Since a shocking 3-0 defeat to Austria in Osijek on the opening night of Nations League June 3rd, Croatia have turned things around quickly; hitting a milestone in the process. The Vatreni bagged seven points out of a possible nine, finally beat France in a competitive match, and posted two consecutive clean sheets (versus France and Denmark on the road). With two matches remaining in Nations League and the World Cup less than 70 days away, how should Zlatko Dalić line up the boys versus Denmark on Thursday and again against Austria on Sunday?
This is the best position Croatia have ever been in Nations League after four matches. They control their own destiny as two wins in the final two matches will see them top group and clinch a berth in the semifinal round next year for the very first time. However, as sweet as that may sound, this is still Nations League we’re talking about. And if you’ve been living under a rock, the World Cup kicks off in two months. So my question to CroatianSports.com nation this week is: what are we trying to learn?
The only thing that not debatable is the Croatian midfield, which is arguably the best in the world. If the World Cup started tomorrow, Modrić, Kovačič, Brozovic would anchor the middle of the field with Perišić on the left wing and most likely Vlašić on the right. But what about everyone else?
Even though I want anyone but him in goal during the World Cup, I still believe Dalić thinks Dominik Lavaković is Croatia’s best bet between the pipes. But will he play him both matches this week or split time between Livaković and another keeper; possibly Ivica Ivušić?
Last we left our boys, Erlić and Šutalo were putting the French attack on an ice cold platter in Paris. Will Dalić keep the two central defenders in starting positions this week or add in veterans Vida and Lovren? I don’t mind if Vida and Lovren come along for the ride in Qatar but they cannot be considered Croatia’s best central defense pair this year. It’s not 2018 anymore.
Where does Gvardiol go? He’s been playing minimal minutes at RB Leipzig this season in the Bundesliga but can be slotted into his natural position at center-back or play on the defensive wing. We can only assume Sosa will play on the left in a 4-back formation with Juranović on the right. Still tons of decisions to make on defense over the next two months, especially with Gvardiol having a slow start to the campaign.
And last but not least, we have to discuss the Croatia attack. Kramarić is still status quo as the Croatia #9 but he can get some competition this week from Petković and Livaja, depending on how much playing time they each get. How Čolak did not get a call up still baffles me. He’s the most in-form Croatian striker at the moment, hasn’t stopped scoring the past month, and single handedly put Rangers in the Champions League group stage.
I’m not saying start the guy at the World Cup, but give him some valuable minutes against Denmark and Austria in Nations League.
Many of our World Cup questions will be answered this week. We will know exactly which way Dalić is leaning towards player selection soon enough.
Personally I’m intl Vintage Croatia Gear
If anyone has 2012 Nike croatia Red Long sleeve training top lmk!
https://www.nike.com/ca/w?q=croatia&vst=croatia
Some websites offer jerseys in long sleeve
Does dazn carry all repka games?
Im pretty computer illiterate
Debating on just paying for an app if i can also watch all the World Cup with it as well
dude, for the amount it costs, you should have DAZN and the IPTV option. I have live TV for all our games and for England, Spain, Germany, Croatia and all the Balkans. I also get free movies (I watched Top Gun a month after it was in theatres) and PPV boxing and MMA…every single sporting event is on this IPTV ….porn too (I dont watch it but you youngsters probably will)… it costs approximately $145 for the MagBox ( MAG 522) and then $15/month for all the channels.
HNL is pretty decent soccer and on any given day there could be upsets…worth watching!
Dannyj, you really need to invest. I see you more than anyone else asking for links.
VIX.COM in Spanish. Sows every game free.
shows
Dazn carries all nation league games, and all champions league games. For me, it’s worth it just for that.
DAZN doesn’t have all Croatia games. They also change their content every year. I wouldn’t bother with them.
Get an ipTV if you can. You’ll get all the channels for every sports event.
Anyone have any link suggestion to watch the games, from what I see it’s only on FUBO here in the states
what channel is showing in Croatia? Is it Nova? – maybe vpn works for states
Yes, it is on Nova TV in Croatia.
Max sport 1 for U21 v Denmark on Friday.
So i think the 26th spot goes to Jakic beacuse hes playing RB for frankfurt and hes a Dm.
According to Dalic he doesnt want another Kalinic in his team and Rebic.
CC Brekalo Jakic Colak Pongracic looking for that last spot.
Vida and Lovren are going to katar like it or not more for locker room guys maybe they play depends how deep we go.
But honestly Vida has no business being in 11 he slows our olay and doesnt know how to distribute the ball
Lovren he atleast can pass long balls and Good in air to me he will always be know as mr. Kikser time for a change to me.
That being said Daloc needs to find a cb partnership that screwed us a t euros no back line chemistry atleast to me.
He has so many options, it will be hard to screw up.
These are our likely CBs who make the squad:
– Gvardiol
– Sutalo
– Erlic
– Stanisic
– Lovren
-Vida
Any two of these four (Gvardiol, Sutalo, Erlic, Stanisic) should work.
Even though he hasn’t tried Stanisic there, I’m sure Stanisic would do well.
So, the odds are in our favor (hopefully). We have four very solid defenders, and two garbage ones.
Now, we all know that Dalic is going to try his best to give Lovren playing time, for two reasons…
1. He values veteran leadership and thinks that Lovren has this (spoiler alert…he doesn’t)
2. He’s afraid if he doesn’t play Lovren, that Lovren will blast him in front of everyone like he did over that late flight incident in Russia
So, it will be interesting to see what happens at the World Cup because Dalic is very easily influenced by others.
Biscan took Sucic from him this week, but luckily Dalic managed to keep Sutalo.
The media is always pumping up Gvardiol and Sutalo, so it gets harder and harder to justify not playing them. Erlic also starts in Serie A and impressed in the two games he started for us.
Dalic and Lovren are on an island by themselves.
I really can’t see him giving Lovren or Vida much playing time …or any at all to be honest! We all know what Gvardiol can do and now we have Sutalo and Erlic…I just can’t imagine Dalic will go with Lovren and Vida…they’re on the team as tourists!
Never say never. 😉
Erlic is still technically injured I think, and Stanisic is our RB (we haven’t tried him at CB yet)
Sutalo was injured not too long ago and is only recently been back at it.
It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that Dalic uses all this to justify giving Lovren time.
Although I think you’re right and that it’s still very unlikely that Lovren gets time, even with Dalic-colored glasses on.
Dalić only called 25 of 26 players to UNL, with the intention of leaving room for one of the standby call-ups to make the bench for Qatar. The 25 he called are players he knows and trusts not to cause problems for the team. Considering that all 25 he called, besides Vida, are in form, one can hardly fault the selection. It could be that Čolak and Jakić rubbed Dalić the wrong way the last time they were called up. Who knows. But he’s leaving a spot there for a potential Čolak accession to the team.
good information thank you GAD- I’m surprised about Colak- but I get it -It’s Scottish league. God love the Scots- they love soccer so much but they aren’t very good and the league isn’t very good but I’d like to see Colak get a whiff against some better talent – he can definitely finish in B and C leagues – doesn’t mean much for WC 2022 but time is running out as you have noted.
Is it true the U23 team beat Qatar senior team 3-0? cos LOL if so
Yes they did qatar is a joke they might be worst host in history in terms of football team. People said that about S.A in 2010 but hey were competative.
It wasn’t even our real U23 team.
It was an U23 squad made up of random HNL players.
Tonio Teklic, Josip Mitrovic and Sandro Kulenovic were the scorers.
Only Kulenovic ever made our U21 team before (the other two never did).
Qatar was supposed to play Bolivia, but Bolivia cancelled on them so Croatia did them a “favor” and sent them a makeshift U23 team for them to play.
I guess Qatar forgot to pay the HNS waiver fee for the players to throw the game for them.
No time to experiment anymore. We should play the strongest 11 from the start and in our most familiar formation which is 4 – 2 – 3 – 1. If things go wrong, we can switch to more attacking 4- 3- 3 formation in the second half. We tried playing 3 – 5 – 2 in the past and it did not look good. I would also leave Perisic on the left, he is a world class player in that position.
You’re 100% right Mart, I totally agree with you!
Gotta stick to Perišić/Sosa on that left side.
They were lethal together for us during the few times they played together during qualifications.
Plus, we haven’t even tried out Sosa with a tall striker up top yet.
There is no time to experiment now
It’s all hands in
If Dalic is not clear in his own mind in moving forward to the World Cup then I have grave concerns
I’d like to see 3-5-2 in a similar way to a 4-3-3
————–Orsic-Krama——————
Perisic-Kovacic-Modric-Juranovic
—-‐———–Brozovic—–‐‐—————–
—–Gvardiol-Caleta-Vida—————-
——————-Liva—————————–
Gvardiol would end up playing a CB/LB hybrid giving Perisic space to support both attack and defense. This would also give the freedom for Orsic to stay higher for counters and cut in more often.
Krama can play Center and provide width on the right when needed.
Juranovic will have the freedom to support attack and Modric could provide support on the right as he often does.
Other CB’s can be changed but I selected Caleta as a tall strong CB and Vida for his pace and experience.
In a sense, it wouldn’t be much different than the following 4-3-3
—–Perisic-Orsic-Krama———-
——–Kovacic-Modric————-
—————-Brozo——————–
Gvardiol-Caleta-Vida-Juran——
—————–Liva———————–
Many people have mentioned a 3 atb which it has got it’s positives and negatives (but more negatives). We won’t be able to play Sosa and he is so key with contributing to the attack with both club and country and would require more quality centre backs.
Vida has got to be far away from that starting 11 as possible, he has got nothing to his game but being a passion merchant at this point.
Putting a CB out of position in Gvardiol to accommodate a terrible CB partnership that was showcased at Euros is questionable.
at this point and with the players invited, I’m not sure there’s much left to experiment with….no surprises except maybe the fact that Colak wasn’t called up.
whoever plays in the starting 11 must play to win and we must expect a great performance from any of the starters. we are at the point where the team is picked, we know our formations and there really shouldn’t be any surprises.
Play the guys on edge of making it to start and tell them they have 45 minutes to show what they have and then if any are falling short- they get subbed at half- best of both worlds
Would have been good to keep the Erlic and Sutalo partnership going! Anybody but Livakovic
Totally agreed- Livakovic is a major worry
Go for the win.
Keep the winning streak going and go into the tournament on a high. We can experiment with the other friendlies.
Also, Erlić is injured (this is why he was out of Sassuolo’s lineup the past three games).
So we’re likely to see the Šutalo/Gvardiol partnership this game.
Good chance to reach final four of nations league not bad. Austria game will feel like a home game alot of croats going to that game.
What dalic said he will not experiment he said 4 3 3 formations will be played maybe orisic left perisic right wing looks like he will try that.
He also commented vida lovren that they have to be ready for younger players ro take their spots just like lovren took Ćorluka spot 2018.
I think we can get results even if we draw denmark beat austria not bad but lets get 2 wins and have self confidence and good lockeroom mojo and stay healthy for this wc 2022
We will experiment nothing in the forward line, just going to be Perisic doing all the work while Kramaric won’t be able to keep up and Vlasic will go missing.
This would’ve been a perfect chance for Colak to be played in these games to see what we got for the upcoming world cup.
As for midfield, it won’t change and defence, just no playing Vida and it won’t be as bad.
Give everyone some minutes to show they have a chance to prove they can play. Then start narrowing things down for a starting 11.
You want to build chemistry with starters, but you also want every player thinking they could see the field at the world cup, if they bring it.
Never mind about the narrowing down the starting 11, thought we have 4 more games before WC, not 3.
Split the goalies with time. Spread some minutes to see who’s hot/has chemistry.