Croatia face England on home turf Saturday, October 3rd, for their third match of the first round of Nations League games. After being thrashed by the World Champions, albeit having fielded a B-team, the Vatreni will look to get a positive result in one of their next two home matches.
Defence
Pongračić, Smolčić, and even Šutalo were far too weak to handle the Spanish press and simply not good enough for the top level. The next two matches must see a Gvardiol-Vušković pairing at the back. Stanišić should be back to fitness and slot Perišić back at left-back to insert Baturina on the wing. Perišić still has his legs and pinpoint crossing, while being a good defender. At this point I think he is better utilized in defence, as he rarely takes his man 1v1 anymore anyways. Should a left-back emerge, like a Hrgović, I can also see Perišić moving to right-wing for the time being with Baturina on the opposite wing.
Midfield
Modrić and Kovačić have definitely shown that they’ve still got it; nothing to change there. Petar Sučić is a must-start, but unfortunately I don’t love him at the 10. Perhaps we see him slot in at the 6 and play a more defensive 4-3-3, with Kova and Petar pushing up on the counter.
Attack
Baturina has been sorely missed on the wing, and I can’t wait to see him play. Musa has been the odd man out at striker lately, and considering his goal against England at the World Cup and his speed/pressing, I’d give him a go (with Beljo off the bench). Budimir and Matanović have not shown much so far. The right-wing spot is tricky. Marco Pašalić has started the last game, so maybe we see Bilić rotate back to Luka Sučić or even Vlašić. It’s really a toss up between those three for me.
How do you see Bilić lining up against England? Do you think Croatia can get a result and push for 2nd in the group, or do we settle for third?
Luka sucic has literally done nothing for us on right wing … play Marco. The rest line up is good
Livakovic
Jakic Vuskovic Gvardiol Stanisic
P. Sucic Modric Kovacic
Baturina Beljo Perisic
I’d like to see someone who runs hard play at RW. I’m not sure Luka Sučić is the player for this match. For me, it’s between Vlašić, Pašalić and Ivanović on that side. Vlašić is small, but if he plays the way he played against Ghana, he can cause England some serious trouble.
Anyone home Bilic ?
Spain called up Carlos Espi from the U21s
Poor Jaga
Not sure if Gvardiol can physically play three full matches in a week. I would start with Sutalo and Vuskovic as the CB’s.
U21’s put in a very disappointing performance against Ukraine losing 1 – 0 to end our 14-match unbeaten run.
We failed to create any clear-cut chances and the closest we came to scoring was a header from Prpic in the 85th minute from a corner.
Toni Silic in goal made two superb saves to keep the scoreline at 1 – 0.
If Bilic was watching this match, there was nothing to see with all our key players underperforming. Vrbancic and Segecic in particular were very poor.
I don’t rate Prpic but today he was one of our better players and Kumar also played well. Prpic amazingly at Porto this season has played only one match for their B side according to the MAX TV commentator.
Sepic at left back nothing special.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in these two remaining U21 matches.
I didn’t watch the game, but I’m sure when a team clinches first place (with two full games in hand) they’re not going to risk injury and give 100% out there.
There was 0 to play for. They had already won the group.
100 England fans cried about being in the cage in the North Stand
So they’ve relocated them to the West Stand
Not sure that’s prudent
Per the World Population Review Rape Statistics, England has the second highest child sexual abuse rate (117 per 100k) in the World (only behind South Africa)
Didn’t anyone think England fans coming from England – where gang rape of under-age kids happens every day – actually have no issues with being behind a cage but want to be close to all the unsupervised under 14 ?
Yikes – imagine the terrible parents not accompanying their children in the dangerous West End tomorrow
Scary scary times
Don’t worry.
It’s Pakistanis in England. Not the actual English.
Pickford having a meltdown
Trafford played last 2 games
Pickford needed to speak to a physiologist for THREE HOURS
English are always very fragile psychologically – hopefully he starts it would be so so easy to provoke him into a red card in the first minute (if you know what ur doing)
Let’s hope the yob returns (Trafford is a yob too – I’m talking about the ginger one)
U18 4-2 Denmark
Check out Dedic’s goal – more running on one play than Budimir in his whole career – and sniper like finish in the corner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhluWxMwiLE
Vclosbfutopinions @vclosbfut
Adriano Jagusic is a footballer who has me captivated. I already liked him a lot in the Europa League qualifying matches, but today he has delivered an absolutely outstanding performance. The Croatian midfielder for Panathinaikos has been stuffing the game with moments of pure quality.
Do we have fans for both these games ?
For the England game, only children under 14 are allowed to attend, but there will be thousands of them in Rijeka since it’s free entry. There will be roughly 100 English supporters in their own section.
For the Spain game in Split, there will be fans allowed.
There won’t be any away fans from Spain due to lack of interest in ticket sales so the tickets are now open for Croats to purchase. Spain has a very poor travelling fanbase for Nations League games.
Will be half adults tomorrow
Nobody is letting their under 14 travel away to a game like that
I mean some terrible parents will but the vast majority of kids will have at least 1 parent with them
Someone was really clever in finding the obscure clause in the rules to circumvent the ban with this under 14 stuff
I think it’s one adult for every 15 kids.
It won’t be half adults.
Rule says u need 1 adult for every 15 kids – but that’s a MINIMUM – they don’t want hundreds of kids running around with one adult/teacher – the rule doesn’t say what the MAXIMUM number of adults is 😉
Na Rujevicu stiže preko 70 autobusa, a pravilo kaže da sa svakih petnaestero djece mora biti jedan nastavnik ili trener.
Better see a serious response tommorow or billic can go too
Lol.
I already miss Dalic too.
I watched second half of U21 vs Ukraine. A lot of very good players there. Sepic looks good, also canjuga has real talent, pavic, kumar, prpic lots of good players to add to the ones we know already. They play good fast technical football. Just remember how competitive top football is. A player like segecic can shine in the championship but struggles to impose himself for the U21, despite his talent, determination and experience. Football is not easy. Long way to go
Don’t care who plays , just show some passion -Vatreni look like svijeca lately- for you white bread Croatian , that means candle. Udari ga u glava
Friday noon ET
Croatia U21 vs. Ukraine
As PREDICTED both Kumar CB and Sepic LB in (only 2 changes)
Can’t believe u are all sleeping on Sepic – his performance vs. Gorica was the best ever by a LB in the HNL – and none of u MORONS even mention it
Do you understand what kind of prediction level that he over-takes Hrgovic with 16 caps for the U21s, while this is his debut for U21s (hasn’t played for Croatia for two years since 2024 for the U19s) – it’s best the World has ever seen
Of course – per usual – Dinamo let another top Croatian talent get away – they miss profiled him as a LW – but smart Istra moved him to LB – and voila – the top LB solution for the NT presents himself – dumb dumb Dinamo