. You think he’s different to Obama? You think he’s going to put hard working Americans first? You were born yesterday right? You never read a history book right?
@dinduvić
You don’t know me, so don’t begin to believe you understand where I’m coming from.
I witnessed with my own eyes how moderate, pork eating, alcohol drinking Muslims can turn, just like that. Religion, and ideologies do matter.
I was one of the lucky ones to escape to this great country.
I’ll be damned to see it destroyed by traitors.
After the war in Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia and Iran invested alot of money to radicalize the Bosniaks. It worked. Osama Bin Laden even had his own Al-Qaeda training camp in Bosnia. Not to far from where I lived.
Islam’s ideology is based in conquering the world. They name their kids after European invaders.
Fundamentalist Muslims are the snake, Moderate Muslims are the grass.
A perfect analogy to describe it.
Obama is a taqiyya. a Muslim brotherhood operative.
Just because you voted for him, don’t make excuses for him and blame it on Imperialism.
You fucked up. That’s the truth.
Hilary won’t be much different. She’s a pawn, just like Obama.
Only she’s driven by her own sinister agenda.
Have you read her emails?
What’s the point, you’re a zombie. One of the sheeple that swallows their tripe so willingly.
I’m ashamed to call you a Croat.
You’re dead man walking.
Man, you guys don’t know what you are missing if you are not watching Fox News.
@Ziva
We are talking about the coach and no one else. He is not the one for the team. It is a joke that anyone would bring up his name. He is in Japan now and that is where he belongs.
Our future looks bright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40QDFWaROX0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6X0V6zASew
@dinduvić
Gun laws?
Did gun laws help the people in Paris?
That’s the issue regressive leftist Obama brings up.
You are a disgrace!
@Crnković (dinduvić)
Fox news? I don’t watch it. You regressives love making assumptions, and building strawmen.
Obama wants to disarm the people while importing unassimilable “refugees” economic migrants/ ISIS sleeper agents to this great country.
Imperialism?
“someone’s religion has got zero to do with their loyalties”
You’re such a dumbshit!
Tell that to Fundamentalist Islam. Sheesh, open your fuckin’ eyes, or dig your minuscule head out of the sand moron!
“Christian on Christian”? Give me an example relevant in today’s time?
“Black on black” That’s been going on for centuries. That ain’t new. 97% of Black men killed are killed by other Black man.
You want to blame Imperialism for that?
In Mauritania slavery was only made a punishable offense in 2007! But yet 20% of population is still enslaved.
Have you heard the news from the Sudan?
“white on white”? Yes white guilt ridden cucks like yourself vs honest, hard working patriots.
Islam is what’s incompatible with secular western society. You try justify voting for Obama twice with Imperialism?
You’re far gone in the regressive matrix pal. People like you need lethal injection. It’s the most humane thing.
Islam is a totalitarian ideology with religion sprinkled in as window dressing. Islam and Western secular society cannot coexist. Research how many Christians have lost their lives to Fundamentalist Islam in the last few years.
Obama is a traitor, but here is not the one bringing instability.
Google George Soros influence on today’s political climate. Then come back to me. Obama is just a puppet. But a traitor nonetheless.
@Kreso…….I have no opinion regarding Halihodzic, but to not want him because he is a mujo is fine. But, then you can’t sit back and say it is OK to have a serb on the team as well
@crnkovic
So you hate being a Croat. Interesting. If that is the case f*ck off and leave this site. We don’t need your kind.
Man some of the homers on this site. You think you hear it all until someone like the retarded Crnkovic shows up.
U boj U boj
Bog i Hrvati
Halihodzic????????? Come on people that made me laugh. Awful coach plus he is a musliman. Enough said. LMFAO.
Whatever. Get an IQ test, and look up irony in the dictionary…
@Crnkovic
only moron on this site is you
this is what you had to say.
“Crnkovic says:
I hate being croatian. Wish I was a fucking Eskimo. Halilhodzic is the best potential manager for us. Harry redknapp? You guys are hilarious
June 30, 2016 at 12:27 AM”
Get a life you idiot. Better yet go to the northen pole if you wish you were an Eskimo. Moron.
Stop watching Fox News!! I beg you
@uncuck the right, you are a complete moron. Good god somebody has got to you. Obama is not a traitor he’s working on behalf of the same corporate interests that every American president works for. He sponsors Isis because they are destabilising the Middle East, Isis are helping American interests because they a creating the conditions for imperial exploitation. This process has being going on for more than 500 years. In addition, someone’s religion has got zero to do with their loyalties. That’s why you see Muslim on Muslim, Christian on Christian, black on black, white on white violence and exploitation everywhere. It’s to do with economic interests and greed, and sadly ignorance. Do me favour and try to locate your brain, remove the shrink wrap and switch it on…lmfao
you hillbillie yanks voted for that idiot twice…shame on you.
but then again, our idiot lefties voted in trudeau up here…so we are screwed as well..
I want to see that slovenian piece of as.s melania parading around the white house in a bikini…
@Obama is a dickhead
Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama = Muslim
Wears a gold ring with the inscription “there is no God but Allah”.
He said at a Muslim brotherhood mosque “the future must not belong to those that slander the prophet Mohammed”
Did a speech at a church and covered a crucifix so not to offend Muslims. At the mosque he didn’t cover the Allah Arabic texts.
Grew up in Indonesia in Muslim household with Muslim stepfather. All his classmates remember Barry Obama as a Muslim.
Retired 4-Star U.S. Navy Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons was recently at the National Press Club, and claimed the
Obama Regime has been FULLY infiltrated by the Muslim brotherhood since Obama was instated as president.
Funded the training of ISIL forces and Sunni tribes in Syria and Iraq.
Ordered the military to drop pamphlets to warm ISIS jihadis before bombing targets.
Bows like a bitch to the Saudi Arabian king.
Obama is a taqiyya. He is a Muslim.
Told the FBI to erase any connection with ISIS and Allah in the 911 call regarding Omar Mateen.
Cannot bring himself to describe radical Islam, as radical Islam.
I have no idea how regressives voted for this traitor twice?
Boggles the mind.
Trump 2016!!!
@Evils
Get a DNA test. A proud Croatian should know about their heritage.
Goths did mix with the ancient Croats, as did Franks and Germanic people. Modern day Iranians looked nothing like proto-Iranians that migrated to our region.
These are Slavic nations.
Czech Republic, Bosnia, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro.
I hope you were kidding when you said “news to me”
Do some research on your ancestory.
@Joca Amsterdam
What’s the matter, you want more diversity on a Croatian sports forum?
What’s your opposition with White men you regressive.
Go air your grievances on tumblr cuck.
@Joca Amsterdam
At least the majority of us don’t parade around with a buttfuck name like Joca Amsterdam!
Umm its a Croatian site, and Croats are white
This is slowly becoming a site full of angry white men.
@ el croat
Amen Brother!!! How about playoffs v. Iceland 2013 where Hodgson should have studied how to beat Iceland 2-0 across two matches! Or Turkey playoff in 2011 where we destroyed the Turks 3 nil in Constantinople! I mean Istanbul! It was a tough loss against the porkchops but Cro will improve from it.
What about Karlo Butic?
^ ^
Trump!
So Obama the dickhead claims that Trump is xenophobic!
If Obama did call it Islamic terrorism, then can he still call Trump xenophobic?
Are the terrorists Muslim? ISIS say they are Muslim, we all agree that they are terrorists, Obama says they’re not Muslim!
Trump or Obama, which guy is the dickhead?
ajde malo popuši mi kurac….
Ajde malo opustite se uz Srpsko Kolo !!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBrLm2tKmx4
Mile, good posts.
Especially in regards to Mandza.
Always been a fan of his but you’re right, he’s done very little the last 2 years and should’ve been subbed much earlier like the 60th minute mark.
I’m with Soul Champ and Crnkovic when it comes to our talent!
Our football factory has never been so productive.
Love Crnkovic’s line about Prso being our best player 10 years ago. Sad but pretty accurate. Maybe with the exception of Kranjcar and Srna.
Mamic does deserve some credit.
Our Catholic Polish brothers are out, but our Catholic Portugese brothers march on. I’m hoping for a Italy vs Portugal final!
What is wrong with Ronaldo’s finishing, should’ve had the golden boot wrapped up by now.
I think it’s fair to say Croatia’s struggles are due to four things in various degrees:
1) not playing up to their potential in crucial games
2) very, very dubious officiating – numerous examples that have been repeated above, especially in ’12, ’14 and ’16
3) some plain bad luck
4) coaching decisions
In last week’s game, it was all four – the ref let Portugal play dirty without penalty, a douchebag stomps on Modric (a for sure red card), allowing Portugal to slow the game down and foul at will. This didn’t allow Croatia to open up because Portugal didn’t have to back down. And Perisic hits the post before Portugal scores (on their only scoring chance, as on Pepe’s free header in the first half, he was a yard offside, funny how the linesman misses that on a free kick as he is perfectly in line with Pepe). And Cacic stuck with the starters way too long. I just don’t get why Mandzukic had to play 88 minutes. He’s useless and has been for at least two years.
@elcroato you are conflating two issues.
There’s a difference between playing well as we should and losing (ala Brazil 2014) and going into our shells like cowards (ala Portugal 2016)
On the Rapper: I can’t say for sure but wasn’t his stage name SoCro or something? As in South Cali Cro ? It was SoCro or SoCalCro or something like that if i remember right but it was a while ago? Someone can correct me.
I agree with Nick more htan the people saying Serbs are our kin. Fuck that. Nick is a man after my own heart, saying he feels sick when CuntDjokovic wins tourney after tourney.
Some of you jugos need to stop saying we’re the same as Serbs FFS. Don’t compare us to those cunts. And as someone said above, i too thought we were Iranian originally – that’s what my dad always told me anyways.
I guess on the repka at least we have an excellent qualifying record so that’s something. It’s not often we miss a tourney which is a lot more than you can say for Greece despite their ’04 bullshit. We don’t have an easy group for WCQ but i think we’re the best team in it so we should win tbh and get into Russia.
Not sure how we’ll go. There’s a lot of people saying the kidsd will be better by then; i certainly hope so but there are other issues, Corluka is already old for example, can he really be playing in 2 years? Not sure. Luka will be 32 also.. Srna obv won’t be there and despite the hate for him on this site he was one of our best players this tourney.. I’m not as optimistic but hopefully some of the kidlets pan out
So our defeat to Portugal is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for you, huh? And the win against Spain reinforced it? Or let me guess, it doesn’t count. Ah, okay, because we weren’t under pressure. /sarcasm
For me it was when those muljaci began throwing flares on the pitch and made us “lose” the Czech game.
Those lowlifes think they are fighting for some greater cause and that they are going to change the world. They made fools of us in front of the entire world instead. And they almost blinded an innocent man.
In reality the Mamic issue is not affecting the national team as much as you think. Sure, he had a hand in the coach and some players and he’s making lots of money off of some established players’ contracts, which is regrettable, but that is not why we lost against Portugal.
We lost because of unfair referreeing which lessened our aggression significantly. The referee allowed the Portuguese to walk all over us whereas we had to play with “kid gloves”. Despite this, we were still better and we were unlucky not to win. Of course this loss is used by all of the naysayers to attack Mamic and the national team. Very convenient. And since we have had the misfortune of not winning a knock out game since ’98 we are also “chockers” or “mental midgets”. ***faceitious laughing***
You forget though that the difference between winning and losing is decided by the narrowist of margins at this level and, as is often the case for us, unfair refereeing.
Did you forget about how Fred was awarded a free penalty in 2014 in Brazil and how Oscar fouled Rakitic to break away for the final goal? Oh, wait, that doesn’t tie in with your agenda. The loss against Mexico does though, so keep on milking it. I will admit that was a bad game, but we could have been through the group by that point.
What about 2012? I know the referee screwed us against Spain, but you guys like to solidify the “chocker complex” by alluding to Rakitic missing a clear header.
2008? That’s the chocker mentality again, huh? /sarcasm Get a last second goal from a 1 in 100 shot and then bow out on penalties. I challenge anyone to try to stay focused after going through such an emotional rollercoaster. That game was bad luck.
What about in 2003, when we had to win away in Slovenia after drawing at home in order to qualify for the Euros? We pulled off a 70 minute something goal thanks to Sokota and Prso. And that was a close game. Oh wait, we didn’t choke. So let’s not talk about this one, okay? /sarcasm
How about 1999, when we had to beat Ireland to keep our chances alive to qualify and Suker scores in injury time from an unlikely Robert Kovac punt? Or when we lost two crucial points against Yugoslavia in Zagreb thanks to Ladic letting two shitty Mihailjovic freekicks into goal? We weren’t chockers there were we? We were unlucky. You can’t blame Mamic for that one — to bad. Maybe you cam blame Canjuga. /sarcasm
How about 1997, when we were praying for Schmeichel not to let in a goal against Greece in Athens? And Greece came very very, very close. Had they scored, our “golden generation” would have never come into existence. Then maybe you guys wouldn’t be shitting all over the team right now. Or how about when we had to win against a very good Ukraine team in the play-offs and we barely pulled off a 1-0 win in Kiev thanks to Boksic?
How about ’96, when Sammer fouled Jerkan and then scored his winning goal? We chocked, huh? Oh wait, we didn’t ’cause that was the golden generation. ***/sarcasm*** Too bad Mamic wasn’t in charge, then you could blame him.
There are many more examples.
You guys sicken me…. The Croatian players gave everything in the game against Portugal. I could have and should have ended differently. I’m curious what you would be saying if we had done really well or had won the tournament.
Cunting Portugal win ONE game out of 5 and are into the semis. Most undeserving team in Euro history to go that far?
At least Poland lost as men.
I’d love to see Iceland win it, but they are going down sunday.
Pulling for Iceland
I guess that in an open game, Poland had about 25% chance to win while they would have 50 % with PKS. But it turned out wrong.
Still I (and not because Portugal eliminated us) was hoping that our Polish brothers would win.
I agree, but Portugal also showed more willingness to win than Poland. Poland was playing for for extra time and PKS more so than Portugal.
Ziva,
Portugal has way better players than Poland. Poland couldn’t do better than today, Portugal could.
If Portugal played defense in thisbgame, than what did Poland do. Neither team was anything appealing, but Portugal deserved the win over Poland.
I’m sorry for Poland but basically Portugal made the same mistake we made against them. Portugal had the better players but played too defensively to actually beat them…..only they didn’t let Poland score in the last minutes and has some luck with the penalties.
One of the worst Portugal teams in 20 years is in the semis. Soccer quality has really declined over the years. And they’ll play an overhyped Belgium or a one player Wales to go to the final. Sheesh.
Damn pork chops!
I feel for our Polish brothers.
I’ve always been of the opinion that if you want to run in the field, you will find a way.
After going through security at the various stadiums in France and the fanzones, I can see how people bring in flares and other objects.
Secruity at this tournament is complete trash
Back to club footy…
Siroki Brijeg with 1-1 draw at home in the first leg of Europa qualifying and NK Zagreb with a 3-1 road win.
And for F sakes Renato Sanches is the size of Modric!
Man, the body language by Ronaldo in this game is fun to watch.
Poland doing a good job of booting those gypsies around.
Pollocks are some big boys.
^^^
you need to get over your bs
Good post Ziva re MandZukic
And we don’t have the ability to win dirty. We’re too naive/gullible that we are going to “outplay” the other team. Sometimes you win soccer games with out necessarily outplaying a team but outworking, mental tactics, set pieces etc We lack that. Every team needs a few bullies. I get it, the ref wasn’t blowing the whistle enough but an Asanovic type player (which we don’t have) would have at least pinched, eye gouged or pulled Renato Sanches’s hair behind the refs back. He is good but it is a joke to think that an 18 year old was bullying grown ass men. Way too soft.
@mile…..get over it. We had every chance to win, but our mental midgetcy won the day.
Yet to beat anyone or lose to anyone.
Thumbs down to Poland. Negative against the Swiss aND negative today.
Portugal 7 fouls in 90 minutes, 28 fouls last week. It’s amazing how they can play so clean today, but 5 days ago they fouled Croats at will with intent to injure. It’s makes me sick to my stomach that the douche that scored the goal shouldn’t even be on the field, since he should have gotten a straight red for what he did to Modric.
Portugal yet to beat any in 90 mins
Like to see the break down on fouls/cards on the Poland Portugal game when done
When you say Mandzukic does a lot of good things, can you give me an example? I just know there are a lot of bad things – red card against Iceland, handball against Italy in qualifier for an Italian penalty, missed penalty in the same game (he did score a tap in goal from three yards in that game, his only goal for Croatia in two years). When I saw he was starting last week, I knew we were in big trouble. I would rather Croatia play with a false 9 because their team is set up like that.
Denis
where u at
Crnkovic dropped a lot of youngster names
But in all reality how similar does 2018 World Cup starting line up look if we make it
Srna stay on as player/assistant coach like old school hockey!!
Whoops that wasn’t his left.
Yeah, putting it in the back if the net is the hardest part of the game.
A consistent scoring forward is your most lethal weapon in soccer. We don’t have it. Mandza does a lot of good things but scoring consistently is not one of them (unless he is being fed tap in goals by the likes of Ribery, Muller and Roben).
Yep, no use in comparing games right now. An early goal in an elimination game always changes the tactics/strategy. If we would have scored early against Portugal they would have been attacking more, leaving them open to the counter.
You have to adapt to the score, time and situation.
@Ziva
Yeah we coulda used Lewandowski. Not sure any of our strikers would hit the net, side footing from that angle with their left.
different style of game from the croatian, can’t compare how the portuguese are playing now to the croatian game, of course poland scored, shit we would of as well
If the Portuguese had played us this open we would have killed them.
Poland just accomplished in 120 seconds what we couldn’t do in 120 minutes.
I though we were Goths or Iranian. Slavs is news to me.
@Bobby V
Just want to point out that the Iceland manager Lars Lagerback is a 40 year professional manager who also managed Sweden and Nigeria and has never lost to England. His “co-manager” is the incumbent coach and dentist.
Maybe Lars Lagerback is available?
@Damir
I agree. Serbs are our kin, whether some agree or not.
They are genetically connected, as all Slavs are, and as all white people are.
We are neighbours that must stand together if we are to survive what’s in store in the near future.
Old hostilities must be put aside. I have no ill feelings towards my Serbian Slav brothers. History is history, the future is at stake.
@Nick
We shouldn’t worry about Serbs just like us they have excellent sports players. Just our area ex YU has produced world class players that many countries 10 times our size dont have.
We need to get over our differences and look to the future as good neighbors. War is behind us, Yugoslavia has been dead for over 25 Years lets look to the future and look to have less hate.
@Ziva
Ok, thanks I just found that hilarious.
A Croat rapper. lol.
So many comments, so little time. Where to start, where to end?
Let me start by saying that I’ve been following Croatian football since 94 when we stuck it to Italy in a qualifier in Palermo. Since then, the team peaked in 98 with a 3rd place finish at the world cup and everyone, including myself, expected croatia to battle with the top 6 or 7 teams for a world cup / euro cup title year after year.
Today, I am very proud of what Croatia has accomplished in the sports world for such a small nation. I understand that just qualifiying for a tournament is a huge success. However, at the same time, we are a sports and football mad nation that produces talented players year after year after year not by fluke.
Football is a cruel sport where the best team doesnt always win, a little bit of bad luck goes a long way, and one simple mistake could end your season in group stage vs. lifting the trophy.
Yes, champions are remembered and that is the ultimate goal. However, I will repeat myself that I would be embarrassed to lift the trophy as champions of Europe 04 if I was Greece. 1) Bunker every game is antifootball. 2) Bunker is not our style. For me, its more important how you won and how you played.
Today, Croatian football has turned into a circus. The Portugal game was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I strongly believe for changes to be made, we the fans of the game can make changes.
Imagine 40,000 fans outside of maksimir protesting during a WC qualifier game with 40 Mamic payed fans watching inside? Now, imagine this for the entire WC qualifying campaign? The players will notice and some of them will refuse to play until the situation gets better.
Sadly, I don’t see this happening. Croatians in Croatia have done nothing against the current mickey mouse government and could care less against the government of football. Its easy for me to talk from the states with a job and bread on my table.
Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
I will reply to the rest of you a little later on the previous post.
@anonymous,
Yes, I was at timeout last night. Do I know you?
@Nick……The half-hrvat Djokovic is an anomaly. Cro has always had a better tennis tradition than the serbs.
@Round of 16……..I don’t recall the name. But there was an entry about him and an ask to help fund his crowd sourcing project.
@Nick
Smiri se.
Tennis sucks. who gives a shit!
Greece was an anomaly.
Bronze medal at the world cup in first attempt s still a great achievement.
Yes it’s a wasted opportunity. But that’s the breaks.
Portugal does it all the time. It’s nothing special but they are reconized for having a much better football tradition than us.
If Croatia’s midfield is countered with anti-football we have no response. Bet we lose a result againist Iceland in next WC group. Sometimes you have to take a draw or PK and not get stupid and expose yourself to counter. Croatia has not learned this.
Yes Greece as crap as they are they have that Euro trophy home
Something that was achievable for us this time.
My worry is that we will be always qualifying and have an early exit. And one Euro Serbia will show up and and preform better than us. I used to think we are a tennis country and Serbia not then Novak Djoković shows up. I literally am sick to my stomach every grand slam final.
@Ziva
Who was the wannabe hip hop person?
The guy looks like a Cigano.
Friends, an associate of mine made me aware of the following article.
http://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/osumnjiceniku-za-nerede-100.000-kn-jamcevine-on-tvrdi-branio-sam-mladica-kojeg-su-cipelarili/4482524/
I know there have been crowd funding suggestions on this site for more deplorable causes, so I ask this………should we start a gofundme.com page for the parents of one of the initials suspected of causing trouble during the Czech game?
I mean, we had an appeal for some dude who wanted to be a rapper or hip hop person. So, maybe we should take this under consideration.
What say you croatian sports dot com nation?
Cacic….. you don’t bring a Beta player to a laser Disc match.
No we don’t have any strikers…we can play with false 9 like spain and barcelona did when at their peak. Pjaca can play there. Kramaric, or kalinic, perica, brodic……..not as talented as the likes of brekalo and coric but very good players still. With the likes of halilovic, coric and brekalo providing the ammunition you could put corluka up front and we’d score goals…
Croatia has shown for years that the way to beat them is to not play football. Portugal always takes knockout games to the PKs. Gotta be smart guys. With this strategy you have 50/50 chance of winning. For Gods sake Greece has a better football tradition than us.
but do we have any strikers???
Muric, Moro…knezevic, pavicic, simunovic…it wasn’t long ago that prso was our best player…be happy
Euro 2012 we lined up with Jelavic and mandzukic up top, vukojevic in midfield….things have changed. Mamic is churning out diamonds …
Yeah
God bless Cacic for being baseline good for the repka BUT you can’t make one tactical sub?
Spain match was a yellow card replacement fest that forced the young legs in the side.
Croatia have a real manager with freedom to coach and we dominate.
By the way you fight physical play with attacking speed.
Slow skilled players are effected by thuggery.
Perišić did played well against physical play because he can skip by the defenders.
He we go shitting on our players to beat top teams on their own with minimal game time support from the coach.
Classic Balkan blame when the game is set up to lose.
Croatians can be better.
Every one on this thread knows it.
Uefa u19 tournament starting in a few days. Watch
Rivelino, pele, tostao? Don’t make me laugh. This generation pisses all over them. But people arnt ready. I feel sorry for ziva, what’s he gonna say when these kids beat France 5-0?
Rakitic? Lol
Caleta car, benkovic, soldo, davor lovren…I’m just sorry some of them won’t get to play. Incredible talent. All of them better than perisic. Trust me
It’s not rocket science. We have the most talented group of youngsters any nation has ever had. You bunch of negative cunts. Brekalo, halilovic, pjaca, rog, vlasic, balic, benko, coric…..it’s not rocket science, pick the team….jedvaj…we should be laughing
if i have an honours degree in depth psychology and am doing a PhD in the same thing can i apply to coach the repka? Seems fitting 😉
Or me…
…I mean, what is an expensive foreign coach going to guarantee?
It wouldn’t be as good of an atmosphere as Tata Cacic provided – the players would view a foreign coach as an unwanted step-dad.
…and then being awesome at putting in substitutes wouldn’t mean a damn thing
Or zuti..NO ONE ELSE
I hate being croatian. Wish I was a fucking Eskimo. Halilhodzic is the best potential manager for us. Harry redknapp? You guys are hilarious
@ Poglavnik – Exactly! Croatians have always been way too obsessed with national team managers.
For you ant- Cacic people:
Explain why England’s manager, who is paid $4.6 million dollars per year lost to Iceland, whose manager is a part-time dentist?
BTW, Cacic doesn’t do flat-screen TV’s. If your Baba still has one with a tube, bring it down to him. He has some time until September 4th.
It’s been fun fellas. Gotta get off this site before Asperger Ziva blows a tizzy.
There are great managers that were great players like Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Rijkaard, Guardiola, Simeone. And then there are great managers like Mourinho Wenger and Ferguson who were shit players.
But there is only ONE great manager AND tv repairman!
Nothing wrong with a former player turning coach. Of course one has little to do with the other, but at least they have been around the game all of their lives. Even better if it’s a really good player who played under the tutelage of great managers (like Cruyff in Prosinecki’s case). However, what we don’t want is a player who is cutting their teeth as a manager for Croatia.
I don’t know enough about his managerial career, but 10 years as a manager now. It would be good for him to get some big league club experience first, but I don’t think he would be a terrible choice assuming that our options are as limited as we assume them to be.
The difference is the Aussie Diamonds are not mental midgets
When it came time to fight fire with fire, Croatia was found wanting, I think that’s why they played a physical game, threw in a couple of stomps, because they knew there would be no return fire!
They stomp, you guys take it, that’s pretty weak if you ask me!
In Australia their netball team is called the diamonds!
I’m so proud of the boys, they gave there best effort and that’s all we can ask, I sure hope they get a trophy for participating because they’re all winners in my eyes!
@BZ agreed
We got some really soft yellows this tournament but hey at the end of the day you play the refs whistle right ? Regardless of of they are or are not making calls on our favour.
Good point Ziva
Modric and Rakitic’s jobs with their clubs is to make sure the stars are serviced and the team is clicking, run back for other guys who won’t run back or you don’t want them to come back so they can preserve energy for attaching. They are not the guys who grab a game by the neck and single handedly bring the heat. Ronaldo can do that for 1 minute after doing nothing for 90 min. If we had a world class striker it would be easier but we don’t. We have a striker who feeds off crosses. Stop Croatia from crossing or our midfield from playing and you can beat us.
Hats off to Perisic though for being the Talisman for a time being this tournament and for continuously trying to be that guy because we need one.
Just look at the stats, Kalinic is the only forward that scored. Modric, Rakitic and Perisic scored our goals. You need strikers scoring as well to be successful. We weren’t good enough to push all the time and actually play a forward/diagonal ball for our strikers because they arent good enough and we weren’t that shitty where you play like Greece in 04. We need a striker who can take people on one on one. Pjaca and Perisic were the only guys that could do that.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Perisic/Pjaca become a pola spic and play just behind MandZa out wide with 4 in mid. Unless one of our young find develop in 2 years. Remember Perisic was the top scorer in Belgium at 20 years old and was the youngest ever top goal scorer in Belgium until Lukaku broke his record a few years back. That’s a decent stat
@Croatianperson85-And two of those yellows we were sitting on were a result of one phantom foul by Vrsaljko (Srna got his yellow, for rightfully arguing the BS call on Vrsaljko’s behalf.)
By the way, Srna did a stellar job on Ronaldo, which is why Ronaldo ended up on the right wing (vs Strinic)
Given the refs/hooligans, how our guys had enough mental fortitude to go undefeated-in regulation time- is beyond me! Chalk it up to Croatian mental strength.
Guys the game sucked vs Portugal we can all agree but its not so black and white.
If we pushed the game more and Nani or Ronaldo countered and we lost we’d all be calling Cacic and the team idiots.
Both teams came out not looking to concede a goal. It was like the simpsons episode a few people have already posted on here.
We thought Portugal would come out they way they did in the group stages with run and gun all out attack soccer and they got burned for that all 3 games because they are a decent team but they are not as good as the previous years Portugal teams. Similar to how Brazil thought they could play Samba soccer vs Germany and got smacked.
That samba soccer works when you have Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Robinho, Adriano etc. They don’t have that anymore and Brazil needs to change their game. Portugal changed their game vs us and we didn’t pusht the play ENOUGH because even though we are better, our D is slow and Ronaldo can always take off from nothing so both teams were now playing timid and not wanting to screw up. Their 4 stomps and no calls makes a huge difference when 7 of your guys are sitting on yellows. You can’t turn around and do the same because lets be honest, if we did those 4 stomps on them and Ronaldo, I have a hard time believing we would not have gotten cards.
HOWEVER, even though Cacic was our best pick of the bunch for Cro coaches, that’s when a coach says, hey the chops are fouling us hard, clogging the middle, not allowing us to play the wing = time for a change in tactics.
Problem is, A) hard to change tactics when we don’t have an out and out goal getter striker like Suker, Mandza is only as good as his service so if crosses are bad, Mandza is probably bad, B) our defence isn’t the fastest so our mid wasn’t too thrilled with pushing too much when Ronaldo and Nani (not as good as before but still fast) are just waiting for counter WHICH now puts us in a position where we just try and keep position and play it safe ( Italians are historically good at that, it’s not our game) C) going back to a striker issue, you can’t play any through balls down the middle/ diagonal because Mandza isnt quick enough. D) We need players who know how to play DIRTY! Vida is the closest we have. Boban kicked a cop, Asanovic threw elbows, Stimac apparently runs/ran a nightclub and would beat guys up all the time according to my Dalmatinci cousins, not sure how true that is.
Uruguay has been playing that soccer for a few years now combined with some talented players and it works.
In 98 we gained independence and had a point to prove, we have some vicious players who would hurt you before they lose. We DO NOT have any of those players any more. Period.
Guys the game was trickier than it seemed. We were not confident/comfortable enough in pushing the attack because we did not want to get caught on a counter
Bale and Ronaldo are world class, Modric is not.
Lewandowski is world class, Mandzukic is not.
The difference between Croatia and Portugal in my opinion is that Portugal have a world class player in Ronaldo, where we do not have a world class player.
A team with one world class player vs a team with no world class player, I always favour the team with the world class player.
This is not as big an upset as some of you think, truth be told this team wasn’t as good as they thought they were!
As a collective whole withnthenrepka, they are mental midgets. By themselves at the club level surrounded by other winners, their mental midget disease does away.
Modric, Srna, Rakitic and Corluka were all important members of the team since 2008, Kalinic was also in the squad at the 2008 Euros.
Are all those five mental midgets?
Croatia will be great in 2010, 2016, 2018, etc…
Fact is, since 2006 we have been producing world class players after the war caused that development gap between ’98 and the mid-2000s.
We have great players now, and we’ll have great players in several years from now. It’s just a matter of when will our savez decide to spring the cash for a top notch coach to ensure that this team meets it potential.
Until we decide to spring big money on a coach, we may as well stick with Cacic (who is pretty decent with lineup selection, but will get outcoached at key moments the way Santos outcoached him last week).
@everyone
Mind you we had almost 7 guys in yellows and the the yellows don’t reset until the semis. So if one of those guys got a yellow vs Portugal and we won they would not have been able to play.
When you see the 4 stomps not get called and we all know if we did that to Ronaldo we would have seen red.
The Portuguese knew how to win DIRTY and sometimes no matter how good you are technically you may have to win DIRTY if winning clean isn’t working. We gave Portugal a lot of respect because they let us have the ball and we’re just waiting for a Nani or Ronaldo counter on our slow defence. I have been reading Portuguese news in English and that’s basically what their coach said.
We played too soft, gave too much respect and didn’t do enough to score and win. The world knows our style. Hold possession and go wide for a cross to MandZa. Our service and crossing was worst against Portugal. MandZa is only as good as his crosses. We lack dirty grinders. Boban kicked a cop. We don’t have cop kicking mentality players. All our midfielders excluding Perisic, do all the grunt work for their clubs (Rakitic, Modric maybe even BroZovic. We lack an out and out striker and an attacking midfielder who does NOT play wing.
We had a better team ON PAPER but we sure didn’t play like it.
2018 we will be great if the kids develop properly and we don’t have any crazy injuries and guys are in form which is asking a lot. Most of the older guys on this team will be 30,31 which you should still be able to play at until you start to break down with age.
Denis,
Enjoy, make sure to stop by timeout and fjaka grab a bevanda
Sorry Mr Black I just read your previous post and you named a few coaches. Aside from the ones you named I think that’s about it. I could be wrong.
Hey Iggy
I agree with you brother. Other than Cacic which other Croatian coach could we really have picked with more experience/better record ?
Kudos to anyone calling out the flip floppers too. If we went further in the tournament Cacic would have been praised.
With Croats it’s always damage control. We are going to complain one way or another so what’s the best way to mitigate the complaining.
Croatian soccer- 2 consistent themes- amazing athletes and deplorable coaches. It won’t change with the existing regime- I see more “what if’s” I’m afraid. Allen keep this article you can use it again in 2018
Sorry ladies and gentlemen, i have been mia for a couple days. Today i tasted the adriatic sea for the first time in 3 years.
Allen well done on the piece.
I will get back to some of you in the next couple of days.. its not easy typing on a phone.
Veliki pozdrav iz brodarice
Wow ha.. do refs think they are big stars like the players now? what a n00bcannon
Here’s that Brazilian referee from the Copa America final right after the game – gotta love it.
http://www.24sata.hr/sport/copa-america-18-sudio-je-finale-pa-unajmio-prostitutke-480904
Cacic is not the best coach in the world, let’s be honest, but he’s also prolly the best we’ve had in a few years.
I’d prefer him to stay on just because im pretty sure if he’s replaced it’ll be by a former player who knows jack all about anything and it’ll be worse than the current situation. Cacic is “okay” and “okay” is actually fantastic given our recent history.
Actually, Croatia suffers the Brisbane Lions disease. For all you non-Aussies, the Brisbane Lions were premiers here in Aus for three years in a row from 2001-2003 (and made the final again in ’04) but have done nothing since (kinda like HRV with ’98).
Since then, they have resorted to hiring coaches who PLAYED in that golden era but who know jack all about actual coaching (sound familiar?) So we had Voss and now we have Leppitsch who knows shit all what to do, exactly the same as how HRV had Bilic, Kovac and Stimac.
There seems to be some idiotic mentality that because someone played in a good team they automatically know how to coach for some reason. Bloody lunacy.
So, given the history of our coaching selections, Cacic is by far the better the devil you know than whatever useless cunt Mamic would otherwise trot out.
I remember when we drew against the Azeris a bunch of ppl on this site were saying Prosnecki should be our coach, heh, yet another former player from that ’98 team. Who else can we get? What’s Ladic up to these days? Krpan? Ante Seric ? Great coaches the lot of them, im sure *rolls eyes*
Keep Cacic for the atmosphere – let Simunic or another assistant do the substituting.
Like the NFL – head coach allows the co-ordinators due the in-game stuff.
Of course an agreement!!
If Cacic should go, we should consider Srecko Katanec. He did some great things with Slovenia and he’s born to Croatian parents.
Ancelotti would be great too. He knows Modric very well and he’s a specialist. But he’s probably too expensive.
What about Vladimir Petkovic? He didn’t make it to 1/8 final with Switzerland but they sure played some nice football. By the way, Petkovic has a Croatian passport.
Bilic will turn us down. So will Ivan Juric who just signed an agreements as coach of Genoa.
Please no English coach. They know shit about football.
If Cacic goes, the most important thing his replacement needs to do is maintain the great atmosphere among the players. It’s no coincidence that the best performance since 2008 coincided with the players having a Tata type figure that built them up and made sure they were all on board, sort of like Bilic did.
At the national team level its not coaching, its selecting and creating a positive attitude among the players. The rest is severely overrated.
Unless a legitimate top level coach is going to be named I’d rather keep Cacic, versus an unknown commodity who might screw up team spirit and atmosphere.
@BZ
“@nitro-Ziva just jealous that his fake source is not as reliable as your source.”
great line, sums it up beautifully
They had several lists out of the guys responsible for throwing the flares. Some legit, some not. Some of the guys accused weren’t even in France at the time. You get it.
I wouldn’t say most see through it. Only a very small number do.
@ziva – again with a false dilemma. Good thing most of us can see right thru your gish gallop.
Just read this on another site and thought I’d share it here….it’s relevant and undeniably true:
Broj dobivenih eliminacijskih utakmica na EP i SP – 21.stoljeće: Njemačka 15, Španjolska 11, Italija 9, Francuska 8, Nizozemska 7, Portugal 7, Turska 3, Grčka 3, Engleska 2, Belgija 2, Poljska 1, Češka 1, Ukrajina 1, Rusija 1, Wales 1, , Island 1, Hrvatska 0, Evo kako stvari stoje… i usprkos tome svaki put doček “junaka” na Plesu, nogometne himne, euforija. Malo podsjeća na HDZ i njihove izborne pobjede… Naravno, uvijek nam je sudac kriv, lopta, nesreća, stativa, a nije ništa u glavama igrača i izborniku koji se redovito uči na reprezentaciji (prvi ozbiljni posao)
@Ante B…….What I miss? Falsely accused?
I’m sorry……I meant Lens not Lille. Those two selos are so close that I mix them up.
I don’t think so. All these guys need is a babysitter. Someone who treats adults like adults.
They don’t want an authoritative figure. We saw how they quit on Kum Kovac.
Nobody cried when Strucnjak Stimac left, nobody cried when Kum Kovac left and nobody will cry when Druga Liga eventually leaves.
Ziva,
You’re too late with the ESPN 30 for 30 What If I Told You line…I already used it against the guys who were falsely accused of throwing the flares.
I know his in-game management was pretty disappointing, but could Cacic leaving actually be detrimental to the team? The last thing this team needs a former player (puppet) that tries to act like an authority figure again.
@BZ……fake source???? good one.
I agree with you on the calls by the refs……To that I say this…………If our fans have no problem with the corrupt Croatian refs and savez and how the HNL is run, then we don’t have any right to complain about corrupt UEFA refs and officials. You can’t ignore corruption when it favors you and ten complain about it when it goes against you. What if I told there was an individual in the VIP section in Lille during our game against Portugal who had given a personal loan to a referee who then reffed the very game of the team that VIP official represents?
You can spin it any way you want………no knockout stage wins since 1998……that is mental midgetcy, especially in 2008 and 2016. We had teams capable of winning knockout stage games.
@ziva- True,we are the better team. Statisticslly we were by far the better team when it comes to chances created. You were not here for previous threads, but did you notice how Portugal fouled us hard the entire game, including deliberate stamps on two international stars, Modric & Rakitic. 1 yellow?Kinda hard to overcome that kind of refereeing, even with the superior mental strength of a Croatian.
Too many of us saw the deliberate dismantling of our team by these refs, forgetting about all the small calls, below were some whoppers:
Vrsaljko pk vs Spain
Mandzukic plowed over in the box awaiting a sitter vs Czech
Pjaca grabbed & chopped vs Spain
Pjaca pushed & potential hand ball in box vs Portugal. He did not go down after the push, b/c the precedent had been set that Croatia will not get the call.
Takes some serious mental strength to overcome that kind of refereeing, and still never lose in regulation time the entire tournament.
@nitro-Ziva just jealous that his fake source is not as reliable as your source.
Redknapp hasn’t been doing very well especially lately, I disagree he is the right fit!
@BZ…..who had the more talented team???? We did. Portugal was the underdog and they did what they needed to do to win. We didn’t. Usually, the favorite goes into a game and doesn’t resemble anything what they looked like in previous matches and then loses, that is when you get the mental midget label. It pops up every time when we are in a must win position.
@Nitro……good stuff, but you are a day or two late. That shit is already in the Cro media.
so i’m finally getting some rest and here’s some buzz i’m hearing about Cacic
There is some chatter circulating that Cacic might get a coaching offer from Russia. This is working on two angles. The first is Cacic’s master plan is coming to fruition. Knowing he was coming to the end of his coaching career, Cacic rolled the dice by infuriating Mamic and not starting Pjaca, believing that ultimately if things went well for Croatia, Cacic could score a big payday somewhere. So ultimatley, Cacic tournament priority was winning. Now perhaps its coming true.
On the flip side, Mamic is starting to initiate the shove of Cacic. As I discussed, he went bizerk that Cacic was not playing Pjaca. He was appeased when Cacic played both Pjaca and Rog against Spain. and then was over the moon when they actually won making those two look like rising stars.
But the whole touranment process has seriously damaged Mamic’s trust of Cacic, so he is up to look for a replacement.
Just like Ciro…. Only with 30 years of managerial experience at the top level.
Redknapp as our manager?
he’s the equivalent to Ciro Blazevic, the English version!
@canadadarko- I may be jaded, but after Pleti, I am more confident with Subasic. Really hoping Semper or somebody else pans out… but for now, Subasic is serviceable. Do you have someone else in mind? Somebody else mentioned Kalinic, but I haven’t seen him play much.
@ziva lol @mental midgets label after the goal! Oh mind you, set pieces are a result of good play / possession (which was another area we dominated.) 12-3 shot advantage after 105 mins sounds more like Portugal were the mental midgets, but keep serbing up the joint buddy.
Ziva Istina reminds me of Dave Hester from storage wars
Agree with you Ziva on Cacic. We probably don’t have other better options. If he could just learn from some of his mistakes I would get behind him a bit more, but unconvinced and his comments about being unlucky are BS. We should have made our own luck.
If Redknapp (or someone similar) was an option I would drop Cacic in a second. He’s a guy who may be motivated by the opportunity to show everyone what he can do with our talented players. He’s getting passed over for England and you can tell it bothers him. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if England hired Bilic and we hired Redknapp?
@BZ……….So, you think Cacic told the players not to go for the win until the 102nd minute? Giving praise to almost scoring after Portugal scored is week. Every team pushes up at that point. Hell, even England almost scored in the last seconds against Iceland. We were timid and scared. Mental midgets.
Great we held Portugal to no shots……and we had none as well. Our only chances were set pieces (vida) and second ball opportunities. We had nothing from the pace of play. That game from a neutral observer’s point of view was pure garbage.
Cacic isn’t going anywhere, that I agree with. But, there is nothing in his background to indicate he is the right man for the job or can learn from his mistakes. Once again we have amateurs learning on the job.
Here is what Cacic showed……he is capable of preparing a team for a game or tourney. He is in way over his head when adjustments need to be made during the course of a game. Sample size is small. But, that is what we saw.
What are people’s thoughts on Subasic as our teams starting goalie? I am not sure if he is a big time tournament goalie or not. Yes, he stopped the penalty kick but did it with a lot of help. He sometimes looked stiff and out of position to me.
BZ,
I agree!
@ziva – i would argue that the players were exactly the opposite of mental midgets vs Portugal. As soon as Cacic FINALLY told them to go for the win, we were all over the goal. Sure Portugal scored shortly thereafter, but in the remaining 3 minutes we almost tied it up because of some serious mental strength by our players. We were deep in the box, and there was no quit in us. The term Mental Midgets is often used in sports when a team goes down and they fold as opposed to going on the offensive. This was not the case vs Portugal.
It seems we all agree that we played too reserved initially, but damn, holding Portugal/Ronaldo to 0 shots on target in the first 90 is perfect execution of a reserved gameplan.
I agree with the guy who said I hope Cacic stays on. I think we are moving toward something here. Stability at coaching will only help us learn from our mistakes.
But, I don’t think these guys look at it as hurting their national team chances. Each case is unique to itself.
Kovacic knew going to Real he was going to get less minutes. The president of the club said so when they signed him. He was brought in for depth. Knowing that, it is still tough to pass up a move to Real. Money was good and the lifestyle in that city is good. I’m sure national team consequences are way in the back of the mind.
Strinic was picked because we have nobody else.
Halilovic was exiled because when it came down to the final roster spots, it was clear Mamic could not make any money on him but he could with Rog and Coric being sold down the road. And then all the mudslinging about Halilovic began that he wouldn’t be content sitting the bench. Which is even more proof Cacic was not qualified to coach the team. A manager couldn’t control a 19-yr old kid?
Agreed on that.
…but if we had won, Portugal and their 2nd golden generation would be the mental midgets.
On Corluka, if he ends up playing only a handful of games next year for Bayern it’s not going to help him to play well for us. Each player is different, but Strinic, Kovacic and Halilovic suffered (as did Croatia ultimately) because of their lack of play at the end of the season. I’m not talking about a punitive system, but its a factor that must come into play when it comes time for selection and decision on starters.
@BZ……….Serb Subasic is a play on words because Subasic is a serb. Relax. I actually think it shows that Croatia is an open country that we have no issues with a serb being on the team. It speaks to our fans being open minded.
And yes, only one team will win, but it all depends on how you go out. When Iceland is eliminated this weekend by France, nobody will say they were mental midgets. They went above and beyond. Cro on the other hand has played below expectations when it comes to knockout games and win-or-go-home games. It would be one thing if we were eliminated playing attractive soccer, but the term mental midgets works when you look at the way we lost to Portugal.
It was either Strinic or someone out of position. Pick your poison. As a defender Strinic was fine.
Will you have the same criteria for Corluka going forward. He is off to Bayern. At first glance I don’t see him as a starter on that team. Mats Hummels and Boatang will start for them.
@melbcro – I disagree with about 75% written on this site, at which point I usually make my counterpoints and move on. I have stated in the past that I actually enjoy the various perspectives on this site, as it can be both enlightening and baffling. That said, there are about 3 people that keep repeating (ad nauseum) over the years that we (Croatian people) have some sort of self limiting/mental illness which simply is not true.
The word Serb is thrown out there b/c there is a mental midget troll on this site that likes to belittle other Croats with nicknames like Serb Subasic or something to that effect. I am just throwing it back at them, as I think it applies, since Serbs like to insult Croatians.
Again only 1 of 24 teams in the euros and 1 of 16 teams in the Copa America, will not suffer from mental midgetcy this summer. We are not alone, and it is not endemic to Croatian soccer.
The problem I have with the whole “mental midget disease” commentary is that it implies we had no control over our own destiny. No matter what, we were predisposed to fail… If you believe this, then why bother watching at all?
The reality is that we were not quite good enough. Sure, we had plenty of ability on the team to go farther, but what prevented us from achieving more? I believe it’s all about getting the most out of the players. This is partially by deploying the proper tactics, but it’s also the little things like including needed players or relying on Strinic who sat on the bench all season and didn’t getting a cap for the NT until a few weeks before the tournament. I believe Strinic can play a part, but he has to get first team futball or request a transfer. If he’s content riding the bench at Napoli then there is no room for him. Just a couple examples, but these are the things we need to focus on.
Three big Croatian tournament upsets in round robin:
2002 Croatia 2 Italy 1
2008 Croatia 2 Germany 1
2016 Croatia 2 Spain 1
All followed by elimination losses in their next meaningful game (Poland in 2008 was a meaningless third game, as Croatia had secured first place) vs.Ecuador, Turkey and Portugal. In all three of those games, we hit the post.
Moral – don’t beat big teams 2-1 in a major tournament.;-)
Seriously though, it looks like we get so cocky after these wins and start to look forward and either play it safe and play not to lose, or just play scared and uninspired. I know Portugal was tough to play, but that Croatia team looked nothing like the round robin team. And why the hell is it that every time we were able to make some inroads through the middle did the player with the ball have to always pass it to the wings so a cross can be put into the box? That is not Croatia’s game. It was the most frustrating game I have ever seen Croatia play.
What time are we playing Poland tommorow? LOL
Heard some chatter today about Bilic’s name being thrown around for the England job. No one thought it was realistic that he would want to leave West Ham, but no one seems to dismiss him on capability.
well I think we can all agree Denis was being ridiculous
it just doesn’t make sense. mamic and suker will not be replaced. is denis truly never going to watch croatia soccer again?! i have a tough time believing it
i think the problem is denis hangs out with too many older croatians. they sit around and spin each other up on ridiculous things like a bunch of stara baba’s or old guys in the town square. just like one of his stric’s spun him up that the croatia cameroon game was rigged after the last world cup
for this ridiculousness, i think denis should be able to walk through a large crowd as some lady behind him rings a bell and says , “shame…..shame….shame….”
The Dutch say the same thing when they loose: that its a mentality issue. I’m not sure psychology is the answer. The reality is we have no goal scorer, we have one dimensional defense men, we have only one world class player (Modric), we have players with skill but poor pace. I felt we played well in early rounds because Perisic and Brozovic brought the pace that this team had lacked for a long time. But then against Portugal it was the same old issue of players just standing around allowing the endemic Balkan mononucleosis to take over.
I hope we go with youth in Russia and reform the team.
Mental midget disease has many forms.
What is a mental midget ??? Its used often here but i have never heard that expression.
@Bobby V.
Great first post from you above. Agree this team deserves our support.
I am posting a comment by Slavonac from another thread. Another good analysis by him and follows some of the points brought above.
SLAvonac from Canada
“I took a few days off work and didn’t have the chance to come on this site until now.
Denis, I’m a bit shocked with your overall comment about boycotting. If you were going to be credible and boycott, you should have mentioned it prior to this tournament and not leave until they lost. you are suggesting some very strange things man…Lovren “stepped up” to the bullshit? dude, you’re really grasping here…Lovren protested on behalf of himself and not for the better of the team, your comment is seriously flawed.
you go on to discuss the Portugal game and use the Spain result as an argument? you bring up basketball a lot, a sport I know nothing about BUT, you should know better than to compare an open game vs a very closed game. the circumstances while we played Spain were much different, regardless of if we lost or not, we were in…totally different than the game vs Portugal. everyone on earth saw the writing on the wall and once the game started vs Portugal, we saw they weren’t going to press and the counter-attack was the overall plan.
for the record, Strinic fucked that up….it was his reckless play that lead to the goal. Strinic was at the corner of the 18 yard box when Brozovic passed him the ball. he should have immediately tried to knock the ball back into the box, not try to settle it and beat two players that were closing in on him. the moment I saw him flop like a fish out of water I knew we were done!
you go on to talk about Rog, you say he was showcased. did you not put an ounce of value in his play vs Spain? the kid ran forever and was all over Iniesta. I didn’t even see the Italians close him down as much as Rog was committed to defending the midfield for us. the kid deserves a lot of credit and I bet if this were basketball you’d be able to identify that!
I read someone else’s comment about Pjaca, most here raised their eyebrow when he was chosen but now that the Portugal game is over, everyone is a coach and know’s what changes should have been made? I also wanted him in the game much earlier BUT, do you replace a player with the lung capacity of a camel with someone that may make a change offensively? these questions are tough to answer! yeah, I wanted Pjaca in at the 60 minute mark but how do I know he would have been effective vs a stingy Portugal? its not easy to know how players match up until its done. every time I felt like taking Brozovic out he ended up covering massive amounts of field space in a very tight game…do we substitute that for an offensive player than may get shut down?
I haven’t read all the comments but has anyone mentioned Perisic? where was he on Saturday? did he even try to anticipate through balls and take players on like he did in the first 3 games? why isn’t he singled out? your best players have to find ways….what exactly did he do outside of one head ball?
Mandzukic was not good, what service did he get? who got service into the box vs Portugal? you blame Mandzukic when the service was shit…I don’t think anyone would have done anything in that game because there was zero quality crosses to latch onto!
there are things I would have done differently, but I’m not at the ground level. for one, I was frustrated Modric played so deep back in front of our defenders while Badelj was on the field but it seemed Portugal was extremely stingy and made it difficult for us in the middle. we didn’t overlap and attack down the wings and when we had the chance to, the service was bad…not sure how Kalinic would have changed that but I could see Pjaca changing it…he is a vertical player that takes guys on and can create…whereas Kalinic needs service…so I’m not sure what value he brings as a creator when chance’s were far and few in-between? also, lets not forget the chance Vida took away from Mandzukic who was extremely well positioned to connect on the head ball. Kalinic gets a shot from 12 yards and almost hits the flag pole…I didn’t see anyone mention that? usually a striker would place that low and to the opposite side of the goal, his shot was abysmal and yet, you suggest he comes into play at the 45 minute mark….so we can see him do more of that? a good striker wouldn’t waste an opportunity like that trying to blast the ball into the 45th row!
I’m not a fan of Mamic, nor do I care about Suker but this topic has been sucked dry! how do you expect the savez to clean up when the entire political system and government is a nightmare? you expect the soccer federation to be cleaned up and yet they can’t even form a decent government in Croatia! the country is corrupt and all things considered…Dinamo produces almost 90% of the best players Croatia has to offer…tell me I’m wrong?
have you ever thought of protesting Hajduk Split? aren’t you from Split? do you ever read about the circus at that club or are you first a dalmatinac and then a Croat and look past the bullshit because it suits you better that way… I do recall you saying something about that once. its really unfair you use one standard with the savez and another with Hajduk! both are corrupt and yet you only choose to see one of them as corrupt.
back to the game vs Portugal… I know many people with the same mentality as Cacic, he’s not much different than many others coaches we’ve seen over the years. its part of their mentality to not gamble when its perceived to gamble against a decent soccer nation like Portugal during a knock-out game. he’s not alone and when I saw that big mouth Ciro criticize him, I asked myself why that idiot isn’t and hasn’t had a decent employment for the better part of 16 years? he was lucky to have had a great generation to work with, he’s no genius but he sure knows how to talk shit! what coach do we have that would have changed the strategy against a team that could hurt you on the counter-attack and use our strengths which could be extremely costly and controversial? the game is over and we now have 20/20 vision but when we all saw the lineups, none of us were questioning anything.
for the record, Vrsaljko was bad at left back…he was obviously not comfortable playing there. Strinic was ok, Vida scares me…he has displayed he can be irresponsible. Corluka was great…not sure why anybody would ever criticize him? Srna did very well, Subasic let in one bad goal…
I’m gonna let you boycott and blame Mamic and Suker, one less fan won’t affect the players. I just wish people would be less critical of someone when they won’t look at their own back yard…in this case, your beloved Hajduk!
June 28, 2016 at 8:35 AM”
I stand by my statement that a team of psychotherapists is best positioned to “coach” the repka; that’s what they really need. If you could abrogate their fear, they could achieve so much more than they do.
who is taking their ball home? I don’t think you even understand the term mate. Only thing I want is for us to be capable of self reflection, learning from mistakes and implementing tangible things to actually improve. Anytime there is an article provides any kind of analysis the same people come out and become so defensive. Its bizarre to be honest. I think it might have to do with an inferiority complex from casual fans who don’t really understand the sport and lash out as a way of compensating.
Too many fucks taking their ball and going home every time Croatia loses.
You guys are the true mental midgets.
lol @ the BZ lad calling people Serbs who don’t agree with his opinion. That’s some regressive shit right there.
Boycott? – this is for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3X4-Kcl-uM
That’s some seriously tough love dude.
So say your in the tunnel, you’re a best friend or a family member and the team comes limping through after 120 mins, you’re gonna be shaking your head at their effort?
dawhat? I said it would be nothing to celebrate, i always support the team, that’s not in question.
Iggy not supporting us if we’d won because of how we’d won is almost as funny as boycotting the team the day after getting bounced.
Iggy, Denis I love u guys but I couldnt believe those when I read them.
Imagine if fans stopped supporting their team in a tourney because of an average 120 minute display dispite the victory?
Germany needed 120 minutes to get by Algeria in the round of 16 in Brazil. Even chamionship runs have scares and hiccups. And Germany had big pressure to finally win something. They’d choked a few times since 1990.
Did you post anything when Spain dominated us, and it took a deflection to beat their goalie on his near side? That game was a mess, good thing for Perisic’s heroics, and a good counter.
We played way better against Portugal than we did vs Spain. We are not the first team to lose to a team that bunkers. In fact, many on this site did not want to play Iceland in fear of the bunkering team. Portugal played a smart game against a superior opponent, just as we did against Spain.
If some of you Serbs want to say Croat soccer players are mental midgets, then go ahead, but I disagree.
Well you and me have different levels of respect for footballers then. It’s not as simple as their will or mental strength. We dominated those fools dispite the refs allowing them to stifle us with hard fouls and dispite the threat of our fans potentially raining flares onto the field.
In some cases I’d agree with you, Mexico in ’14.
But in some, not so much. Brazil in ’14, Portugal in ’16
I still say your fucking nuts for thinking our efforts in that game we’re not worthy of celebrating had we won. You’re totally discrediting a country that has footy in their blood and a history of knowing how not to lose. They constantly qualify for tourneys and make deep runs because they are good at football!
I watched that game with about a dozen people and none of us were crying like that.
Euro 2008 and 2016 were similar in that we won the group each year and outplayed all 4 opponents we faced in the tournament.
Two heartbreaking losses, BOTH IN EXTRA TIME, where the rest of the tournament was set up nicely, is hard to take.
And i do dispute what you said about we would all be celebrating like crazy if we beat portugal.
When it was 0-0 near the end i was actually thinking to myself if we win this match the first thing im going to post is that was a putrid and disgusting performance and we have NOTHING to celebrate. I had 100% planned to post that – swear on my mother’s grave – regardless of the outcome. It’s not the outcome that disgusted me with the Portugal game; it was the way we played.
@Poglavnik
As for the fairweather fans, the Croatian sporting world’s a better place without you!
You must be joking, right? I’ve seen every dogshit performance this team has put in since 1996. I was in tears in ’99 when we couldn’t beat the Serb cunts at home and missed Euro 2000, i was literally crying. I have watched every single tourney with our guys and been through this ordeal every time and you’re calling me a fairweather fan? Fuck off, mate.
And i never said i wasn’t supporting them. I will always support the Vatreni 100%. What im saying is the pattern is now undeniable; our guys are cowards in meaningful matches. Whatever you want to call it – Ziva says mental midgets, i kinda like the Vatreni Crumble 😉 But whatever term you want to use, it’s hard to believe there are people who can even argue against the pattern. It is a clear, distinct, indisputable fact at this point.
What beggars belief is the fact that the lot of you seem content with getting to the round of 16 out of a 24 team tourney as though that’s just dandy.
Some on this site even have the temerity to bring up the “we over-achieve for our small population” bullshit ! Unbelievable!
It’s a good thing the lot of you are just fine with mediocrity and don’t ever hope for anything better than that. We can’t sit on the 98 team forever, be nice to have a team since then actually do something, don’t you think ?
I remember a few years ago Aus was dogshit at cricket and they actually had an inquiry into why they were doing so shit, lol. That’s the sort of thing the Vatreni needs, an inquiry into why there is a repetitive pattern of losing to lesser teams in major tourneys in critical matches we should perform better in.
This tourney was especially poignant in that regard because you got to see both extremes, the flair and talent on the one hand and the quivering lip cowardice on the other; the difference couldn’t be starker.
It’s understandable lots of players and teams are afraid of failure and fearful of losing in big games, it makes sense. But there is something with our guys where it is of special moment above and beyond any other team i can think of.
It’s almost like a Swiss watch, the way it’s going. Who wants to bet in Russia 2018 we play one great game, one mediocre game and then we lose the final group game against some lesser opponent in a match we should win? I’m willing to make a wager on that atm and will be gobsmacked if that doesn’t happen again.
I’ll agree that Croatia has had more than its fair share of playing better than opponents overall and yet losing those matches.
Puh-lease Iggy!
I’m calling serious bullshit on that!
We would’ve all celebrated like crazy.
I’ve stopped EXPECTING results basically since I’ve been an adult. Hoping for the best and expecting the worst is the only way to watch.
You think it was a disgraceful effort? I think it was a chess match between two very good teams, one that was slightly better coached than the other. Shots were 4/1 and posession was 60/40. We were out coached but I’m proud of the boys. Can’t wait to see them in September.
As for the fairweather fans, the Croatian sporting world’s a better place without you!
I agree that you need to take each situation separately Bobby, that’s logical. But if you are being even remotely fair you would also make a logical conclusion that when you recognise things are repeating then that is a pattern. Right?
Is that the same Mexico that just 2 years later got smashed 7-0 by Chile? Your point isn’t a good one Bobby, given our consistent failure against Latin American teams is very much a case of weakness on our behalf.
@ Iggy – – You can’t make a blanket statement like that about the Croatian national team.
Every time we lose, it is because of mental midget syndrome?
In the 2014 World Cup, we lost to Mexico and Brazil because they were better teams who outplayed us.
When England thrashed us 5-1 a few years ago, guess what? They were by far the better team. Nothing to do with a syndrome.
You need to take each situation separately. In the game against Portugal, Croatia was the slightly better team – but if you are not fully better, anything can happen.
Name one game that Croatia won but didn’t deserve to and you said as much.
You can’t, because you have never done so.
Had Perisic scored, you would have said we deserved to win because those cunts bunkered and we had more chances.
Iggy, I like you, but this time you are full of shit.
You know what blows my mind Iggy, that simple analysing is now considered by many of the rabble as over-analysis and you are a cunt if you do so. I guess the coaching staff of any professional sports team must not engage in any kind of post match analysis. Or how about technical directors when they set a curriculum they must obviously set it up on the trinity of “pride”, “bravery” and the “ball is round”.
@Ziva
Yes, only one of 24 win the title, but it doesn’t mean those other 23 teams all have mental midget disease. It all depends on how you leave the tourney. We played timid and deserved to go home. Our mindset changed in the knockout rounds, thus they suffered from mental midget disease.
Exactly correct. Northern Ireland/Hungary didn’t lose due to mental midgetness, and nor will Iceland. Some teams are just not as good as other teams and they will lose due to this.
But when you have a pattern of time after time after time with the Vatreni Crumble when we lose to teams we should beat, and particularly this time where our play changed radically from breathtakingly good to abjectly objectionable within the one tourney, there is clearly a mental issue going on. We lost this due to mentality, nothing more or less – 100% mental and Ziva is correct.
From now on, i will never expect anything from the Vatreni in meaningful matches. I’ll hope but never expect. What i’ll be expecting is us to go into our shells for fear of failure and to go out like whimpering cowards, same as we do every tourney, despite the fact on talent we should be doing much better.
And to all you cuntrashes who are saying “no one would be complaining if Perisic’s header went a few inches to the right”
BULLFUCKINGSHIT
Guys like MelbCro and Me and Ziva who have been concrete on this would definitely still be complaining like all fuck because that was an utterly disgraceful performacne that we did not deserve to win. IF we did win, i would have said we didn’t deserve it, that was a putrid performance and let’s hope it never happens again. NOBODY in their right mind would be CELEBRATING winning that Portugal game, no one.
Now, on the Will Griggs on fire – i LOLed at this vid which explains it a bit and the background:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4LimRT2CUU
The other popular song sung by supporters “Will Griggs on fire” You will recognize it. This from the N Ireland fans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MWJd7F8PQ
“Messi a tax cheat? I thought he threw his old man under the bus on that one?”
So Messi isn’t a tax cheat if he threw his dad under the bus, which is what you THINK happend?
Want to thank Ante Cacic for a job well done. Every current and many former players have said that he created the best atmosphere around the national team in history.
Croatia, after the first round, was the talk of the tournament for the first time since 1998.
Where was the praise from CSR posters for defeating the two-time defending champions Spain using the lineup he did, to win the group?
We were the better team in each of the 4 games – can’t ask for much more than that. Croatia loses it’s first game in the tournament and their out. Portugal wins their first game and they are through – cruel.
We were not unlucky to draw Portugal – we were unlucky to draw the king of bunker soccer, Fernando Santos. He pulled a Scotland on us – even the best player in the World bought into it. It’s too bad that his negative tactics are still bringing him success.
Hope they keep Cacic so they can build on what he has started.
Some other observations –
Regarding Pjaca – he’s good, but, come on, you bring him into a game in the 115th minute when everyone is tired – with his speed, of course he’s going to look awesome.
Can’t blame our defense for anything – they, especially Vida, were just trying to help out where we were lacking. Someone in Croatia needs to open a forward/goal scoring academy.
Kudos to the Irish fans – proper way to attend a tournament.
Mixed emotions over having 24 teams – glad to see other fans have a chance to enjoy.
Song of the tournament sung by many groups of fans was “Please don’t take me home” Anybody else get faked out because the main verse it sounds like our “Dalmacijo”?
That Brazilian referee in the Copa America final was awful – what an embarrassment.
Speaking of embarrassing, how about these Cacic bashers – all they could criticize were the last 5 minutes of the last match?… and people saying they are now going to boycott again because a ball went a few inches to the left instead of the right?
You should love your team and country more when they lose than when they win.
Messi a tax cheat? I thought he threw his old man under the bus on that one?
No need for a referendum? You people need me on this site for the fair and balanced approach when it comes to Croatian sports, politics, culture and society.
What will it take to get Ziva Istina to leave this site in peace? Can we hold a referendum and then ban him? That would be the democratic way. He sucks more than Croatia playing Portugal. He sucks more than Ronaldo’s boyfriend.
@anonymous
as Poglavnik said
Ha! Yeah no shit. Holier than thou Ziva is supporting Messi the tax cheat. If it was a Hrvat that was a tax cheat he’d be all over him. And being the far right Republican type that he portrays himself to be he’s probably cheating on his taxes too!
Anyone see what these hooligans did in Constantinople now called Istanbul?
I agree with Nick.
If Modric was injured, and Mandzukic was injured, why did they play?
Regarding the idiotic injury /retirement posts, the guy writing them actually writes a long fake article, that maybe one or two people actually read. I bet Ziva & Turkey have more readership than that guy.
Cvelbar- a prose sighting…anything goes
Allen,
I appreciate your prose and diligent effort , to put together a nice article. Thanks again.
Ziva you said
“Messi didn’t quit……..
This is his way of trying to clean up the Argentine federation. He has power and he knows he has power. He will get what he wants or wont play any more. Simple as that. He should be applauded for willing to stand up to corruption.”
ZI said
“ah yest applaud Messi, a man involved in tax fraud, ah yes he is standing up to corruption…..lmfao at the homers on this site
whatever, carry on”
@aco that is complete bs stop making people believe dumb shit cause you’re bored at home with your hand in your pants
Where is this Rakitic news coming from? I don’t see it anywhere lol. Are we getting trolled?
Negative my friend……..I may here to provide insight, commentary and to generate discussion.
What in my comments do you have an issue with?
Ziva, you are the only mental midget here.
FFS,grow up. or go post on “SerbianSports.com” with our own.
Ive watched plenty of Real Madrid games and when, which is not too often, that he plays meaningful minutes, all i see is an average midfielder that is in way over his head at a club like Real. I hope im wrong and time will tell, but who and what is he the heir apparent to? Modric did more for the repka the game he sat onthe bench against Spain than Kovacic ever has or will.
Kovacic did nothing the last 3 or 4 months at Real and people thin he should get minutes?
Yes, only one of 24 win the title, but it doesn’t mean those other 23 teams all have mental midget disease. It all depends on how you leave the tourney. We played timid and deserved to go home. Our mindset changed in the knockout rounds, thus they suffered from mental midget disease.
Susak, watch some Real Madrid games and you’ll see how good he is.
Kova is the heir apparent.
And also Rakitic’s “quotes” above..I call complete bs. How come this has not been picked up anywhere else but by some random guy names “aco” on this board? Come on guys, Rakitic is not retiring.
And as for the “boycotters”. FFS, grow up. You aren’t boycotting s.hit. And if you really want to boycott, how about you boycott Hajduk Split management for their corruption and ineptitude.
Watching Kovacic play is like watching a bunch of 4 year olds play and all run to the ball. Ive seen him do it countless times in his career and thats all he did against the Czech Republic. Whenever one of our players has the ball, he runs over to them and stands next to them. Get the fuck open. Create space, dont clog it. Once in a while, he will put his head down and go on a dazzling but way too inconsistent. He has no concept of how to take over a midfield. Ive said it before on this site, and ill say it again, Kovacic is one of the most overrated players to come out of the Balkans.
i think we are going to really miss him. this is a huge blow in qualifying. the young guys are just not ready. and rakitic was finally starting to play well scoring in the czech game
i say good riddance. its time for the young guns to step up. kovacic is ready
you could tell rakitic was only half hearted in it this tournament!
Rakitic announces retirement from national team!
“Barcelona star midfielder Ivan Rakitic has announced his retirement from the Croatian national team after their loss to Portugal at Euro 2016 in France. Rakitic states, “Playing for the national team has been an incredible honor and a dream come true. I have served 10 years since I was 19 years old and the time has come to move on and let the next generation step up. The seasons at Barcelona are both long and taxing. Giving all my focus to the club will allow me to remain fresh throughout the season and extend the years I can play. In addition, now that I am a father, I will also have more time to spend with my children. I would like to thank the Croatian fans for their incredible support and I will be the team’s biggest supporter in qualifying for the next world cup.””
Yeah he replaced Modric in several games and was playing rather consistently if for limited time and yes I watched this (are you proposing I am inventing this for fun?). Don’t think he started any game but not sure. At the end of season he was benched as I mentioned.
Mixed grill
You watched kovacic play for Madrid? When was this? I don’t even know if he got a full run out this year even under Beneitz who brought him he was having trouble getting time
Of course it does
The Spanish didn’t take Isco for the same reason and Isco is a player
You know what it means and you should know who
BZ, good summary, I am not happy with team defence on the goal, but overall they were solid.
Sometimes one mistake ends up being the one that costs you.
It is frustrating because I thought we had a solid shot of at least making it to the semi-finals.
Kovacic:
What are people’s views on Kovacic?
He started the season decently with Madrid, was used as a substitute, got some good reviews too. Then Zidane took over and he was benched and fell totally out of favor, making only a few appearances. He was hardly used in this tournament. It could be argued he lost his form from not having played. But still, to play him in only one game as a substitute? (or did I miss another moment he played?) When he did sub in I don’t recall a touch on the ball. Having watched him play for Madrid, the guy can dribble and has a nice touch, but doesn’t seem to read the bigger name nor make long creative passes. Ideally he would have contributed at the Euros, maybe less than a non bench warmer, but still, something. Its quite disappointing or does riding the bench for half the season simply disqualify someone from consideration? In which case, why was he even selected?
Of course Cacic made the right call to get aggressive. We had some clear cut chances, that just didn’t fall our way.
Their goal was a sequence of our only real bad play of the evening:
1)Brozovic makes questionable pass from deep in the box to Strinic, who was in a very non threatening position. . My favorite coach always said try to make something happen when in the box, unless you can tee someone up.
2) Strinic turns it over
3) Strinic goes to ground and looks for foul.
4) Brozo jogs back, when it is his job to cover for Strinic. Brozo then stops ~35 yards out instead of helping Vida mark 2 men.
5) Strinic mopes back ( it is not like he had just made a recent run up field)
6) Corluka gets megged on a pass, or a shot or whatever that was.
End of story.
Again, Only 1 of 24 teams will not end up being mental midgets this tournament so quit acting like it is in Croatian DNA to be mental midgets. Sounds like a Serb comment.
Well, I don’t know if anyone was certain we were going to the finals. I think most of us who follow the game realize the knockout stage is a different animal and previous matches have no impact on the next match.
My point is after we beat spain we were high on our selves and we were almost certain were going to finals. We have a typical Balkan mentality. The Portuguese made our Croatian high flying plane nose dive and crash in the 117 Minute.
@idemo, what does “holiga fan boy” mean and who are you talking to?
@Nick, what are you talking about “one good game”, Croatia played THREE good games in the group stage, no?
@Maminjo, it wasn’t that the refs weren’t calling fouls, it was that they only issued one yellow out of 28 fouls by Portugal which obviously only resulted in spot kicks from where the counter attacks were starting. Obviously, if they would have issued yellow cards earlier in the game, Portugal would have stopped fouling and the game would have opened up. Why not foul if every time you do it stops the other team’s counterattack and you don’t have to worry about playing w/ a yellow card. See my point now?
Unless they have a injury crisis….again
Will be a rotation player at Bayern….highly doubt he starts
Never mind then. Genuinely happy for him, if the move happens. Best tournament he’s ever had for the national team. Hoping he might have two more tournaments in him.
@Allen……..What jokes? I have never been critical of Corluka as a player.
@Mixed grill……good point. We have way too many people making wild predictions on players based on watching them once or twice.
I thought it was a silly rumor, but it looks Corluka is going to Bayern. How about that? Playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Ziva might have to retire the jokes.
Lol ziva
I hope he does have a good career. if you’ve watched him play in the domestic league fine, but many on this site only saw him against Spain and that is not enough to judge.
Question for you guys……….When Cacic sits down this weekend to watch the QFs, does he analyze the formation and tactics being used by the two team playing or does he pay more attention to the type of TV showing the game?
Pjaca is no Rebic. Trust me, Pjaca is much better and will have a very good career.
I think the problem with us is we play one good game and we are ready to be crowned champions, But it doesn’t work that way. We can go on and on but Portugal won fair and square. Sure maybe we could have got some call in our favor but have we scored and won we wouldn’t be complaining about this. Portugal didn’t look great but they are getting through which is what counts. Think about it example Netherlands is a better team then at least half of the teams in Euro but they blew it in qualifying and they are not there just like we are better then Portugal but we blew that game and no second chance just. Suck it up and go home.
Pjaca played well in one somewhat meaningless game. I can’t see why he is suddenly a big talent. Rebic was also a big talent for similar reasons, look at him now.
Strinic played well defensively, but we need two dimensional players who can also pass, dribble and hold the ball. Our back players consistently can’t do that, the consequence being that we compromise our midfield again and again. That is why Modric was found in front of our goaltender on numerous occasions trying in desperation to mount the offense.
Allen, good point about Vida. I remember the look on his face, he seemed surprised or confused, or maybe a bit of both.
BTW, don’t think Pivaric is anything good. Just think he’s the only natural left back that has been on NT over the past year.
Rads
Croatia has a better overall lineup than Portugal. Why would they be the ones playing defensive? Why would a team with Modric, Rakitic, and Perisic play defensive? Look at both starting lineups and tell me what team should be playing more defensive. Portugal conceded three goals against Hungary. Sure two of them were deflected, but they looked disorganized all game. Clearly they needed to make adjustments.
Nobody would be praising Cacic’s conservative tactics. People would be relived that Croatia survived a difficult game, if Perisic scored that header.
LOL @ the ridiculous mental midget comments.
They played a strategy, where they tried to play it safe by having Modrić within an arm’s reach of Portugal’s forwards, and it failed. It also didn’t help that Portugal’s anti-football strategy to neutralize our midfield (with constant fouling) was completely ignored by the ref.
These are the two reasons why we lost. It still could’ve gone either way with us still having slightly more chances, but we couldn’t adjust to their fouling strategy and the ref’s non-calls, and it hurt us.
Colin & Canadian Darko
Strinic was definitely at fault for the goal, but I thought Vida could have prevented that scuffed shot from Nani (wasn’t a pass). He could have slid to stop Ronaldo from getting the ball. In the end, it was an awkward moment, due to Nani’s weird shot.
I’m surprised you are so critical of Srna and Strinic. Although he played poorly against Portugal, i thought Strinic played fairly well in the tournament. Maybe after watching Pranjic for the past two years has lowered my standards of what to expect from a left back. Still think Strinic can play a key role on the team. Hopefully he leaves Napoli and actually plays this season.
Srna made a clear goal saving clearance. Nani made a nice move to get past Corluka, which could have resulted in a one-on-one situation. Srna got back there just in time to make the clearance. Considering most people on the site viewed him as a major liability, I was really impressed by him during the entire tournament.
Besides Pivaric, no left back comes to mind at the moment that can honestly replace Strinic. It’s a tough position to find a quality starter in. Germany is currently dealing with fullback issues. France is trotting out Patrice Evra, who is on his last legs. Belgium is using a clear centerback in Vertoghen to play left back. It’s a difficult position. I can’t be too critical of Strinic, besides the obvious mistake that led to Portugal goal.
holiga fan boy?
“The sad sad state of Croatian football”
Meanwhile, back on planet earth, 3 generations of players outplayed and beat Spain’s A team and the oldest generation of the 3 is not so old they won’t still be in their prime for the world cup.
You do realize the amount of footballing talent being produced from Croatians is utterly disproportionate to her population, perhaps more so than any other nation on earth.
My God your articles are long, who’s got time to read a tome on the national team’s post mortem? It takes much more brain work to make your points in a concise manner rather than writing on & on & on, which is LAZY. This is the 2nd time I’ve pointed this out to you, how many times does this have to be pointed out to you before it penetrates your THICK skull?
Anyway, while I was watching the game against Portugal I noticed that every time Croatia was starting a counterattack they were getting fouled, I said to myself when is the ref going to issue a yellow card or two so Portugal stops doing that and thereby letting the game open up. It took the ref until the end of regulation time to FINALLY issue a yellow card after about the 8th time it happened. Sure enough I look at the stats the next day and saw that Portugal committed 28 fouls to Croatia’s 12 and only ONE issued yellow card. That’s why the game was boring and that’s why Croatia had to play cautiously regardless of what their tactics were.
My biggest problem w/ the Hitler look a like is the fact he didn’t start Pjaca or for God’s sake bring him in a lot earlier than he did. This is the one thing I can honestly say I thought of BEFORE the game: starting Pjaca over Brozovic.
That was a stupid stupid rookie coaching mistake on Cacic.
You play 115 minutes being conservative and then all of a sudden you attack? If you wanted to attack why wouldn’t you do it at the beginning? At least if they score you have time to get some goals back. It just doesn’t make sense! If your playing for penaltys play for penaltys.
I’m pissed off at Cacic because he always stated that he wanted to be an attaching team. So why do you sellout against Portugal and play defensive? Sramota! A complete amateur and this country will never accomplish nothing in soccer without a true professional coach.
serious question… how close is serie B to HNL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YKmjV9k53Y
don’t have time to wach right now but this is more petkovic vid
thanks for all the updates mr. black.. nice goal… wish him the best of luck this season… we do need someone to break out in that striker role
corluka captain for sure… like someone said there is that point after the goal when everyone was bitching and moaning but still had 5 minutes to try to get something… he was getting them all up
id give it to him
some people bitch about strinic… i thought he did fine like ziva said. what was are alternate pranjic? i don’t know if playing vrsaljko in that spot would have been great overall
like the general consensus i know i was screaming at the tv to open it up early on in extra time… i figure that was our best time cause we had the extra minutes if we went down…
we opened it up too late… at the point of the game where perisic hit the post i was thinking man i know we prob lose pks but i think id like to try my luck at them
don’t forget subasic had confidence from that spain game… ronaldo shanked one in earlier in the tourney… we may have come out with that one
at the very least i thought the pks would be good experience for the guys
i don’t know man… iceland playing lights out but i still think we would have beat them if we played them…
you guys think we are mental midgets… the kings of soccer england and the premier league got beat by guys that are probably black smiths in their day jobs…
maybe they need a tv repair man for a coach? id swap them;)
seriously though that fucking conte is a machine coach… i saw some highlights of his from the spain game… he constantly talking to the players telling them what to do
every time there was a clip of cacic… he looked like a dear in front of car
but at this point if they don’t get a real deal manager keep cacic till mamic is ready like ziva said:(
Corluka surely will pick up the armband? Either him or Luka IMO but Corluka bleeds the checkers more imo.
So let me get this… you praise Santos for being defensive but our team was defensive as well and that’s bad? Their defensive tactics are clever and Croatia’s are stupid?
Also you wanted Pjaca in sooner but Portugal scored minutes after he came on. Why? Did you want Portugal scoring more goals?
If Perisic’s shot goes a few inches to the right you would be praising Cacic for his defensive tactics and how he limited Portugal to 0 shots on goal and shut down the best player in world. You are all the same guys who said “WTF” when you saw the lineup versus Spain and then praised Cacic for winning.
What brilliant in-game tactics did Portugal use to beat us? What brilliant changes did their coach make after only mustering 40% possession and 3 shots off target in 116 minutes?
As soon as we got aggressive, we opened up and let a goal in. That’s what happens when you’re aggressive against an assassin like Ronaldo.
Sometimes shit happens and sometimes it’s bad luck. Keep up with the over analysis.
Well so was it a good idea to open up final 4 minutes or should we have played for the draw and penalties….
Bruno Petkovic played this season extremely well for Catania in Serie B. Even Juventus is interested. He’s only 21 but he could be the real thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNMqaIK0HyI
I agree. The problem was we didn’t push hard enough the entire match. They respected Portugal too much, which was a huge mistake. Don’t fear Ronaldo!
To sum up the entire game: Mental midgets. That’s all.
I agree with Ziva on Strinic performance. He was one of the bright spots in defense, but the blame doesn’t rest solely on him for that goal.
The whole build up started off a flop, and our entire team not tracking back due to extreme exhaustion. The through ball from Nani, which was just absolute gold, was an opportunity left open. Sure, Strinic should have put a better body on Ronaldo but everything leading up to Ronaldo touching the ball fell on the rest of the team.
I would give Strinic and Corluka top grades for the tourney, and I hope Strinic gets a better opportunity at the club level for his performance. Jedvaj, Strinic, Vrsaljko, and Corluka could be a pretty solid back line for us.
Halilovic and Jedvaj need to be incorporated into games to provide a level of selfishness to our game. In the first few matches Modric and Rakitic would rather play a pass than take someone one on one. As a defense, this makes play predictable after awhile. We need people to be able to run at defense, and cause headaches, rather than just ping the ball back and forth waiting for an opening from a bunkered down team.
Agree with Ziva, in that we should have been more aggressive throughout the game.
I would have preferred a more aggressive approach the entire game and not just the final 4 minutes. And if we would have lost, that would be fine. But, playing passive is not in a our style or DNA.
But, again, we don’t have the mentality to be winners. Our players are mental midgets. Euphoria of the win against Spain was great, but didn’t show up when it mattered.
Gonna ask the same question no one answered you guys ok with attacking those final 4 minutes or would have preferred to ride it out till
Penalty kicks?
Check that……excellent defensive tournament for Strinic.
We had two more days rest against Portugal than the Portugese had.
Defensively, Strinic had an excellent tourney in the three games he played. But, that error in the 116th minute was huge.
mental midgetcy you might say.
I think he got the right lineup to start the game but I do agree with you, in each of the games he took too long to make subs!
All I’m saying, you put in – what is believed to be – your strongest line up. 117 minutes go by with out a goal. THEN you decide maybe it’s time for a change? Cacic was too complaisant with having Mandzo on top, with having Brozovic roaming the middle. He waited too long to try something new. And it cost us. Heavy legs? Yellow cards? What, 6 of the starting 11 for Cro were on yellow cards? Fresh legs could have helped the team from the 80th minute if more subs were made quicker.
I would have taken anyone in place of Strinic in that match as well.
that was only one question…
Colin, I have a few questions for you.
if you’re a coach and you’ve played 2 games, your next opponent plays an open style, you have some heavy legs, some yellow cards and you’re going to the next round regardless of the result…do you approach that game the same as you do in a winner takes all, knockout situation?
Sorry, I meant the Portugal game, not Spain :).
I have avoided reading anything and everything about the game after the loss. This is the first piece I’ve read since. Hell, this is the first time I’ve been on the site since (except posting the Mamic article). Good write up. I agree with a lot of the points, but I need to say, wasn’t impressed with Srna during hte match. He spent more time flopping on the ground than on his feet. Same with Rakitic. I was impressed with Vida’s play, though he did miss three golden opportunists. But you now what? Scoring isn’t his job. I rest most of the blame on Cacic. Did he learn nothing from watching the squad against Spain?? Why did it take almost 120 minutes to put Pjaca or Krama out there?? Why did Brozovic even finish the match? And Who can we find to replace Strinic????????
the goal was caused by Strinic, Ronaldo just reminded all of us why we had to be careful of the counter-attack!
Good write up Allen, and I agree with most of your points. Maybe I look at the Spain game in a simple way, but it seems to me like it was too evenly matched teams with Croatia making one big mistake near the end; they forgot to mark Rinaldo and the rest is history. Not sure whose job it was to stay on him, but in my mind it was a big error and one of the main reasons Croatia lost.