Ante from CroatianSports.com and Lovre from @CroatiaFooty discuss what went right and wrong vs. Panama in Croatia’s 1-0 World Cup victory and how the team should prepare for Ghana.
Kova and Gvardiol are in the dog house while Baturina gives us all a preview of the next 10 yers of “flashy” Croatian football.
You guys give too much respect to Panama. That team doesn’t have shooting boots. Stormtrooper FC as the dude from Deadball TV says. “They can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
Funny enough you guys said four people in the box to get the ball in the net.
I am going back to this guys it has to be a 4-4-2 with 4-2-4 hybrid.
I’m positive about this.
Baturina false nine with a striker. Petar with Modrić in the centre. With two wingers on either end.
A back four with Vusković in the middle.
Yes, a tie 100% guarantees us passage. That is set regardless.
There is still an outside chance that losing by up to even 2 goals on Saturday would still be enough (depending on how games on Friday work out). That’s the current “best case scenario“. But several results on Friday would have to break our way (such that every 3rd place team in Fridays games finishes w max 2 points). Specifically we would need:
1- Egypt beat Iran
2- Spain beat Uruguay
3- Senegal-Iraq to end in a tie, or an Iraq win by up to like 2 goals
All those happen, then we would go into our game with Ghana, knowing we could lose by even 2 goals and still advance. Only one of them does NOT happen, and we would need to at least get a tie against Ghana to guarantee passage (though the DR Congo – Uzbekistan game right after us could still “save” us)
Stupid mentality. Yeah let’s go in with a mindset to lose 2-0 and still progress.
If we tie, we move to knockouts. I wouldn’t want to move on if we lost two games. The question now is do we play for a tie or go for the win (presuming England wins)? When we played Belgium in ‘22, it seems like we played for the tie in those last 20 minutes to advance. Those last ten minutes seemed to go on forever. Maybe we haven’t looked good, but there is always a chance to get the momentum.
Six matches today and none have helped our cause in case we lose to Ghana.
Draw will be enough for the third spot. Easier said than done with the way we are playing at the moment. Totally disjointed with Dalic chopping and changing formations and players.
Should be interesting to see what Dalic will do for the starting 11 against Ghana.
We need fit players that can run in hot and humid conditions. Gvardiol is not fit and he should not start. He has been the weakest link in our defence.
Dalic in his last press conference said that Gvardiol in not match fit and out of form. You have to ask a question if you know that why is he playing ??
My line up would be:
Livakovic
Stanisic, Sutalo, Pongracic, Perisic
Modric, P Sucic
Marco Pasalic, Mario Pasalic, Baturina
Budimir
Ante, finishing 3rd and going into the round 32 without a momentum would be a disaster. Colombia or Portugal is a “pick your poison” match. Fortune favours the brave- let’s go boys!
You know what would be hilarious? We wake up and beat Ghana and Panama ties or beats England.
A boy can dream can’t he.
Ajmo dečki!
Bog i Hrvati
We will lose to Ghana , let’s not fool ourselves .
Something is wrong with the repka. Like , really wrong .
Watching the first two matches , I did not recognize this team at all . It’s as if they were imposters of some kind . Modric is critical and I think he is the key here .
If he isn’t in the right mood we are losing 99 times out of 100.
He is our leader , our vođa he dictates everything .
Is he afraid to get injured again? Is he boycotting Dalic ?
I simply don’t know.
But I do know that “nešto smrdi”
1st place Wed 12:30pm
2nd place Thu 7:00pm
3rd place Fri 9:30pm
It’s counter intuitive ie 3rd place should be given the least amount of rest not the most until KO
But getting an extra 57.5 hours of rest by being 3rd place is wild
Who are the likely opponents?
Man if we got to play Canada in Vancouver…. Selling my half working kidney for a ticket
Canada can no longer play in Vancouver, but we can for the round of 16 if we get 3rd place and win our first knockout game.
With the results happening today
Is our three points still on point?
Is third place still ok?
Remember when Portugal barely scraped in 2016 euros
Beat us as probably one the best teams in that tourney and they limped through with that easy bracket
That could be us…
The results havent gone our way at all. I think we need a draw at least now.
To be honest, going into the tournament, I felt that we’d lose to England and win the last two. That’s still in play. With that said, if we can’t get 4 points in this group, we should deservedly go home.
I’m replying as I listen and of course you guys talk about 2016
Still painful
Traumas
i mean, i have zero confidence in our team atm. That all being said, i do think they deserve some grace. We have achieved so much and i dont wanna bash our guys undeservedly. So i guess we see what happens v Ghana. But im not confident.
You know I’m not sure about Germanys games
I know they came back to win against Ivory Coast and maybe they were going light today
But beating a country with 50k people or whatever
Barely squeezing by Ivory Coast
And then losing to Ecuador
I’m just saying yeah we haven’t looked great. Tho all three of our goals have been very good quality.
Let’s chill till we see what happens with Ghana
We played England they played an island somewhere
Maybe the issue is Lu Mastrovic and her fake lips draining Josko’s balls too much ?
We’re assuming he’s “not fit” bc of his leg but could be anything
I rewatched 18 minutes and he looked fine – maybe a little tad off on positioning and decision making – but slightly – not nearly as dramatic as many posting
In the same time I saw Marco make three poor decisions in final third and/or terrible final ball/cross
The problem with Gvardiol is more tactics than anything. Dalic needs to stop giving free rein to do whatever he wants. Play the position normally can just get caught out of position all the time. Again this is on Dalic as I think this is planned which was alluded in video.
I didn’t really see him jump up that much – he didn’t do any overlapping or underlapping runs past Perisic as e.g.which we see when he has license to go forward – I didn’t see him anywhere near their box even
Maybe it comes in the rest of the half I’ll keep watching when I have a minute
There was one beautiful pass from their LCB down their RW with their winger chasing and Josko was there and kept him down the touchline and the guy crossed it in
Honestly not sure what people think they saw
There did seem to be a little disjointedness with Ivan and Bati – but I think this has to do with Bati playing lights out and trying to carry/dribble everything and the other two not knowing what to do in that scenario lol
I haven’t rewatched it on tv yet but from the stands it felt like we weren’t using the left side very much. There was room to switch it that way many times and we refused to. I yelled that on more than one occasion. Point being Josko wasn’t getting forward much. From what I remember.
Even for Man City he has never been a great defensive LB. His recent form is due to fitness and just not being that good as a defensive LB. He gets caught out of position and does not have the speed required to be a classic LB. It’s all moot anyways because he is not a LB is one of best CB in the world. Just do what what we did during the qualifiers and stick Stani as LB and Jak as RB. Perisic as LB is an option as well.
Modric should not start any game in the knock outs that is assuming we qualify. If we do bring him in as a sub for the last 15-20mins like Ancolotti did with RM. And when he does come on he is not allowed to take an free kicks or corners.
Vs Panama, Gvardiol got beat by speed, and live he appeared to get nutmegged too. Vs England he couldn’t track back fast enough, and a dangerous pass got right by him as he tried to lift his leg behind him. Bellingham got through with a step on Pašalić, and we know what happened next. He’s a great player, but he has not played to his potential thus far. All credit to him for being available at all after that injury, but he’s not yet 100%.
What’s the meet-up place in Philly?
The forecast for Thursday is rain. Could be sloppy for both teams.
On paper, this should be a 2-0 Croatia win. Realistically, I think we’re looking at a 0-0 borefest.
Boredom is not the first thing that comes to my mind in these games. I get too tense to be bored.
alright folks, first things first!
after typing on this site for the last 13 or 14 years (maybe more, I can’t remember) and while I was with my friends at Croatia House in Toronto prior to the game, I ended up meeting Branimir and Ante “Baby Face” Kvartuc…two very good guys that are very fun to be around and have a super positive influence on Croatians around the world.
Branimir and Ante have a serious following and Croatians from all corners of the earth were mobbing these two, asking for photo’s and a few minutes of their time and Ante was good to stop, say hello, chat with everyone and let their voices be heard. These guys are classy, full of energy and kind people that truly do “Unite Croatian Fans Around The World”.
also, for those of you that know and remember our member Živa Istina, I met him to. it was quite an interesting moment as he was walking through the back portion of Croatia House, the night before the game…the area was primarily occupied by a massive amount of our Vancouver based Hrvati and as I was taking a swig of my beer I looked to my right and there he was…Živa Istina probably 6’3″, a big dude, smiling while he was taking in the atmosphere and singing to “Moj Ivane” from Thompson so I decided to say hello and let me just say this…the guy is very soft spoken, mild mannered and very nice to talk to…not what you’d think from seeing his comments online. he represents Cleveland and Chicago very well…a very good Hrvat, a proud guy thats probably a lot of fun to bullsh!t with while having some pints!
Toronto was a bit of a blur…wayyyyy too many drinks and sooooo many good people. my only gripe was the cost of beer in Croatia House. maybe I shouldn’t complain but the beer was outrageously expensive at $16 per beer from a can…my wife is gonna kill me when she see’s how much I spent. we were ordering 10 -15 beer at a time…it was the only way to stay refreshed!
Does Živa Istina still post on this site? How did you know if was him?
Unlikely you met the “real” Živa Istina.
Franjo and ZDS critical thinking and asking smart questions!
Love to see it – Anonymous is PROUD 💪
Do we tell him who it REALLY was, LOL 😉
I’m not an idiot…we have a few common friends! you guys are funny!
Has it not been ante this whole time as the old rumour was drumming up controversy on here for clicks;)?
I remember someone saying ziva died a few years back now it seems
Yahtzee
Dude, lots of people know him and it’s silly you’d think I’m that dumb to just speak to some random person…we have several common friends
Slavonac
Did u meet DavidXXke from IG?
The guy who went viral because he convinced some fans (none Croats) outside Deta hotel that he’s Marko Livaja and they all wanted to take pictures with him
Hilarious
Who gives a crap about Livaja?!
Slavonac. I saw you on the Facebook live thing earlier
I was there
Great vibe
I saw ante. Was gonna say what’s up but he was so busy
You’re old school and always bring the goods , respect. And big respect to all the boys making this site go
Ive been fortunate to remember when ziva offering bets for any Croat scoring outside the box on the weekend and not an olic tap in
There have been many copies but only one ziva
Good times. Was a great vibe
I’m kind of a loner but I’ll be there Saturday
Let’s get Columba in Toronto if that’s a thing still
Ajmo!!
That party was wild! Too bad I didn’t bump into you and have a pint!
Ziva was an idiot, I always laughed at his posts. Bashing people for no reason like he was some sort of Veliki Hrvat. Sad excuse for a man perhaps in person he is a different person.. I do recall when he complained on this site about losing money in Croatia on some business venture. Pathetic but I do wish him the best though. Bog I Hrvati.
I wouldn’t say he used to bash people for being bad Croats, what he did was say some things that would hit a nerve with the half-breeds, and that’s really their problem not his.
i sorta miss Ziva lmao
Awesome report, Slavonac!
Thanks bro! It was a very good experience but a very tiring one for an old guy like me. I can’t drink 3 days in a row anymore
I was shocked at how many people love Baby Face Kvartuc….hes very popular amongst our people
Slavonac, vrime je… been too long, time to come back to the ‘kuca’ 😉
When Eduardo De Silva went down, I thought for sure, we would never see the same Dudu or see him at all, with the pins in his leg, it was a career killer.
With Josko, I was sure we would see him again maybe at 95% or 100% since he was still not at his peak. Maybe that was too presumptuous.
All my thoughts regarding the Croatian team for 2026, had Gvardiol coming back at 90-95% of peak ability. It is unfortunate.
In this light, out of necessity, Luka Vuskovic should have an opportunity to redeem himself in this tournament and take a risk. He brings the same dynamic as the younger Josko, pre leg break.
Same thoughts on Marco, sure wish he could have shown more quality on that breakaway opportunity. To je to. We still need him, but we sure needed that assurance goal for 3rd place ranking, for final 32, if it comes down to goal differential.
I agree.
I think we need to give Vušković a second chance.
We’re not going anywhere with guys like Pongračić playing there against the likes of Colombia or Portugal.
We need to start all four of Baturina, Sučić, Perišić and Stanišić for 90 minutes. These are our only guys (along with Livaković of course) who have shown they’re ready to play the full 90.
We can start Modrić and sub in Kova for him. Start Mario Pašalić and sub Luka Sučić for him. Start Musa and sub in Budimir for him. Start Vusković and sub in one of our 8 CBs for him, etc.
It would’ve been nice to prepare better to test and call up some different players, but it is what it is.
We must start all four of Baturina, Sučić, Perišić and Stanišić. No subbing them out. It was insane that Sučić didn’t start against Panama.
We can still salvage this tournament if Dalić calms down and stops trying experiment.
Why not play Vusko with Gvardi. This is what I was asking for prior to the tournament start.
And why not play you best box to box midfielder Susic in midfield…FFS?
How good would we be if we had a qualified coach? Imagine if Ancelotti was our coach.
This is a replay of Euro 2024. If he does not make these changes we lose to Ghana 100%.
Don’t worry. Will pay for the draw. 😉
I meant to say Marco not Mario.
We should never ever start Mario.
I think Dalic starts Mario
His teammate Sulemana probably starts for Ghana
It’s only fair so they can hug and kiss b4 the match and during the game
Regarding the breakaway opportunity; it’s due to Marco’s speed that we even had the chance to begin with.
Im actually curious how many one-on-one breakaway opportunities have we had over the past several years?