Manager Zlatko Dalić has excused six players to head home and rejoin their club teams in front of Croatia’s second U.S. friendly on Tuesday against Mexico in Dallas. Those players are: Danijel Subašić (Monaco), Luka Modrić (Real Madrid), Mario Mandžukić (Juventus), Ivan Perišić and Marcelo Brozović (Inter) and Nikola Kalinić (Milan).
Editorial written by Vedran Ćavara
There they stood, as unamused as coach Zlatko Dalić, holding his head in his palms as he watched Peru administer a footballing masterclass against a Croatian defense that was taking on leaks like the Titanic. I am of course speaking about the fans, the diaspora that traveled from all over North America and the world. “Our defense is sh*t. Where in the world is Lovren (currently injured) and why is he not starting? Ćorluka is so slow he couldn’t race a snail.”
That about sums up the entire night for the Croatian National team, as they were blitzed 2-0 by a hungrier and more efficient Peru team. The score could easily have been higher and Peru showed a real togetherness in this international friendly, staged in front of a decent sized Miami crowd. Perhaps the most embarrassing effort came from our wingback Ivan Strinić who couldn’t seem to be able to pass the ball to his goalie from three feet away and almost made Ćorluka seem like a thoroughbred race horse. The defense wasn’t entirely to blame however, as the midfield left the defenders exposed on several occasions. Most, like myself, would consider our captain Luka Modrić among the finest midfielders in the world and perhaps one of the best of this or any generation. However, unlike typical Modrić, he lost the ball several times when pressed, provided no passion when it was needed, and didn’t chase back when he did lose the ball. One would expect more from your captain, a slightly more inspirational performance perhaps.
Marcelo Brozović is another case I do not understand. He has all the talent in the world, all the tools to succeed, and his game was similar to that of Luka Modrić. Rakitić? Rakitić is perhaps my favorite Croatian player, so I don’t want to go on bashing this boy. However, he brought very little to the game other than backwards passes and some offensive movement when called upon. However, the biggest effort he contributed was a pathetic, low driven free kick toward the end of the first half to signal some intent by this inept offense, trying to score. This brings me to Bambi legs Mandžukić. I have loved watching him play for Bayern, Juventus and the national team. He always gave the best effort that he could, but his best days are far behind him. He frustrates opposing center backs, can finish with the best of them, but right now, much like the rest of the boys, he just doesn’t have the legs to keep up. You cannot play a guy like him on the wing unless you have other players around him that are fast. At Juventus he has Dybala, Alex Sandro and Cuadrado that make up for his pedestrian pace. However, on the national stage, he belongs nowhere but in the center of the pitch, where another absolute donkey currently resides, Nikola Kalinić.
Kalinić had an awesome season at Fiorentina last year, however, his lack of consistency has seen him ride the bench at AC Milan, which has translated into poor form for them and the national team. His display last night was absolutely abysmal. Perišić, out on the left wing, try as he might, could simply not muster anything for the offense. He tried to get past defenders, but simply couldn’t. One feels sorry for him. Perhaps the lone right spot in an otherwise terrible first half Croatian display, was the play of Vrsaljko. He wasn’t terrific by any means, he was a guy. Compared to the rest of the team, his passing and covering were decent. I know I am leaving out other calamitous displays by Vida, etc, but there had to be one bright spot for the first half, and that was Šime.
As second half began, Brozović was subbed off for Mateo Kovačić. Kovačić provided a bit more pace and crisp passing. However, the turning point, if there was to be one, were the substitutions of Pašalić, Kramarić and Pjaca. Pjaca in particular provided a bit of spark, connecting on a decent through-ball from Modrić to give the Croatian side a bit of a spark, penetrating the Peru defense, already a man down through a red card, only to send his own pass begging. The answer was there plainly to see; we need pace. Once the pace was injected, our fluidity and play picked up immensely.
Most of us fans were very angry, disgusted and shook our heads at the effort against a team like Peru. One has to worry about how we are going to perform against Mexico, who embarrassed us at the last World Cup. If this is how we are set to defend against Messi at the World Cup, watching him break Strinić’s ankles like a piece of plywood, one really has to worry how far and what kind of effort this Croatian side can really muster up in Russia in less than three months time.
Yes, this is only the first friendly. Yes, we can recover against Mexico and put forth an impressive display. Yes, we should have some optimism, but the skeptic in me thinks that darker days are ahead, especially if this is our “A” team. Or maybe the boys simply used the occasion to enjoy the splendor of South Beach rather than using this as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup.
@Vedran/ Yugo in Croatian clothing
Nationalism –
1. spirit or aspirations common to the whole of a nation.
2. devotion and loyalty to one’s own country; patriotism.
3. excessive patriotism.
@Anonym-ass
It’s called Patriotism. Clearly your second grade education is paying off handsomely.
Anonymous needs to watch some Halilovic highlights on youtube. Not many players on the Croatia squad have the same skill set as Halilovic only Modric Rakitic and Kovacic.
@Vedran
“Stop with the….. Nationalism”
Great advice, we just gotta look at the “National” team to see how it’s done.
@Poglavnik, nice yugo talk
1. Stop with the racism and Nationalism. What are we? The Fucking KKK? Christ.
2. Feel free to criticize me or my piece but for the love of Christ, stop hiding behind a user name, because I guarantee you, you wouldn’t have the balls to say these things to each other face to face.
Dalic giving guys time off is like him saying we weren’t trying cuz this means nothing. He’s covering his ass for the sorry performance. This does mean something for a team that barely qualified and with the WC in 2 and a half months
“And another thing CCCC forever!”
What are you trying to say here?
CCCC means Unity Shall Save the Serbs, are you suggesting that Modric, Kovacic, Rakitic and Perisic are united with Djokovic?
Oh please Truth Troll. You weren’t “harshly criticised” on this site for the one claim/observation you made. You are critisized for being a douchebag, constant troll and agitator with non stop negativities and childish name calling amd behaivor.
Stop posting here and go back to playing on your play station… er.. shredding
That is correct, White genocide guy is a coward for having no username.
I however am not.
you’re the one with no name mr c0ward boiiii
@White genocide guy
You’re a dickhead.
Cowards always make important issues into a joke, try to change the subject to conceal their cowardice.
🙁
Because it is not . It is margarine
how come nobody can still believe its not butter?
The whole team should go home, along sa those ugly kits
How come nobody here ever defends the Croatian people’s right to exist and keep their own homeland for themselves? Instead you get a bunch of groveling bitches trying to prove they aren’t “racists”. Obviously, anyone who says “Croatia and is too White” and needs more “diversity” is an anti-White promoting white genocide. Is that so fucking hard to see?
Perisic doesn’t have to report back to Inter until Wednesday. He was given time off by Dalic. Same with Modric. He doesn’t have to report back to Real until Wednesday. He was given time off.
me so horny
@”The Truth”, yes you’re always right, and you “don’t see skin color” right? So being Croatian is a matter of words, not blood, right?
And you pretend that all my posts exposing you for the two faced CUCK moron that you are don’t exist, right? How come you never responded to the ‘Black Man’s’ posts under the Petrovic article exposing your stupidity?
You’re OBVIOUSLY RETARDED LOL
photoshop OBVSIOULYYYYY
https://instagram.com/p/BgwnwtUhU31/ Still think I’m lying?
@the goat why the hell would I lie about that lol
well he didnt post about it on social media so OBVIOUSLLYYYYY youre lying
I saw Ivan Perisic at the Brooklyn Nets vs Cleveland cavs game today in NYC…I thought he left the team to go back to Inter?
I can’t believe the negativity that comes from a fuckin friendly. Sramota. You guys need to get a life or take some Valium. I can’t wait to see the reaction after we lose to Mexico too. These games are friendlies. Relax
I think this loss was a blessing in disguise. Even though it was a friendly and people can chalk it up to it was a lack of effort and the players didn’t care, it showed that changes are needed for this team. Youth is needed as this team is stale and predictable, to say what has xyz player done to deserve to be a starter on our national team is ignorant. That same argument could have been made about modric Corluka and da silva back in 2006 those guys were playing at dinamo and changed the national team instantly once inserted. This team needs slight changes not drastic but some youth defiantly in the staring line up. Pjaca on the wing kovacic in mid and kramaric also I wouldn’t start corluka as personally I don’t seems him recovering from that injury time for lovern or someone else. This curerent generation has had a lot of opportunities to succeed and they haven’t. No one should have a gurranyeed starting spot, this country club atmosphere needs to change, I thought Dalic would change this but so far he hasent which is disappointing,
I was the first too warm about the players not being focused and i was harshly criticized in this site
Now, the players not being focused and not carrying is all anyone talks about
Guess i was right again
As always though, i need to bring people back to the center. Croatia could’ve played better, they used too old players and they lacked some effort
That being said, it was not the disaster things were portrayed as.
Croatia still dominated possession 61 to 39
And outshot Peru both in total shots and on targets
Both of perus goals were arguably a little flukey and lucky. Particularly the first one
All that being said, watching many of these Croatia players has become stale and I’m excited to see some new guys this week
Anonymous, watch Halilovic’s highlights for every game. Sur, the kid has a lot of growing to do, however, he does much more than Mandukic ever did for us on the wing. He sends more crosses into the box and takes more shots on goal from a distance in one game than Mandukic has in his entire career. He can dribble and take players on one on one also. Mandukic does absolutely nothing on the wings for us.
What the heck have Halilovic, Rog, Brekalo done in this current season to even deserve consideration.
Youth and potential are great. But need to show it on the field.
Agrees that LB is a weak spot. Strinic is the best we have and that says it all.
Rakitic said no such thing to Barca. Barca never asked for him to come back earlier. It was Dalic’s intention all along to let the more seasoned, experienced players to leave after Miami. Rakiitic asked to stay. But, there is no reason for Dalic to play him more than 20 minutes against Mexico.
Some of guys get way too concerned over the results of friendlies.
+ 310 now throw some kuna on the young squad make some money
It’s a friendly and yes I was disappointed but I think that we will play better against Mexico. 2-1 Croatia wins ! their + 245 and if they lose no big deal just want to watch them because I have pride in our country. Negative energy gets you zero. Fuck it relax you bananas!
@Stef TO-
1)Kramaric, Pjaca, Rebic, Halilovic, Brekalo are not offensive? Keep your Strinic and your underperforming.
2)The best wingbacks need to be offensive. Think Marcelo and even Jarni to a lesser extent.
Listen, if you want to keep starting Strinic while guys like Kramaric, Pjaca,and Kovacic sit on the bench, then you will get what you deserve.
Keep the Croatian players away from the Dallas night life maybe they might party all night. I would like to see Halilovic and Rog play as well as Jedvaj.
On another note, I think our team will come out and play well against Mexico. Mexico will want revenge for that previous loss, and they will have a lot of fans in Dallas, but I don’t think Mexico will win.
Yes, we lose Modric & Perisic for this game…but on a more important note, we remove Kalinic and Mandzukic from the lineup.
Those latter two actually negate the world class quality of Modric and Perisic.
Subasic is also gone for this game too, so Lovre Kalinic will start. Even though Subasic is not bad, everybody is starting to notice that Lovre is becoming the better goalkeeper (and probably is already).
I would have liked to see a lineup with both Modric and Perisic included (while removing Mandzo, Perisic, and Subasic). That would be a very strong lineup.
Hopefully Kramaric, Pjaca, Kovacic, and Lovre Kalinic have amazing games on Tuesday (to give Dalic something to really think about).
Rakitic answers to no one!!! (except Raquel)
Apparently looks like Rakitic told Barca to go scratch their sisters ass when it came time for him and a few others to head back to Europe. If true, that’s more balls he showed there than he has his entire career with the Repka. Good for him. Could use a few more guys with that attitude.
Sorry that’s a stupid idea Perisic LWB.
Yeah let’s put the only offensive guy we have and play him deeper back.
Tomislav … priceless post !
Tuesday will be electric.
Your son as an aspiring footballer is going to witness the true Vatreni.
Mexico is out to kill and our young studs have something to prove.
Sretan put!
Truly disappointed with our so call leaders going home!!
Years ago I brought my 2 older sons to see Croatia vrs Ukraine for a World Cup qualifying match at maximir, coming from Canada these opportunities don’t come all the time. The atmosphere was electric, the only problem is that we had to leave our son Luka home with his teta because he was just 4.
He reminded me every day since that he got the butt end of the deal.
He’s 13 now and by luck we’re heading to the Iber soccer tournament in Dallas that same week Croatia is playing Mexico.
I shelled out huge cash for this friendly, an extra night at the hotel just so he can see the 1st team.
I had to break the news that his imenjak and a bunch of other pre-Madona’s are packing up and going home because the performance they put together against Peru was so dominant that there’s no nead do to any changesor tweeting moving forward.
I’m curious to know if Ronaldo would have left to go home if Portugal and he had a piss poor result against Egypt.
1 extra night in a hotel in Dallas: 180.00
1 extra day car rental: 45.00
2 tickets to go watch Croatia play 500.00
Watching your son enjoy his favorite team and favorite players: priceless
For everything else there’s master card
And another thing CCCC forever!
When my beloved Richmond Tigers won the World Championship in the AFL our players, for team bonding purposes, embraced the HHH program. How it works is one player stands up in front of his teamates and talks about his Hero, Highlight, and a Hardship in his life. This creates a connection with his teamates, a bond, and for the Mighty Tigers it showed in the results!
For example Luka Modric gets up in front of his teamates and lets them know his Hero is Tito, his Hardship was the break up of Yugoslavia, and his Highlight is riding the coattails of Ronaldo, Ramos and Bale and winning 3 UCL’s at Real Madrid.
Rakitic’s Hero, is his hairdresser, Hardship is also the break up of Yugoslavia, Highlight is also riding the coattails of his more illustrious teamates at Barcelona.
Most of the “Croatian” players would have a similar Hero, their Hardship would be the same for everyone (that was a beautiful pic with their brother Novak, hoping this can lead to 30 for 30 special called “Again Brothers”), their Highlights would have nothing to do with Croatia. So, in my opinion these players should have a close connection and love for each other, but the one thing I don’t understand is why we’re not seeing this in the results.
My teams for this World Cup are Argentina, Mexico, Poland and Portugal. Not a fan of the Yugoslavs in Croatian clothing.
@Cigan-
Welcome aboard the BZ bus! Perisic at LWB has been what I have been saying since Srna retired. People on this site hate me for it. Anyone else want to hop aboard?
let’s have this vs Mexico ->
…………..A Rebic….…..Kramaric…….…….
….…….…Pasalic………..M Rog……………
….Vrsaljko………Kovacic………M Pjaca….
..…..Corluka……..D Vida……..T Jedvaj…….
…………………. L Kalinic ……………………
You guys are falling apart already. First game together since november
It’s Strinic’s first pass to Rakitic that’s terrible. Suicide ball into the middle that’s telegraphed and read.
Rakitic in turn rockets a one touch pass to Corluka who puts his one touch pass too far ahead of Strinic and that’s that.
Strinic’s first pass is just as bothersome as that last feeble touch.
Yeah i agree with Krama starting
no idea why he isnt tbh
The match in Dallas will be the first Croatia match that I’ve been able to attend in my not so short life, believe it or not; life circumstances have previously precluded that……pretty disappointed already.
I am not using him as a scape goat. I said numerous times, if you can read and learn the meaning of the word, that the entire team was a shambles. He was just IMO the worst player on the field.
@Vedran
… strinic could have done better on both goals, but both CBs were horrible. corlukas shit pass to strinic is wut caused the first goal, then vida instead of closing down started shuffled backwards towards the goal giving the peruvian guy tons of space to wind up for the shot. For the second goal vida got outrun and corluka was too slow to run back to cover.
There are 11 players on the field, nobody mentioned that modric lost the ball 8 times out of 10 in the first 20 mins. the whole team played poorly. if strinic had an amazing game would we have won 3-0? Every team has a weak link or a player that is worse than the others, but its not up to that one shitty player for the others to perform well. The fact that modric, rakitic, perisic, mandzukic etc were shut down by peru’s defense is this strinic’s fault as well?
strinic and pivaric aren’t amazing players wut can you do, can’t have everyone on a champions league team. Only other option is a 3 back with perisic LWB, which i want to see cuz perisic has done nothing offensively for the past 3 months.
We had strinic against greece and we were fine, but what we didn’t have against greece was mandzukic. the bigger concern is whether or not they will start kramaric and bench mandzukic. when playing for croatia mandzukic is a black hole, he distorts the whole offensive play, he should not start.
@Cigan
No dude, I actually liked Strinic from before. He was servicable. In this game however, he was the worst of the worst.
vs Mexico try this, do this ->
…………..A Rebic….…..Kramaric…….…….
….…….…Pasalic………..M Rog……………
….Vrsaljko……….Kovacic………M Pjaca….
..…….Jedvaj……D Vida……Corluka………
…………………. LKalinic ……………………
It’ll be interesting to see who starts ahead of Modric; maybe Pasalic does get a look ahead of Rog.
Surely the front three will be Rebic, Krama, and Pjaca.
Last tournament, we took two players from the U21s so I think there is a chance that some may get picked for the senior squad. Halilovic probably has the best chance to take Rebic’s spot. And Benkovic or Duje C-C to take Mitorvic’s spot.
“Not sure why we have to wait so long to make a change on our National Team. We always tend to wait until a foreign club team values one of our younger players enough to buy them, before we decide to start them over one of our veteran players on the NT.”
“Every time i watch these “stars” play i wonder how the fuck they are at madrid and barca.”
B/c of how they play at madrid and barca.
@Vedran and Maminjo
i disagree with both of you regarding strinic. The problem is you didnt watch his play objectively, lets be honest you saw strinic in the lineup and rolled your eyes, then forth every decision or pass he made was “terrible and bad” in your mind.
Vedran, you wrote that pasalic got substituted in the game, bruhh…they showed a close up of Rebic’s face like 20 times, ya’know the guy who plays left wing, who was subbed in for perisic who also plays left mid. pasilic play cdm.
He forgot to put rakitic on the plane.
The sooner the older players retire the better. This shit play has been going on now for over a decade, as long as they’ve been around.
Every time i watch these “stars” play i wonder how the fuck they are at madrid and barca. Just god awful to watch.
The only postive out of the peru match was keeping the score at 2 nil.
Any person who calls them self a coach and plays a player that hasn’t played for 12 months from a serious injury – achilles rupture, you can see clearly he couldnt run freely –
dalic doesn’t know what he’s doing.
If he keeps the current line ups – the other friendlys are all losses and another group exit at WC – loss to nigeria, argy and draw with iceland – is on the cards!!!
MARK MY WORDS!!!
#1. Permanently drop Kalinic, Mandzo and Strinic from the starting unit.
#2. Monitor Corluka and Brozovic closely, as they are on the bubble.
#3. Promote Kramaric, Pjaca, and possibly Kovacic to the starting unit.
#4. Call up and give some minutes to Caleta-Car, Mitrovic, Nizic, and possibly Benkovic/Jedvaj to see how they gel with the team in the CB and LB roles.
#5. Call up Halilovic, Vlasic and Tudor and see how they do in limited minutes off the bench (late in games) to see if they add a spark.